At the age of 24, Henok (known as Henny) Yeshanew was recently the recipient of a Top 40 Under 40 award, and we have a feeling his success will not stop there. He is dedicated to leveraging his career in order to empower and inspire underprivileged youths, and his entrepreneurial journey is only just beginning.
Henny and his family came to Canada from Ethiopia when he was a young child. Henny, wanting to follow the steps pre-determined by his parents, went to university to study to become a lawyer. It was here that he learned the importance of responsibility, and how in order to succeed, being self-determined is key. He also developed a keen understanding and fascination of the business world. Wanting to excel in this area and learn more about it, decided to start a business all about helping small businesses create marketing strategies that work for them.
Still wanting to make his parents happy, Henny went on to graduate university, but after graduating turned to work on his marketing business full-time, doing everything from the sales, client relationship, advertising, marketing, and whatever else was needed.
Learning The Ropes
The success of Lion Marketing comes as a result of Henny understanding that in order to succeed and make it big in the online marketing world, he needed to learn and master each and every part of this business. This, in turn, allowed him to appropriately scale the business to what it is today – a full-service marketing firm, dedicated to helping medium to large businesses achieve success and growth.
The year after starting his company, Henny met his business partner, Adam, and identified that Adam’s strengths lied where Henny did not, making them an excellent partnership. After starting the company in 2016 when Henny was just 20 years old, Lion Marketing Agency has now been named Top Marketing Agency in Ontario for both 2018 and 2019.
Giving The Power Back To The Youth
In the future, Henny wants to help young immigrants who may have been in a similar situation to him realize that traditional schooling is not always the only or the best route to success. He aims to create an investment firm that focuses on providing capital for underprivileged youth who have maybe immigrated from third-world countries similar to him, and even create an incubator space for them to work on their ideas, and possibly grow companies.
On the horizon is also the possible launch of a travel firm with the specific goal of aiding students who want to travel but cannot afford it, in order to teach them about the world, grow their passion and channel it back into their own communities.
Henny has even initiated dialogue with the AfricanCommission, and submitted a plan to doctors without borders with the intent to launch large health clinics in each hemisphere of Africa and provide free healthcare to all residents of the continent.
Henny’s dedication to using his platform to provide education and value to kids who grew up in similar situations to his own is admirable. It serves as a good reminder to entrepreneurs to stick to your roots, use your community to ground and empower you throughout your journey, and strive to help in any way you possibly can.
To follow Henny’s journey, check out his Instagram @hennyempowers
