Ato Amde Akalework, 74, has been immersed in the leather industry since his youth. He is often described as a smart and detail-oriented manager who knew every inch of the business. We are sitting in his office in a residential area close to St. Bisrate Gabriel Church in Addis Ababa for this interview.
When I met Ato Amde, it was shortly after his return from France, where he goes for an annual visit. “The first time I went there, I must have been nine. It was for a medical check-up. My heart was beating and pounding so hard and loud and when I had a check-up, the physicians suspected that it was  cardiovascular disease. My uncle, Teshafi Tizaz Aklilu, and his wife, Madame Colette brought me to Paris. It turns out there was no problem and my heart was perfectly healthy. The doctor told us that thin persons were blessed with feeling our heartbeats more easily than people of average weight.” Yet this occasion became the first introduction to a country that he would grow to love.
In his office hangs, a collection of historic black and white family photographs, including that of his father and uncle who were executed in November 1974 along with 62 former ministers, generals, and dignitaries. Amde is the son of the prominent official in the imperial government, Akalework Habtwold, who rose from a humble background to eminent government positions. Ato Akalework served as Ethiopian ambassador to France (1958-62), Minister of Justice (1969-74), Minister of Agriculture (1962-66), Minister of Education (1947-55, 1967-69) and the first African President of the UNESCO General Assembly (1960-62). Amde’s uncle, the Sorbonne-educated Aklilu Habtwold assumed a more prominent role, from Vice-Minister in the Ministry of Pen to Vice Minister and full Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1943 to 1957 and Prime Minister from 1961 to 1974.
Amde thus had generally enjoyed a privileged upbringing, attending the French school, Lycée Guebre-Mariam, following the family tradition. At 14 years, he followed his father to Paris where he had been appointed ambassador. There he would spend three years and a half.
In Addis Ababa, young Amde recalls spending those years shuttling in between different relatives, as his father and uncle took turns to look after him. They both instilled in him a passion for hard work, punctuality, respect for all occupation, and the importance of discipline and duty.”
Amde is quick to share a colourful anecdote about his and uncle, Aklilu’s bond. On weekends, Amde used to drive Aklilu, who enjoyed swimming in Hora Lake in Debrezeit town and Langano. “My uncle didn’t drive a car,” he says.
At the end of high school called baccalauréat, Amde was given a grant by the French government and a little supplement by the Ethiopian government, he went back to Lyon to study architecture. The adjustment to architecture study was a rough one and he found it rigorous and demanding. “Mainly because they didn’t teach us drawing at Guebre-Mariam school,”
He gave up the architecture study and rather opted for attending Institut universitaire de gestion des entreprises (IUGE) in Lyon. He began to take more of an interest in the state of tannery and he took training there in France.
Amde became one of the many Ethiopian youths in French schools in the mid-60’s, seeking to earn a French degree. The students would emerge as vocal on intellectual and political debates on their nations’ modernity, nationhood, and monarchy. Even some of them such as Daniel Tadesse, Haile Fida, Neged Gobeze, Fikre Merid later forming the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement to fight the feudal system. “Even though I didn’t care less, some of the students viewed me with distrust, because of the positions of my father and my uncle in the imperial government. They were suspicious of me. They thought I would spy on them when I came to some of their meetings.”
Back in Addis Ababa, he engaged in leatherwork. “I became koda faki, a generally despised occupation. Hide workers were considered as possessors of the evil eye. My grandfather was not impressed and even he said he would not see me again,”
He established a company called Dofan, a private company for tanning crocodile skins and exporting for European markets. He also selected other young men from the French school and sent them to France for basic training. He did this until the Nile crocodile came to be listed in the Washington convention as threatened and consequently prohibited specimen in world trade in 1973. That’s when he turned his attention to sheep, cowhides, and crocodile breeding farms. Shortly after the military takeover in September 1974, the company was nationalized and the name changed to Mojo Tannery.

For Amde and his family, this period proved tough and tragic as his father, uncle, and two cousins were executed in November 1974. For almost two decades, his uncle Aklilu’s and his father Akalework’s were discredited, the long years of their dedicated service to the country discounted, the result of the country’s strong man, Mengistu Hailemariam’s hatred and his totalitarian control. However, after the collapse of the Derg government, their reputation was partially rehabilitated and the young people started paying attention, Ato Amde says.
Even though life under the socialist rule was difficult, Ato Amde continued working first as department head of the commerce sector and later Export Manager supervising and overseeing all leather exports in the then state-owned Ethiopian Leather & Shoe Corporation. The export division brought him to different parts of the world, continuing to explore the major markets, offering an international perspective with local flair.
Ato Amde these days is running his privately held company, Habtewold International, named after his grandfather, still finding ways of reaching the target audience to the still unexploited leather industry. He has a long time association with Alliance française in Addis Ababa, of which he has been its president for the past 16 years. “It is voluntary work. The Alliance is one of the very biggest Alliance Française in the continent and we have 3,000 students per year,” he says. There’s a story to be told in what he does. A unique and charming story.