WBS alum launches coffee range with fellow Olympian Haile Gebrselassie

You have to pace yourself as a long-distance runner, and this is exactly what former British Olympian Richard Nerurkar did as he studied during evening electricity blackouts in Ethiopia for his Global Online MBA.  

“Doing an MBA by distance learning from Ethiopia between 2007 and 2010 was not that easy. Water shortages and power outages were part and parcel of life there at the time, and the internet connection was not good either,” says the 61-year-old, who had moved to the capital, Addis Ababa, with his wife in 2001.  

“I had to study in the evenings to fit my MBA around a demanding job in the day. It was a struggle at times.” 

That job was organising the Great Ethiopian Run, and other races around the East African country.  

It was a natural progression for a British athlete who, after graduating from Oxford University and Harvard with degrees in modern languages and international relations, respectively, in the 1980s, had spent the next decade or so running in races all around the world.  

He competed for Great Britain in the 10,000 metres at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, and then again four years later, at the Atlanta Olympics, where he finished fifth in the marathon.  

When he finally hung up his running shoes, it was to Africa he looked with his wife who was a doctor working in public and global health. 

But it was not long before he was involved in races again as he started working with legendary Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie to set up an event management company to organise mass-participation running events in Ethiopia.  

The two had first met on the track at an international competition in Zurich in 1993 but now they struck up a partnership that would establish the flagship 10km road race called the Great Ethiopian Run. 

“The first race in November 2001 was chaotic but successful in that we had a field of 10,000 runners,” says Richard.  

“The next year saw 16,000 runners, and very quickly we became Africa’s biggest road race. Today it attracts over 40,000 participants.” 

The benefits of an MBA 

Alongside the Great Ethiopian Run, there were many more races that Richard and Haile were organising, some in the very remote highlands of Ethiopia. 

“Ethiopians love coming together for big events. These races would always have a festival, community-based atmosphere. It was a very exciting time for me,” Richard says.  

However, he knew there was something missing.  

“In six years I’d learned a lot about staging races, but what was lacking was my own professional development. I’d been involved in finance, marketing, and HR on a day-to-day basis, but I needed the theoretical underpinning of an MBA, and for that I turned to the Global Online MBA at Warwick.” 

Despite the difficulties involved in studying from Ethiopia, with its erratic electricity supply and capricious broadband connections, the Global Online MBA was soon helping the runner-turned-businessman to think more broadly and deeply about all the things he had been doing on a day-to-day basis.  

“One concept that had been a feature of my work without me actually knowing the terminology was competitive advantage. In Addis Ababa ours was a highly motivated workforce and I invested a lot in building a strong event organising team.”  

Reflecting on his MBA, Richard adds: “It was difficult to maintain close contact with my fellow students on the course as I was living so far away, paying just a few visits to England for the programme. 

“However, once you are an alum you are an alum for life. My alumni network since I graduated in 2010 has been invaluable.” 

The MBA also gave him the confidence and the know-how to launch new businesses as circumstances – his wife’s work and the fact that his children were approaching secondary education age – brought him back to the UK.  

“I finished my MBA in the summer of 2010 and that was also the summer that we relocated back to the UK,” Richard says. 

“I had been general manager of the Great Ethiopian Run for nearly 10 years by then, and I believed it was time to hand over the management of the company to my Ethiopian colleagues.”  

Far from cutting ties with his adoptive country in the Horn of Africa, however, the WBS alum set up companies taking international tourists to Ethiopia and remained as a consultant with the Great Ethiopian Run.  

His knowledge of the running scene in Ethiopia, as well as the world of international athletics, also propelled him into a career as an athletics commentator for TV audiences, working on some of the big international marathons.   

For runners who love coffee  

And then, in 2020, COVID came along, and, as with many businesses around the world, Richard’s business taking international tourists to Ethiopia stalled.  

Luckily for the former British athlete, however, an old friendship was ready to step in and lend a helping hand.  

Haile had started growing coffee on his farm in south-western Ethiopia in 2014 and, amid growing attention from coffee importers and buyers, he brought in his old friend Richard to help push international sales.  

This Richard did, for two-and-a-half years during the COVID pandemic.  

What punctuated those years, however, was a question that kept cropping up. People kept asking him ‘why don’t you produce a brand of coffee for runners who love coffee?’. 

In the end, Richard took the hint and teamed up with two running friends in the UK to launch an online coffee shop to sell premium Ethiopian coffee from Haile's farm and other coffee farms in Ethiopia. In September 2023, Pace Coffee was born.  

“One of the things I like to do when selling this coffee is to tell the story of the coffee culture in Ethiopia,” Richard says.  

“There are more than six million smallholder coffee farmers in Ethiopia. It really is the land of coffee, the home of Arabica coffee to be exact – a bit like France being the land of wine. 

“It is a country rich in history, and very rich in coffee.” 

But perhaps Ethiopians are not getting the full benefit of their Arabica crop, Richard suggests. Only half of it is exported, while the other half is consumed at home. 

“So, I’m doing my bit to sell it overseas and bring in much needed foreign currency earnings for the country.” 

He has running ambassadors such as British marathon runner Rose Harvey on board to help promote Pace Coffee, and Richard is looking to gain a broad following in the world of running.  

“It’s a labour of love really,” Richard says. “The more people who can enjoy this drink and understand a bit more about Ethiopia, the happier I’ll be.”