Alfred Burgesson: ‘To the young people, now more than ever, we need you’

Alfred Burgesson was awarded the Emerging Leader Award at PPF’s Annual Testimonial Dinner Honour Roll 2025.  Burgesson is the founder and CEO of Tribe Network, a Halifax-based organization to support BIPOC entrepreneurs that’s on track to launch a $20-million venture fund.

Here is his acceptance speech, about the importance of hard work, how to find your tribute in today’s world and keeping the believers close:

Thank you for having me here this evening. I want to dedicate this award to all the young people out there, after all this the emerging leader award. This award platform means a lot to me. Thank you to the Public Policy Forum for bringing us together to celebrate the people and ideas that are moving this country forward. I’m truly grateful to be a part of it. 

 Alright, so I’m going to do something a little different, because while [the previous presenter] was speaking, I could hear a lot of people chatting and eating. I used to be a basketball player and a coach. And one thing we do when we’re coaching teams is we try to create a sense of unity, okay? And so I want to try to see if we can create a sense of community here tonight by doing something different. 

So in basketball, when we huddle with our players, we’ll do this thing called two claps. So, just my lead, when I say two claps we’re gonna go together and have two claps. Pretty simple. Alright? So, two claps! Two claps! Alright. Two claps for PPF! Awesome, thanks, guys. See now I feel like we’re all a team. 

So I realized this was a big deal, a pretty big deal when my brother, who is a Harvard grad, orthopedic surgeon, top of the class kind of guy, called me to tell me, Alfred, this is a big deal. [laughter]. And my brother and I are quite competitive. We played basketball against each other. So when his high school friends start messaging him about me, I think that’s a win.

To the young people out there, now more than ever, we need you. The world needs your ideas, the world needs your energy, the word needs your talent, and the world needs your courage to act and to do things differently. I know what it’s like to feel angry about the state of the current world. You’re not alone. Your anger is valid. But your actions are what will ultimately change your circumstances and the world while you’re at it. 

I implore you to channel that energy into something productive. That is why I am up here today. There’s a powerful African proverb that comes to mind, and the saying goes, I am because we are. It’s called Luntun. My story began in Africa. I was born in Ghana, and when I was a child my family decided to move to Canada and to Nova Scotia. Anyone from Nova Scotian here tonight? Okay, okay, let’s go! This is just for the Nova Scotians. Two claps. What about Cade Breton? Anyone from Cape Breton? How about Port Hawksbury? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. 

I grew up in a very small town of 3,000 people in Cape Breton called Port Hawksbury. And I lived there for 10 years before moving to Halifax. I remember our move from Ghana to Canada so clearly. We were at the airport in Ghana and I was so excited to go overseas, to go to Canada. But my parents weren’t smiling. It’s because they had sacrificed so much to make this move. And I remember my mom with her thick African accent looking at me going, Alfred, this is not a vacation.

Both of my parents, Alexander and Juliana, sacrificed everything we had in Ghana to start over here in Canada. My dad was a Navy officer, turned Marine engineer, and my mother was an administrator with the local government. My parents believed that by moving to Canada, my siblings and I would have access to better education and a better quality of life, ultimately changing the trajectory of our lives and the future generations of our family forever. And I’m sure that this is a story that many of you in here can relate with as well when you think about your family’s history. After moving to Cape Breton, my parents enrolled in the Nova Scotia Community College and our family lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Port Hawksbury. And I watched my parents work multiple jobs and complete their diplomas at NSCC so that they could be employable, so they could earn a living for their children and afford to buy their first home. 

Watching my parents go through those early days taught me everything that I needed to know about resilience. They taught me to embrace hard things, to pursue excellence in my actions. They taught my and my siblings the importance of knowing who you are and the importance of finding your people, finding your tribe. In 2020, I took that lesson literally and founded Tribe Network, and today we’re a community of over 2,000 entrepreneurs across Canada. We support entrepreneurs and innovators to solve our problems here in Canada and contributing to our economy. And I believe that’s a testament of what we can do, that we can build something new, even in times of crisis. 

To the leaders in this room tonight, now more than ever, I need you and you need me. We need each other. We must welcome new ideas. We should not react to ideas with ‘who the hell are you or who the hell do you think you are’ when someone dares to challenge the status quo. We have to be curious. 

And my advice to every young person watching this is quite simple. To find your tribe in today’s world, you need to know who you are. And you should ask yourself these questions. What am I good at? What do I love? What does the world need more of? And how can I earn a living doing what matters? Answering these questions honestly for yourself will give you some clarity in a very loud and noisy world. That’s how you’ll find your purpose. And eventually, that’s how we’ll find our tribe. 

Along the way, you will meet people who will doubt you. And you will also meet people who will believe in them. Keep the believers close. 

Tonight, I also want to honor one of my biggest believers, Xavier Joseph. He’s here with me tonight. Xavier has been a mentor, a coach, he was the founding chair at Tribe Network. And now he’s my partner in launching this new venture fund. Xavier, I just want to say thank you for believing in me, thank you for guiding me, and thank you walking this path with me. Can we give Xavier two claps? Two claps. Awesome. He’s also a basketball player and a coach, and so he gets this. 

If I can leave you all with just one message, it is to believe in the next generation. And let them know you believe in them. Let them feel your belief in them. That belief has the power to shape our future in a more positive way, just like PPF is doing here tonight. And while I’m receiving this award here tonight, I know there are so many young people out there, so many emerging leaders that are often overlooked, underestimated and ignored. This award is for all of us. 

And finally, I’m here because of my family. I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me, and I’m quite literally my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Thank you all so much. 

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much. 

Hear from more 2025 honourees:

• Steve Paikin, renowned journalist and longtime host of The Agenda on TVO, winner of the 2025 Hyman Solomon Award for public interest journalism 
• Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the longest-serving lieutenant-governor of Ontario
• Marc-André Blanchard, Executive Vice-President of CDPQ Global and former diplomat
• Chief Crystal Smith, leader of the Haisla Nation
• Anil Arora, former chief statistician at Statistics Canada