(Business in Cameroon) – On September 15 in Maroua, capital of Cameroon’s Far North region, Energy and Water Minister Gaston Eloundou Essomba launched the official expansion works of the Maroua and Guider solar plants. Backed by €38 million, about CFA25 billion, the two facilities will see their combined capacity rise from 35.8 MWp to 64.4 MWp by 2026.
Although officially led by Norwegian firm Scatec through its subsidiary Release, the project has also relied on Cameroonian expertise since the first phase was delivered in 2023. That role is played by Sphinx Energy, founded in 2017 in the United States by Cameroonian engineer Henri Serge Job, a civil engineering graduate of Technische Universität Dresden in Germany.
According to sources close to the project, Sphinx Energy managed the development work: identifying and securing sites, carrying out preliminary technical and economic studies, structuring and presenting offers to power distributor Eneo and the state, securing licenses and permits, obtaining fiscal and customs incentives, and negotiating power sales contracts.
Sphinx Energy’s contribution helped deliver the lowest solar power tariff in Cameroon so far, at CFA35 per kWh. Other solar projects in preparation, and even operating hydroelectric plants, report significantly higher costs. This is expected to improve the financial balance of the electricity sector.
To achieve this result, Job drew on his combined technical and financial training, including an MBA in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the world’s most prestigious business schools. Its alumni include billionaire Elon Musk and current U.S. president Donald Trump.
With more than 20 years of experience, Job has built a career across both Cameroon and the United States. After Wharton, he joined AES Corporation in 2004. The U.S. company had acquired Cameroon’s power utility Sonel three years earlier, renaming it AES-Sonel (now Eneo). He worked there between 2010 and 2012 before returning to the U.S. as an investment consultant in energy projects.
In 2013, he returned again to Cameroon, serving as marketing and sales director at Gaz du Cameroun (GDC), then as head of strategy and development at the same company. GDC, a subsidiary of British firm Victoria Oil and Gas (VOG), supplies natural gas to many Douala-based industries from the Logbaba fields.
Earlier in his career, Job also worked in IT and finance in the U.S., as a consultant for a software developer, a trader at Cantor Fitzgerald, and later at Fannie Mae, a mortgage refinancing company.
Before beginning his professional career, however, he faced modest beginnings in the U.S. After earning his German engineering degree and moving overseas, he briefly worked in a McDonald’s kitchen to make ends meet.
Today, as founder and CEO of Sphinx Energy, Job is focused on solar development, with the ambition of helping expand access to affordable electricity across Africa.
