Business Development Executive Pete Sarpong grew up in Koforidua, the capital of the eastern region of Ghana. When he moved to the United States with his family in 1999, Pete quickly learned that America wasn’t like the movies he watched as a teen, E.T. and Home Alone. He thought America would have a heavenly smell, but on that first ride home from the New York airport, it didn’t.
Early in his working life, Pete saw how people reacted to failure and success firsthand while working as a caddy at a private golf course. He caddied for Bryan Scott, Jason Kidd, and Michael Jordan, and from those sports heroes, he learned to take his shot in life and in business.
“If you never take action, you won’t get any results,” Pete says.
That early exposure to the inner workings of people helps him with his current role at RxBenefits, where he builds relationships with benefit advisors. He also relies on his 16-year career history in the employee benefits industry to bring the right solutions to employers. He’s always wanted to work in the employee benefits industry because of the personal impact it has on members. He enjoys building relationships and helping people accomplish their goals.
“It comes to being an advocate for a benefit advisor bringing a solution to their client, and the way to do that is to have a good relationship with that benefit advisor to uncover the client’s needs,” Pete says. “Pharmacy is one of the most personal benefits, and I’m excited to be part of a solution focused on attaining therapeutic standards of care for the employee while objectively helping the employer stretch their benefits dollars.”
Pete has seen his industry relationships impact people’s lives outside of the benefits industry as well. A benefit advisor in St. Louis asked Pete to speak to a soccer team of 9- to 12-year-olds. Pete shared the differences in playing soccer in Ghana vs. the U.S. — from making soccer balls out of socks and playing on gravel to a well-manicured field with plenty of equipment. The team was inspired to collect soccer equipment to donate to Ghana with Pete’s help. That relationship with a benefit advisor led to those young soccer players thinking about their global impact.
A husband and father, Pete believes in getting up early and tackling every day. “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle, when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
