Vincencia Adusei’s influence in Connecticut’s construction and real estate sectors is growing — and she can see it.
On a recent morning, navigating the narrow, busy streets around Southern Connecticut State and Yale universities in her Mercedes-Benz sedan, Adusei smiled.
“I like driving around New Haven and just feeling like I have a lot of footprints here,” she said. “Because I did that building,” she said, gesturing to the right, “and I remember that building,” she said, nodding ahead as she turned the wheel.
Adusei’s company, VASE Management, has rehabbed public schools, town halls, senior apartments, offices and commercial sites — even redeveloped historic properties into modern housing — in over a dozen towns and cities in Connecticut. She’s managed numerous projects on Yale’s campus, including renovations at the recently reopened Peabody Museum.
When possible, Adusei still likes to leave a piece of herself behind at each project — something small, like a coin or card from her purse, tossed in just before contractors pour the concrete. “I started leaving a footprint,” she said, laughing.
In the past seven years, VASE has grown from three full-time employees to 15, and its current projects extend from Greenwich Hospital to Yankee Trails summer camp in Tolland. VASE is in the process of hiring two more superintendents to manage projects.
But this wasn’t always the plan for Adusei. In fact, she swore she’d never pursue a career in construction — the family business in her home country of Ghana.
Over a winding career journey that took her from Ghana to New York City to Bridgeport, the construction business eventually found her. And, as it turns out, she’s a natural.
Reading blueprints
Adusei — who goes by “Vee” — is one of few Black women leading construction and real estate businesses in Connecticut. But she hardly thinks much about it. The way she tells it, landing in the field was nearly unavoidable, despite her best efforts.
Adusei grew up in her family’s construction business in Ghana, where her parents managed development projects building the country’s roads. At 14, she moved to the U.S. for school, living first with family in New York then attending the University of Bridgeport for undergraduate and graduate degrees in business.
She didn’t want to work in construction, so she got a job in advertising and worked on the side as a consultant coordinating events for government agencies and other institutions. (VASE, which Adusei registered as a business while she was still in school, is an acronym for Vincencia Adusei Special Events.)
Adusei was working an event gig for the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council when leaders with New Haven’s housing authority — known as Elm City Communities — encouraged her to bid on a multiyear contract to run technical assistance programs for small contracting businesses.
“My small business just kept bringing me to construction,” she said.
From roughly 2011 to 2013, Adusei consulted with over 500 small contractors who were either trying to work with ECC or had secured a contract but were failing to deliver. Through one-on-one meetings, she gained a sense of their biggest challenges, then she developed training to help them build the necessary skills, from reading blueprints to developing job estimates. Drawing in part on her experience as a child, poring over blueprints on her parents’ job sites, Adusei developed a curriculum and taught classes — starting with a handful of students and growing to over 50 contractors at a time.
Still, many of her students faced a major hurdle: securing the financing they needed to submit bids for work. “These smaller contractors couldn’t get it because they didn’t have the liquidity, or they had a bankruptcy that was less than five years [ago], or they had child support,” she said. Lenders aren’t inclined to take chances, she said. “That was the one thing I couldn’t help them with.”
Then she started to wonder if she could.
Adusei remembers calling her insurance company and walking through how she could bid and manage a project, then hire out the work to some of the contractors she’d been training. The insurer told her she’d be taking on a lot of risk.
Adusei recalls feeling scared, but she didn’t hesitate. She said she figured, “Am I going to spend the rest of my life helping businesses like that, knowing they can’t go anywhere? Or am I going to take matters into my own hands?”
After quickly securing the financing, Adusei won her first bid — a demolition project for the Ansonia Housing Authority. “I went overnight from being a consultant to a contractor,” she said. And the small businesses she hired for the project got it done, on time and on budget.
‘A family thing’
The relationships Adusei built while consulting with and educating contractors have formed the foundation of her company. She prioritizes working with small businesses and maintaining good communication among the owners and subcontractors.
“She’ll always check in personally, even if she’s not running the day-to-day on a project,” said Diana Perez-Alvarado, senior director of facilities at Achievement First, a network of charter schools and a longtime VASE client. “She’ll take her notes and follow up with an email to make sure that we’re all on the same page.”
Every project, no matter the size, begins with an in-person meeting with the entire team of contractors and supervisors in the conference room at VASE headquarters in New Haven. The meeting is mandatory, before anyone steps foot on a job site, to lay out the project timeline and make sure everyone’s in agreement.
They typically happen in the afternoon, and once the schedule’s nailed down, Adusei likes to toast with a bottle of champagne. She says speaking face to face and agreeing to a timeline ensures that subcontractors “are going to show up when they say they’re going to show up.” When the project’s complete, the team will meet and toast again — to a job well done.
“I find by doing this, there’s that respect for each other. There’s also a bit of a family thing,” she said. “For that one little project we’re gonna do it together. We’re gonna be like a family, we’re going to help each other.”
The VASE offices reflect that ethos. Staff members picked out their own paint colors and contributed their favorite inspirational quotes to adorn the walls. In the conference room a row of flags represents the heritage of each employee.
And on the opposite wall, a white board lists the company’s current projects down the left-hand side, with color-coded timelines extending out to the right.
Adusei sees that attention to detail and coordinated planning as key to success in her field. “People say the construction is the big part. It’s not. Honestly, the work itself is like 30%,” she said. Maintaining communication, knowing about problems as soon as they arise, and addressing them, “That’s how you put a building up,” she said.
And it’s the kind of work that’s very manageable for women, Adusei said. In fact, many women she knows would excel at it, she said.
“I’ve met some really, really smart, talented women that work for some of the biggest companies, and I’m just kind of curious: ‘You do great project management — how come you’ve never tried to do this on your own?’ And they have the impression that it’s hard or they won’t be treated fairly, just a lot of different reasons,” she said.
For Adusei, it was never a question. She grew up around women — her mother and sisters — who were managing and helping on construction projects. It never intimidated her. So she likes to put herself out there and encourage other women to give it a shot. “Maybe things will change,” she said.
A second home, back home
Adusei has tapped her family members in Ghana for help with her latest development: a 44-unit condominium development in the city where she grew up, Kumasi. It’s VASE’s first project in Ghana and a chance for Adusei to leave her footprint there.
She’d always wanted to do a project back home but was waiting for the right time. In 2019, Ghana launched an initiative known as “The Great Return,” inviting Africans in the diaspora to visit the continent and explore their roots. A new international airport in Kumasi was nearing completion, and Adusei owned a plot of land just five minutes away.
“The pivotal moment came when I went there about two years ago,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, it’s time.’”
As a regular visitor to Ghana — she goes once or twice a year — she knew how convenient it would be to have a place to stay while she was in town. She’s betting other visitors will feel the same way.
“I see myself in those people that are gonna own it,” she said. “They won’t be there the whole time, but while they’re not there, who’s gonna take care of the place for them — the interior, the amenities, all of those things?
“I like the condo style here in America, because you can own a piece of a condo, but you don’t have to be there. I might even run their Airbnbs for them, if they want.”
Of course, she said, she’ll be reserving the penthouse unit for herself.