Our Beginning
From foundations to frontiers
In 1985, Geom. Antonio Carnevale, an Italian technical surveyor and planner who had worked with three construction companies across road, industrial, and residential projects, established Carcon Construction in Addis Ababa. Over the following decade he built a reputation for quality workmanship on religious, health, residential, and industrial buildings, becoming a trusted contractor for diplomatic missions, Catholic dioceses, and international organisations operating in Ethiopia.
Adamandia Stavrou had joined the company in 1986 as Deputy General Manager, running operations across up to four regions and a 600-person workforce. In 1995 she founded Tensae Medical Centre, one of Addis Ababa’s first 24/7 higher medical centres, and AMCAST PLC, the Group’s first import-export business. AMCAST operated until 2009, when it was wound down to concentrate the Group’s capital on construction.
The Group also built financial-sector positions during this period, becoming a founding shareholder of Awash Bank and taking strategic shareholdings in United, Enat, and Abyssinia Banks, alongside Awash Insurance.
The second generation took over day-to-day operations gradually. Sergio Carnevale joined as Deputy General Manager of Carcon Construction in 2010, restructuring operations for a 30% improvement in cost-efficiency, and later founded NICAD Services (2012), the MOSERA workforce platform (2013), and Carcon Capital, the Group’s advisory arm. Alessandro Carnevale took over site operations and project delivery as COO and subsequently revived the trade division as Alessandro Import Export.
The Group today is built on the relationships and standards Antonio and Adamandia set over the first thirty years, extended into new lines of business by the second generation. We work with private clients, Catholic dioceses, diplomatic missions, and multilateral institutions across East Africa and the EU-Africa corridor.