Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Abe Ankumah, Nyansa, a network analytics software company. To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times

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What were your early years like?

I was born and raised in Ghana. I’m the youngest of five children. My parents were in the travel and tourism business — they started the first travel agency in Ghana about 45 years ago. I was fortunate to have traveled quite a bit with them when I was growing up. They would bring me along to international conferences.

When I was 15, I moved about three hours away to go to an all boys’ boarding school.

What was that like?

It was really rigorous. If you wanted to stay ahead, you had to wake up in the middle of the night to study. I ended up with a passion for math and science. I took a national exam at the end of high school and was ranked No. 2 in the country.

Tell me more about your parents. How have they influenced your leadership style?

My father had this quiet confidence about him, but he was also very humble. That’s something that has stayed with me. Regardless of how well you’ve done at any point in your career, there’s no point in making a big deal of it.

My mom was very strong on values, particularly about treating people the way you would expect them to treat you. If you wanted to get mad at someone, she would say, “Put yourself in their shoes.” It was kind of a mind-set.

When did you come to the United States?

I was planning to go to the top university in Ghana, but when I graduated from high school, the primary universities were on strike. So I applied to universities outside the country. I ended up going to Caltech.

I gravitated quickly toward computer science and electrical engineering, which was a little crazy because the first time I used a computer in my life was at Caltech. There were other students in the class who had been using computers since they were 5 years old. I had to work three or four times harder. I would stay up studying through the night, but I had some experience doing that from high school.

You seem to enjoy taking the harder path.

I’ve always tried not to do typical things. I don’t know whether that’s deliberate or it’s because of the thrill and the journey that comes with it. I also like pushing myself, because otherwise you don’t know what your limits are. It’s always been my mind-set: Don’t get too comfortable in any way.

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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.