Ms Laura Oloyede is the Chief Operating Officer of Cutler Communications, an integrated marketing communications agency. She has about twenty years work experience across the economic sector. She’s done banking, real estate, had first degree in estate management. Also, she has been into FMCG from where she moved to services sector. In this interview with PROVIDENCE OBUH, she talks about Nigerians, especially youth attitude towards embracing entrepreneurship, while stating that women have a need to be focused.

Excerpts:

What attracted you into marketing communication?

I am not looking at it that I must be here. I am actually looking at politics, that is what I see. I used to say to people that you may be talking to the first female president of Nigeria. Sometimes when I say it, I laugh at myself but I am very serious about it. I think that has been the drive. I remember when I used to be with American Tobacco, that was where I got grounded in marketing and I struggled to describe myself as a public relations practitioner.

I would say that I was a solution provider. I identify solutions. I will be doing injustice if I put myself in a marketing box or in a PR box because I am a combination of both. Call me a strategist, I think I would   be comfortable with that and I see myself growing passionately about the country and I think that is what has drawn me into where I am today and it is not a full stop. It is a journey. I must recognize my mentor, where I started from and that was the first taste that I had with public relations in 2004.

*Laura Oloyede …My advice to women is to stay focused

What has been your challenges treading this path?

There are challenges every where.  I am not going to say a challenge is peculiar. It is a function of the other. It’s just to identify that what you may be facing or what you are going through is nothing peculiar. It is not because of you, it is because of life. When things like that happen, you look back and look at the people you are leading and then you proffer solutions, not for you to say I need to get certain things in place first. You must work towards solution. They don’t come easily. Sometimes it takes years to get solution. Life is a journey, you will always fall down but pick yourself up and go, as long as you are focused and providing solution.

You have a passion for what you are doing, what do you think should drive passion for that woman out there?

Focus! I hear women asking the question, “Can women have it all,” when I hear such things I interpret it differently. The question is, “What can we have all?” I started with talking about focus, whether you are in your tertiary education or you are serving or a young employee, what ever you are in life, if you are focused that is what will push you to where you will be tomorrow. My advice to women is to stay focused.

Do you have a kind of initiative for women or a kind of product that is targeted at women like your new initiative called Promoting Entrepreneurial Education (PEE)

We are passionate about PEE.  It is about promoting entrepreneurial education. It cuts across gender, races, religion, social belief. It cuts across almost everything. We don’t want to streamline it and say it is a women initiative. It is a national call. Do we want to call the women at some point? It could be considered.

It can happen but we are very careful about how we position this so that people out there do not feel it is a clarion call for women to stay focused and then you must promote entrepreneurial education. It is a national call because we have identified issues and that is what I am talking about, problems would always happen. The problem with us in Nigeria today is that there are many problems and we are not going to have one solution to tackle everything.

Part of the problems we have is unemployment among the youths. We all need to understand what it means to be an entrepreneur because that is why you are going to have the life span of a company outlive its founders. That is why you are going to have existing companies continue to grow and that is why you are going to have the opportunity to birth in your company.

We have not embraced entrepreneurial skill as a nation and we are piggy riding what the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Okonjo Iweala, said about the pathway to sustainable economy in Nigeria being entrepreneurial skill. It is not government’s responsibility but everybody’s responsibility to come together. Parents must teach their children at home, teachers must teach it at schools and companies must adopt it as well.

Look at our attitude in Nigeria, we say it’s not my business, let me just go to work. You are killing that company. Who says your child cannot work in a company you’ve worked before. My father worked in Nigeria Tobacco for 30 years. What is it with us in Nigeria that we cannot embrace entrepreneurship education?  That is what cutler communications has set out to address. The sad thing today is that we sit down and point at government that they must provide jobs.

There are 40 million employable but unemployed Nigerians today.

In the world, people say there are 107 billion people. In Africa alone, you have one billion, in Sub-Saharan Africa where you have about 17 countries, Nigeria being one of them, you have 800 million people. Out of the 800 million people, 500 million of them which is about 45 percent are under the age of 30. These are the youths we are talking about.

When you look at 500 million people, 220 million of these youths are either jobless or they are not learned or they are still in school. Out of the 220, 40 million Nigerians are unemployed and we sit back pointing at the government that it should provide jobs. It is not government’s responsibility to provide jobs but enabling environment. These things take a while. It could be ten years.

Iweala did not say people should embrace job creation, she said we need to embrace and promote entrepreneurial education and that the private sector should embrace or support us. When she talks there is a tendency to feel she is part of government and does not deserve being listened to. So, we have taken on that responsibility and looking forward to the support of companies here in Nigeria who will be able to channel their corporate responsibility programmes to supporting this call.

When you talk of entrepreneurship education, how do you correct this perception that without financ,esuccessful entrepreneurship is not fe asible?

That question is apt, let me use a case study of a foreign company, I can’t remember the name of the founder but he is the founder of a fast food. Many years ago, this guy wanted to go to school but he had no money and so he went to meet his rich uncle and told the uncle to give him money so he can go to school. But the uncle said, I will give you money but first, tell me what you are passionate about. And he said, he wanted to go into fast food business.

The uncle said, I will give you money to start that business, the profit you realise you would use to educate yourself. Today we have their franchises all over the world. When people don’t have information they will perish. There are some people who are currently employed and they have money but you know something, they are sitting down because they are comfortable.

For example, some people in the oil and gas industry, banking and finance and FMCG, who have at least three million in their bank accounts, are sitting down doing nothing and every month their nephews or cousins  who  have graduated since two or three years come to them  and demand for money and they give them. Every time you deep your hand into your pocket to give money, you are not doing that person any good.

Part of the enabling environment that government should serve should ideally be access to finance but because it is a process that is not going to happen tomorrow, there are people that have the money, they should think of a business. Look at the bloggers of today, the make-up artists. Why are we all not sitting down and saying we are waiting for financial access from the government.

If you have three million naira in your bank account, don’t give it to your cousin to spend but ask him what he wants to do with it and if its agriculture, let him go for a six month training to understudy that and come up with something. That is what the campaign is all about. Even if you don’t have money, you have cooperative in your organization, you can get a loan and then begin to channel and train that person you have put in charge of your business. We cannot all continue to sit and be screaming there is no money. It cannot happen.

How do you bring these  ideas to the target group?

That is why we are calling on private organisations to support. If we have companies who see or recognise the need to embrace this initiative and support us, we will be able to increase our awareness campaign.  Do you know some people are jobless but they have access to money, they have money in their accounts, maybe from rich daddy or uncle and they are telling you, I don’t know what to do. That is what we need to push out there, push out information into the minds of people. Let uncles and aunties stop giving money to their relatives; empower them by setting up businesses.

What has given rise to the entrepreneurship campaign in recent times?

People are not blind, times have changed and they have realised that it is either you put your house in order or your house is going to breakdown. Look at the CBN cash requirement ratio, last year it was reduced to 50 percent and this year 75 percent. I read in one of the dailies that banks are fidgeting and they are going to cut down cost of operation. Youshould    begin to do things differently otherwise you will be swept away.

What next for entrepreneurs?

To those people who are entrepreneurs and they are using it, I commend them, I can not leave without information. Some entrepreneurs are where they are today because of mismanagement. My advice to exiting entrepreneurs is that they seek information on how to manage their businesses, they should cut down on spend, learn how to improve on customer service. You can not run your business today same way you did yesterday, don’t say you are not compliant you will suffer, continue to strive and identify messages.