No professional should consider himself accomplished – Tolulope Medebem
Mrs. Tolulope Medebem is the Chief Operating Officer/Lead Strategist at Aster Integrated Marketing Limited (AsterIML), a full service experiential marketing, PR and event agency in Nigeria, with footfalls Pan Africa. The agency parades an experienced team with years of capabilities and consistency in superb delivery. Its personalized services ensure and guarantee successful implementation always, having as its key words: Excellent Delivery, Service and Integrity. A graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University with an MBA from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Tolulope, in this interview, speaks to MARKETING EDGE’s CLIFFORD AMUZUO about her career, her business, professionalism and entrepreneurship, among other things.
Who is Mrs. Tolulope Medebem?
My name is Tolulope Medebem. I have been in this industry for the past 18, 19 years. My major foray into the industry began in year 2000 when a long-time friend of mine, Segun Giwa, came to me and said that he would like me to join him to start up a company. We discussed it and that time Experiential Marketing was still pretty new in Nigeria, so to say. The journey started for me in 2000 when we started Marathon Events in collaboration with Octagon8, a South African company. We were affiliated to them and some of our accounts then included MTN, Super Sports, Nigerian Breweries as well as Face of Africa (Oluchi’s win) and then the launch of Super Sports3. We also launched Strongman in Africa for MultiChioce.
In those days, Marathon Events then probably would have been one of the biggest experiential company around but for ego, human elements and other such, the company obviously didn’t last long and so I moved on to Miss CommonWealth. We ran the Miss Commonwealth pageant for two years or so and then from there I moved on to Troyka Group. We started a company then in Troyka called FK which later grew to become FKG2. By the time I left it had become Azzagi. We were affiliated with a South African company VWV Group and had a lot of international trainings going to and fro. Insight Communications was another training school for me as I am sure that you are aware of that almost all the practitioners in the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) passed through Insight, and I think I benefited a whole lot from working within the group. It was a beneficial and symbiotic relationship as we were giving our best and also getting as best as we could. Always, I give it up for Mr. Biodun Shobanjo, and Mr. Jimi Awosika as they were and still are probably the greatest in the industry.
From there, I moved on to Dangote Group, Dansa to be specific. I was Consumer Marketing manager for Dansa Group but I didn’t stay there too long as it was quite a distant, being around Trade Fair, so i left. For me, yes you want to make money, you have a whole lot of plans BUT, at that point my children were very young and i needed to be a mother for and to my ladies.
Honestly, irrespective of anything I am today, my children and my family come first. After this, I got an option to work with either Union Bank (during the rebranding) or an agency – BrandFootprint Communications which was in Ikeja GRA and guess which i chose – The agency which was closer to my children’s school.
What informed your choice of
I studied Dramatic Arts. I went into school to study Law BUT didn’t get in for that. The first year came and everybody started to change over; but at this point, I knew I wasn’t changing any longer, I stayed on and enjoyed Dramatic Arts where I majored in Broadcasting. I served with Klink Studios and honestly thought I was going to be on the commercial side until i discovered IMC. Today, I can confidently say I have done the client’s side and I have also done the agency’s side BUT the entire IMC process or industry is pretty much a learning process. There is really no time you can say that you have known it all.
In recent times, we had a client that made us dig deeper into whatever it was that we thought we knew about IMC. For instance, AsterIML is is an experiential agency and we also have a sister company that does advertising but with this client we found ourselves having to foray into a wider sphere of learning and digger well beyond what we thought we knew. So, I should say yes, I stumbled on it (IMC) and so far I have enjoyed myself, developed a career and stayed on.
How would you assess an
I honestly do not know who an accomplished professional is. Like I said, we are learning every day. For me, I am open to learning. Sometime last week (before this interview) when you spoke to me, I was in Abuja. I was in Abuja because I had been called up as a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Management Consultants. I got the letter and I was like ‘how?’ So I went skeptically, I got in there and it wasn’t a sham. I saw everyone, i mean everyone. I saw people like Emeka Mba of Multichoice. I think he was in NCC at some point. The guy sitting next to me was special adviser to the Cross River State Governor on something. There were over 100 people there and indeed these were not men and women to be taken lightly. I think, for me, that point was one of the greatest achievements of my life because I was like ‘wow, so I am also considered a management consultant!
Honestly I don’t really know what it means to be an accomplished professional. For me, being a professional means that you are consistently learning and getting better. If you say you are accomplished that means you have finished getting better!? It’s evolving, like I would often say to my guys here in the office, ‘you are only as good as your last activity. A new activity means you have to be better than what you did before’.
What was it that gave you courage to stand alone and delve into entrepreneurship?
Like I mentioned earlier, from the last agency i worked with, I started and ran a partnership with a friend – EventPlus for ten years till November 2018 when we both decided to expand our horizon and ‘do more’. Today, I realize that, my professional life is mostly an exploration; and I think it helps me better. As at that time people said to me, “is it now that EventPlus appears to be getting a firm foothold that you people want to change?” While it is true that the reason why we are working is money; for me, the reason at the end of the day, is also fulfillment. Being an entrepreneur means that you will fall BUT surely, you will rise. Today, we talk about Walt Disney and the likes; if they didn’t take the risk, he/they wouldn’t have been anywhere. Remember that he/they have not always been like they are now. All risk takers (entrepreneurs) have had their failures, so if we don’t take the risk, we won’t fail; if we don’t fail, we won’t grow. So taking the risk only makes you an entrepreneur, and by the grace of the Almighty you fall and you rise again.
As an entrepreneur what
I want to be the best in everything that I do without stepping on anyone’s toe. How possible that is, I don’t know BUT my understanding in life is to strive to be the best that I can be, giving all glory to the Most High. So, whatever it is that I aim at, I want to keep on working at it in line with the company vision of being the be the best in everything we do which for me would be: as a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur, and a leader to my people (in that order). The bottom line is that I am striving to be the best that I can be within the realm of reason and within the space that the Almighty has given me.
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