The Long Way Round.

My Seven-Year Journey.

I have always believed in telling my own stories. Not just the wins, but the winding roads, the unexpected turns, the in-betweens that shaped me just as much as the milestones did.

Where it all started.

Phase One: The Accidental Hustler

When I got my admission to study Microbiology in 2014, I didn’t have any grand plan. I got in and became just another average student trying to survive university life, studying okay and picking up side hustles to stay afloat.

I first sold for a cooperative savings scheme, encouraging people to join the Ajo company I worked for in school. I ushered at events. I wrote and sold lecture notes. I sold lip gloss and beauty products, moving from hostel to hostel until we sold out batch after batch.

It all started to make sense when my friend Toleen decided to run for Vice President of the Student Union Government. She made me her campaign manager. I was completely new to that world, but I said yes and gave it everything. We won. That victory didn’t just change her life, it changed mine. It gave me a glimpse of who I could become: someone who could lead, organize, and mobilize people toward a goal.

Phase Two: Spark and Strategy

After that, I found out the name for what I was doing. It was called marketing. I enrolled in Google’s Digital Marketing course and began running WhatsApp campaigns for local vendors. With almost 5,000 contacts at that point, I had decent reach. I was learning in real-time and getting results.

During the wait for NYSC in 2019, I took on an unofficial internship at a radio station with Paul Alasiri. That was my first brush with the world of media, public relations, and public-facing strategy. When NYSC finally came, I was posted to a lab at the National Defense College (of course, with my microbiology background) but I talked my way into a clerk role with the Chief Medical Officer. Then, one afternoon, the Chief Protocol Officer walked in, took one look at me, and said, “You shouldn’t be in the clinic. Come to protocol.”

And just like that, I was moved again, into a space that would later feel very familiar: fast-paced, people-oriented, strategic.

As a Protocol assistant, I helped plan and manage lectures and events for the military participants, top government officials and foreign guests, making sure everything followed proper procedures, diplomatic rules and security guidelines. Everything mattered. From seating arrangements to the tea and coffee served to guests to event order, everything had to be in order.

I also had the chance to learn a lot and meet people I would never have met in everyday life.

Phase Three: The Rise, The Rift, The Realignment

After service, I tried launching an ushering agency, but COVID shut that down before it could fly. I went back to focusing on what I knew: WhatsApp ads, and this time, I began to teach.

In November 2020, I launched my first paid masterclass on hashtags. I had always believed in “service before money,” but this was the first time I put a price tag on my knowledge. 250 signups in one week. I turned the content into an eBook that brought in passive income. That same December, I launched a business giveaway series, rallying vendors to donate to small business owners. It grew into a community I’m still proud of today.

Then came my first official job as an Executive Assistant. It lasted five months. I left due to a personal violation that reminded me how important safety is in every workspace. It was painful, but it sharpened my sense of self-worth and boundaries.

Phase Four: The Pivot to Purpose

By early 2021, I felt like I was just…existing. I remembered how deeply rooted I was in fashion; my mom’s store, my aunt’s tailor shop, the years of watching, learning, doing. So I took all my masterclass money that I made in November of 2020 and enrolled in a private fashion academy in Abuja for a full year.

While in school, I also worked as a remote operations manager for a logistics company (until it shut down), and we were made to take a course called “The Business of Fashion” that changed everything. It was taught by a management consultant, and I felt my spirit leap. This was it. Strategy, structure, solutions. I didn’t know exactly what consulting meant, but I knew it was mine and just held on to the thought.

I finished top of my class in fashion school, and not long after, some senior alumni approached me to build a fashion brand with them. We co-founded Krieit Kulture in March 2022. I traveled to Dubai for sourcing and represented us in meetings. That same month, I enrolled in a distance learning business and management program at Aston University.

Still, I craved more clarity. So I had conversations with that same teacher who taught us business of fashion back at the fashion academy and offered to work under him while I learned in return. The plan didn’t unfold perfectly, but those six months at his firm (Gatewood Consulting) gave me the fundamental practical training I needed. I like to think that was one of my best corporate working experiences despite it being the toughest. It was a struggle but I caught up with so much.

Phase Five: Becoming the Builder

In March 2023, just as I was leaving Gatewood consulting and putting in so much efforts to planning and researching, I founded FONO. It wasn’t just a business, it was the ultimate decision to bet on myself.

I was deeply frustrated with my corporate career. I felt like I was constantly giving so much of myself; my time, my skill, my presence and getting very little in return. I wasn’t growing, I wasn’t fulfilled, and despite being competent, reliable, and smart, I was underpaid and overused. It started to wear me down especially because I was still so young and I knew what foundational years meant. I would see others doing less in better conditions, and I began to feel genuinely unlucky when it came to jobs. So, I made that decision to quit and start mine.

Later that year, I joined DNI Security as the business development and marketing lead. I handled everything across all channels. Then in January 2024, I moved to Lagos and took on a hybrid marketing role at gamp, a gadget insurance startup. I wanted more hands-on startup experience, and I got it: tech marketing, fundraising, growth, product strategy. I would also come to take another remote job in the Uk as an executive assistant. I needed all the money I could get. I was still in school and I was paying heavy fees all thanks to exchange rates.

Dark days really. Very dark days.

After seven intense months, I decided Lagos and my role at gamp wasn’t doing it for me. The toiling was too much for too little gains and so I returned to Abuja to focus on FONO and my remote work at DNI. I led the launch of our first product after a strategic pivot—DNI Pay. We hit over 2,000 downloads in less than a month. That moment didn’t come cheap. It came with blood, sweat and many tears but, it felt like standing on top of a very tall mountain we had built from scratch.

Phase Six: Rooted and Rewriting the Rules

Through all of this, two things became clear:

1. I love helping people figure things out.

2. I come alive when I am creating—whether it’s a brand, a strategy, or a sentence.

That’s why FONO and my newsletter (which I also started around the time I launched FONO) matter so much to me. It not just work. It is my way of giving back, reflecting forward, and staying aligned with who I am. Every time I help a business owner solve a problem, I get the same feeling I had when Toleen won that election. Like, “hell yes—this is exactly what I am meant to be doing with my life.”

And writing. Writing gives me space to breathe. To unravel. To get in touch with myself. To look back and say: none of it was wasted.

And Still, I Am Becoming

By June 2024, I started wrapping up my MSc program. The program covered every area of business; marketing, operations, economics, accounting, organizational behavior, finance, strategy, and pulled everything I had learned over the years into sharper focus.

I finished.

Continued with building FONO and DNI…

Today, I am standing at the intersection of experience and intention. I have evolved into a businesswoman with depth. Someone who can build, market, and manage with heart, with strategy, and with a strong sense of “why.”

I promise I never could have predicted this life.

Not when I was selling lip gloss.

Not when I was dodging the lab.

Not even when I started my own firm.

But I am here now, grateful, grounded, and growing.

I sit here typing and I still don’t know exactly where this road I am on leads next. But I know I will keep walking it with everything I have learned, with the people I have met, and with a full heart.