Omotola Elatuyi is a tenacious, passionate marketer who loves turning bold ideas into impactful & memorable experiences.
She has worked in various companies occupying senior roles in Marketing, Retail Development and Customer Experience. The companies include Heritage Bank, Polaris Bank, Wema Bank, Mondelez, Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Guinness and pladis Global.
She is an energetic, visionary and passionate expert in the crafting and implementation of consumer-centric and resonant marketing strategies. A visionary leader, team player, strong influencer with experience in global FMCG & Financial sectors. she also has an impressive track record in leading targeted consumer activations through purposeful marketing.
she has currently launched her first book “Imperfectly Awesome” .
About
Omotola is a growth marketer, digital strategist and brand builder who thrives off a challenge. she is a social butterfly who loves people and forming meaningful connections. she’s a leader, doer and a life-long learner.
Tola is a strategic and tactical, visionary who loves the details, creative, yet practical who also cares about tangible results and exceptional work.
Tola is described as authentic, driven and passionate.
She is a sought after speaker on Consumer Behavior, Marketing Communications. She serves as an advisory board member as well as adjunct faculty for business schools.
Kind Words
Some nice things smart people I’ve worked with have to say about me #makingmeblush
"Leads with warnth". Tola makes work fun while focusing on key metrics with an eagle's eye. Everything must be incremental to the bottom-line. She is an expert in consumer and key stakeholder engagement, with the ability to drive execution from the BoP to top levels in government and society.
Kingsley Ehimika
Yale School of Management | Strategy | Marketing | Technology
Tola worked with me for more than 2 years and her energy and enthusiasm for excellence was highly commendable. She could always be trusted with the most difficult of tasks. She was always willing to take on additional responsibilities and put in her best to deliver on the objectives. She is a natural leader and enjoys working with colleagues and agencies.
Sanjay Pradhan
CEO at Moneymantra Wealth Managers
Tola is really spot on on the job and get things done as fast as possible. She is highly dedicated, very objective and does not take NO for an answer. Good team player and highly result oriented and very persionate about her Job.
Femi Adesina
National Key Accounts and Modern Trade Manager -Nigeria at USL-Diageo
Tola lead projects under Trade Category Management and Shopper Marketing in particular, both for Modern trade & General Trade, where she spent time Managing key projects in Unilever Gulf General Trade Shopper & Customer Management department where she demonstrated her capabilities to manage projects very well.
Bobby Mathew
Chief Marketing Officer and Partner, Prime Partners Global India, ex Head of Trade & Shopper Marketing
Publications
Imperfectly Awesome
April 7th 2024
Adulting can be chaotic. But it can also be a hilarious and thrilling ride. From career expectations to motherhood, relationships, and the nagging whispers of imposter syndrome, there’s always something to grapple with. Written in an honest, relatable tone, I share my stories of becoming to help you love yourself, reinvent, and bloom—just the way you were designed to. The world may only play off-tune beats, but you can create your rhythm and dance to it gracefully . . . or however else you please.
Relax it’s okay to ask for help
11 December 2023
Relax, it’s ok to ask for help. Most organisations today operate in a highly complex matrix structure with multiple reporting lines and different levels of expertise requiring you sometimes to be vast across a number of skills.
This can be overwhelming sometimes especially when you have multi-functional projects and your delivery is dependent on others as you are not able to do most of the tasks on your own. Thing is, the priority level of each task is different from function to function but each action adds up as an essential for you. More importantly, you need...not be overwhelmed but have the ability to ask for help , that way, you spend less time struggling.
It is important to have an enabling environment that allows you to function in a way that fosters better collaboration. Asking for help should not be seen as a sign of weakness but rather, recognizing what you are good at and appreciating what someone else’s is good at. This enables both sides to benefit and gain valuable experience. The person receiving helps adds nuance and texture to their thinking, overcome cognitive biases and flaws in their logic while at the same time giving someone else an opportunity to shine and validate their knowledge – this could make someone else’s day!
In asking for help, first acknowledge that you don’t have a solution to a task/problem or that you can’t do it alone – be sure to explore possible solutions as your own first step. Remember, no one person can know everything, so allow yourself to be human. It’s also better to build a reputation to be known to give assistance to others. This paves the way for reciprocity and encourages others to reach out without incurring social debts or negative repercussions, making it an admirable trait. Additionally, ask for help smartly, as a ‘SMART’ request (Why you need it, what you need, When you need it, from who do you need help) is easy to respond to as you never know what people know or how they can help until you ask. Not only will you have the benefit of extra advice, you will also have people to share your successes with.
An enabling work environment makes it easy to ask for help by encouraging the practices and setting the tone and the norms. However, we must take time out to say ‘thank you’ and really mean it to express our gratitude for the help. It’s important to close the loop by letting the other person know how valuable your help was – people appreciate recognition and follow through. On both sides, emotional intelligence, diplomacy, self-awareness and patience are required to avoid damaging consequences to individuals and the organization.
To be successful in today’s work environment, you need to ask for what you need as it can become a powerful tool, if employed strategically – save yourself and others time by asking insightful questions that demonstrate your curiosity, inquisitiveness and your interest in understanding the process and not just performing your step of the cycle. Two heads… Or more…are better than one, strong people ask for help. Avoid muddling through a bad situation on your own, as challenges presents opportunities to cultivate our network and proactively build relationships.
Again, remember to frame the ‘ASK’ properly.
Relax it's okay to ask for help" is available to read here.
The High Maintenance Individual
The High Maintenance Individual | 8 May 2021
Succeeding in the work place…. High Maintenance Individual The HMI.
And it was the start of another week, as usual his normal cool confident self would do it again...and assuredly that was his plan.
The day started with a drizzle....hoping it would eventually rain so he could have more time to day dream as a young eloquent achiever with his personality sitting on the board with other directors guiding colleagues in the right direction. The thought of the job to be done was not a bother and didn’t even feature in his thought process. Strange, right? He challenged himself...in the semi-conscious state though not expecting an answer. It continued to drizzle but a few hours earlier he had slept off on a call due to exhaustion; his phone had fallen off his ear into the hollow created by the pillow between his head and his shoulder.
It continued to drizzle...but this time he was been nudged to consciousness. First from a gentle snooze to a more persistent noise that seemed to be ringing only in his right ear determined to impair his hearing leaving him no option but to reach for the phone, now propping himself on one elbow, he looked out the window. It was dawn, the timing was right, the day felt perfect, already. His role requires that he equips himself with lots of industry knowledge. As usual, this was one of the unwritten necessities and skills required which was not officially written in any document. It was an expectation that came not only with his acclaimed wealth of experience but with his networking circle which he flaunts very often. His subconscious reminded him constantly about pending tasks, email reminders were declined and catch up meetings were postponed. He sure had good intentions with the hope of getting things done, the problem was, he just never got round to doing them.
The weekend had taken its toll, not that it would have been used judiciously otherwise. Late Friday night with friends, definitely not colleagues – they had their own space, lunch time and around the office corridors. He was in particular not one who kept late nights just to hang out. Networking was the watchword as he derived pleasure in assuming he was smart. His circle of friends were elite and very much senior managers in their different worlds. He sure was purposeful but in a different kind of way. There was a constant struggle within him to balance work and life more like wanting to eat your cake and have it always. Suddenly, social life preceded his work life. It was a source of pride to be at events where people he looked up to and inspired him were present which was not a bad idea except that he claimed they were all his mentors. In fact he attended events based on his knowledge of who else was going to be there.
The real issue being catching up with the Joneses. His personality was not in doubt and he had a way with colleagues irrespective of gender. A little chat here and there down the corridor and he was brought to speed with happenstances. This had sustained him thus far but apparently no longer good enough to keep him seated at his position in the office. He needed to get his hands dirty with details The game was fast changing around him and he wasn’t catching up. Motherhood statements no longer held pieces of business challenges that had fallen apart. Body languages changed fast in the board room as the day gradually drifted from drizzle to sunny. The chairman shifted in his chair and he knew he was in for the day. For the first time he realized he was sweating and looked around the room for a reason. His gaze could only settle on the afternoon sun that seemed to smile so reassuring for a bright and perfect day, just as he had envisaged in the morning.
He certainly has become an “HMI” said the Chairman. Eyes not only rolled this time but were long fixated. Yes, he was right. Not the sun but him was the cynosures of all eyes. The “High Maintenance Individual” who was no longer adding value but had become a cost centre being managed probably only by his line manager. It dawned on him that he lacked content and had always known what needs to be done. The inner voice reminded constantly but he never got round to optimal performance. He was content at maintaining statusquo at 50% supported with charisma. The looks around him had become disappointing, with a few head movements from left to right in pity of how he had degenerated. He knew the drill.....feedback sessions with the boss, blahdey, blahdey, blah. He needed to salvage the situation and he stayed positive.
With resolve, the following became his watchword:
· Prepare for meetings – be as informed as can be with a personal commitment to add value
· Give the right information – be granular and analytic if required as business decisions are made on the information.
· Seek Alignment – sound out colleagues and get feedback on your work before it is published. This gives the business confidence More like near misses, the triggers had always been there, all around....it only required a little bit of attention to swing it in the right direction.
"The High Maintenance Individual"is available to read here..
Contact
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