Oma: Infusing Structure into Business Planning Key for Sustainable Growth

Founder of The Mother Eagle Advisory and Mentoring Academy and Adjunct Professor atGeneva Business School, Jane Oma spoke on pivotal measures start-ups and businesses need to embed as well as the importance of bridging the gap in mentorship, Nume Ekeghe presents the excerpts

Can you give a brief background on what you do?

I am the founder of the Mother Eagle Advisory and Mentoring Academy and an Adjunct Professor atGeneva Business School. I have spent over a decade helping business/organisational leaders and management executives build strong institutions and sustainable businesses with a high level of effective communication and attention to organisational culture and human capital development. As a lifelong bridge builder, I play a vital role as the go-to person that connects business leaders to people, processes and structures that help them build organisations that will stand the test of time. Over the years, I have specialised in Business Advisory, Strategic Management Consulting, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Mentoring, Lecturing and Keynote Speaking on Executive Presence, Business Strategy for the 21st Century and Organisational Culture for cross-cultural organisations.

Can you speak on the Global Mentorbridge conference?

This conference is focused on business leadership across all sectors. And one of the things that actually inspired the program is an observation after years of mentoring for almost a decade. I’ve been mentoring business leaders and startup founders. And I’ve been positioned in a way where I mostly worked with people in the business leadership, business ownership, and startup ecosystem both here in Nigeria and in other African countries but also in Europe. So it’s not sectoral it’s a global business leadership approach focusing on those that are building businesses have built businesses, and given that there are different generations of business leaders now, how can we connect the increasing gaps that we find amongst them.

How many start-ups have you worked with in the past and can you put a value on the impact your mentoring has translated to funding for these start-ups?

I currently have two different communities because of the two different mentoring programs that I currently run. And there’s a combined number of 112 startup founders in that community who I actively mentor.

How many years have you done this conference?

This is our second year and this is the second edition. Our first edition, the pilot was launched last year. It was also held here in Lagos and we had 60 people that we invited also for the gala. And then what we also did last year was we had different events in different cities of Nigeria. So, we were in Onitsha, Abuja, and also in Lagos. Last year, we called it the business growth and structures. Our focus last year was to help those in our communities but also others that were looking to come in to discuss how to really grow a business as well as the structure needed in order to effectively grow your business in a sustainable way.

Does your organisation partner with other institutions?

Last year it was self-funded. I took the initiative because it’s something I believe in. I took the initiative because having worked very closely with a vast number of startup founders I looked around and I didn’t see that conversation, getting bigger in a way that can cover more people and more people can benefit from it. I took the initiative and last year I thought I’ll put my money where my mouth is, and then I’ll just let people see if they think that this is something that works. So we ran it last year and was entirely self-funded last year. This year, some of the startups that we’ve worked with have also, kind of sponsored in their own capacities, and we are open for partnership.

What are the challenges facing businesses in NIgeria?

Anyone you ask this question will tell you that there’s a lot from infrastructure to policy, to culture. That is a big question because what drives the business decision of a guy in the Onitsha market might be very different from what drives the decisions of the man in Kano or Mushin and Balogun even in the same Lagos. So the challenges are enormous but they are also very different. And so you find a lot of times each person is looking at one particular area, but all of these other areas exist such as infrastructure funding, global best practices, and ethics. Another important factor is structure,  I can break it down to one structure. How do we really structure these new businesses in a way that they can stay and can keep growing?  And of course, structure will depend on access to funding and structure somehow will also connect to the kind of policies that we get the kind of leaders that we have, infrastructure, even employee engagement, the quality of employees that we get. However, if we look at structure, as we take it on from that just one structure, one of the things I ask is, if you have no structure, you as a founder, you’ve not structured your own growth, you are  kind of a bit over the place, you must structure your business. And that is one of the beauties of mentoring. Mentoring helps you with structure, mentoring helps you to pace your growth to understand one step after the other. And that is how you build sustainably.

You are reiterating structure for businesses; however, in this clime businesses are faced with unpredictability. How would structure play a role in an unpredictable business environment?

A misconception about structure is that it constrains; however, in reality, structure offers enhanced flexibility. It serves as the conduit for seamless movement. Just like when constructing a house, you have the freedom to adorn it according to your preferences, but ensuring a robust foundation is imperative. Therefore, when contemplating structure, your focus is on establishing a sturdy base, which subsequently empowers adaptable embellishment. Contrary to the notion that structure hampers adaptability to the business milieu, it actually facilitates more effective adaptation. It acts as a guide, enabling you to anticipate forthcoming developments. This predictive capacity is a significant advantage of having a well-defined structure.

What advice would you give to businesses on the verge of shutting down due to operation cost and more?
As we examine the challenges present in Nigeria, it’s important to recognize that alongside these challenges lie numerous opportunities. When discussing the topic of organizational transformation, I draw upon my expertise in change management, which is a subject I teach at the esteemed Geneva Business School in Europe. Taking a systemic approach to change management involves analysing the entire system and pinpointing areas that require adjustment. Even a change in a single component of the system can significantly impact the entire system, often in ways that might not be immediately evident. When confronted with a struggling business, my initial focus is on leveraging the existing resources to maintain stability and prevent a complete downturn. This perspective highlights the boundless possibilities that are available. By utilizing your current infrastructure, the resources at your disposal, and the remaining capital, you can gradually steer the course of change. This might involve identifying new market segments, introducing fresh products, exploring innovative delivery methods, and optimizing supply chains. In this context, your resources and assets stand alongside your liabilities. The objective is to safeguard the continued value of your assets while progressively transforming your liabilities. This entails scrutinizing your current market presence and assessing whether there are untapped segments to serve. It might involve devising alternative strategies to offer the same product to a different demographic or even the same audience at an enhanced level. The underlying necessity is to establish a solid structural framework to support these endeavours.

For your events, what do you want to achieve?

We want to raise more awareness about the place and importance of mentoring. We are very much aware that a lot of times these words might begin to sound empty. Mentorship is beginning to sound like a buzzword but there are people who have benefited from mentoring.  Whether that’s mentors or mentees, so and these are people who have built businesses, successful businesses, or building successful businesses. So what we want to do is to bring them together, different sectors different age groups, we’ve brought them together and we’ve asked, what’s your experience with mentoring? Tell the world because these are the people that people look up to. They admire businesses that are doing well.  So we want to change that conversation and foster the culture of accepting mentoring as it should be. So, we want to position or reposition mentorship, the right kind of mentorship with real-life examples, and say, it works. And then once we encourage those people whom it has worked for to bring it forward, and all of this is targeted at building stronger connections between the generational leaders. We want to foster building more sustainable businesses.