CUSTODIAN MENTORS CONFERENCE 2021 - LEKE ALDER

 

INTRODUCTION

Leke Alder is the Founder & Principal of Alder Consulting, Nigeria’s leading creative intelligence firm with offices in Lagos and London.

He is credited with introducing branding as a discipline to Nigeria and has consulted on policy, politics and business at the highest levels locally and internationally.

He has consulted on policy the formulation for the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Federal Ministries of Information & Communication, Education, Foreign Affairs and Solid Minerals Development, among others.

He has also consulted on political strategy and communication campaigns at national and sub-national levels.

Leke Alder wrote the blueprint for Nigeria’s image management programme – the Heart of Africa project and was the Chief Consultant to the Federal Government on the project.

He was appointed by the Federal Government to the Board of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and was Chairman of the Board Tenders Committee as well as Chairman of the Communications Committee. 

He served on the Board for 4 years.

He was a member of the Steering Committee for the World Economic Forum on Africa, held in Nigeria and the Chairman, Sub-Committee on Media, Host Broadcasting & Advertising.

Leke Alder has been a member of the organising committee of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) and a Member of the Board of Trustees of Day Waterman College.

He has served as a panelist at the Annual Africa Business Conferences of Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School and Kellogg School of Management.

He was a speaker at the Financial ADFocus Conference, South Africa as well as Leadership Forum, Ghana.

He was a guest lecturer at the School of Media & Communications (SMC), Pan African University (now Pan Atlantic University) and guest speaker at the university’s Entrepreneurial Development School(EDS).

He was also guest speaker at conferences held by the Nigerian Bar Association and Women in Management & Business (WimBiz).

He has spoken at The Platform conference several times.

He is the author of several books and was the host of a weekly radio business programme, Minding Your Business with Leke Alder on 92.3 Inspiration FM, Lagos.

Leke Alder is a lawyer, polymath and philanthropist.

His photographs and furniture designs have raised millions of Naira for nine orphanages supported by his foundation – Leke Alder Foundation. The Foundation has impacted over one hundred and twenty lives.

He is a patriotic Nigerian who is married to Morenike and has two children: Olamide and Toluwani.

(I read about Leke Alder in 2009 when I was surfing the internet in preparation for my audit consulting business which never took off. My plans of meeting him were not successful until yesterday.

 

HIS SPEECH

"It is more impactful to tell stories for the purpose of teaching and mentoring and that is what I am going to tell you today.

'Nigeria is a predatory system where everyone is trying to bring you down: the economy, government policies, family, supposed friends and other factors but you must not give up.

'The gain is not now but in the future. It will come.

'Make money and scale. Do not spend earned money anyhow.

'Spend according to your earnings and from your profit.

'Do not compare your income with that of anyone.

'There can be no glory without trials.

'I went through trials before I got to where I am today.

'Some problems are peculiar to Nigeria.

'An example is envy.

'No business school is going to teach you about envy.

'As you are progressing up the ladder of success, those who never believed in you or who did not care about you or how you started will begin to envy you just for existing.

'You must learn how to deal with that.

'Do not marry someone who cannot manage your future.

'Marry right!"

(When Leke mentioned this, I screamed, "Yes o!" I must have looked stupid to my co-mentees but he who wears the shoes knows where they pinch.

'My ex-husband was my number one competition. He was always threatened by my successes).

"Once again, I say, 'Marry right!'

'I have been married twice.

'My first marriage lasted for twenty years.

'I did all that I could to save that marriage because I did not want to be a divorcee neither did I want to be seen as one or seen as a failure.

'I was depressed and I almost died in that marriage.

'In the end, I had to let it go because it threatened my peace of mind.

'I learnt that a man needs peace. Without peace, you cannot have a marriage.

'I remarried in 2012 to a wonderful woman and she has been of tremendous support to me and the Alder brand.

'Be meticulous in carrying out your services.

'Simply writing error-free content can get you to the top of your career.

'Let your market determine your faith. Provide goods and services that people want.

'No excuses!

'Have integrity!

'If you are smart, follow integrity. It will make you succeed in your business."

(I reiterate this on my wall all of the time. Integrity is key if you must succeed in business. Stop using false scales. Stop selling fake products as originals. Stop cheating people out of their hard-earned money).

"Integrity does not always have to do with money. It also has to do with keeping your word.

'There was a time that I was supposed to deliver training manuals to a company that I consulted for.

'This was during the early days of my consulting business.

'I was supposed to deliver the booklets the next day and a day before, there was no power supply at the printing press at Ṣómólú where the job was to be done.

'I decided to stay with the printer who did not have a generator so that once power was restored, my job would be the first to be printed.

'If I go home, another person's job would be done and I did not want that to happen.

'We decided to use the battery of my car to power the printing machine even though the result was slow but at least the job was getting done.

'After a while, power on the third street was restored. So, I suggested that we buy electric cables that could help tap power from the third street.

'As soon as that was done and we settled down to work, power on the third street went out and the power on the printing press street was restored.

'We quickly worked on the job to bring it to completion.

'Immediately after the job was completed, I went home, took my bath and set out to deliver the job to my client.

'I knew that I had already lost the profit on the job because of all the unforeseen expenses that I had incurred in completing it but I did not want to disappoint my client.

'In the morning, I delivered the job and never mentioned a word to my client about my troubles in bringing the job to completion."

LESSON LEARNT

1. Never give excuses.

2. There is no need to explain the troubles that you had to go through in bringing a job to completion.

"Having integrity will make people trust you.

'There was a time that the auditors of a bank listed my company as one of the defaulters.

'The auditors made public the names of other individuals and organizations excluding mine.

'They came to me privately and asked what the problem was because they knew that it was not in my character to default in such matters.

'I was able to make good the payment within six months.

'Be humble.

'Shortly after NYSC, a woman organized this kind of conference and invited my friends and I to attend it.

'I cajoled my friends to attend it but they said that they had better things to do.

'So, I attended the conference alone.

'Since that day, consulting had been ringing in my head but I did not know how to go about starting it because at that time, nobody was doing it.

'When I thought of starting out, people wondered how I would get paid for selling my knowledge.

'They laughed at me.

'So, I abandoned that idea and went on to become a lawyer.

'I worked my way up and almost got to the position of a SAN but I decided to quit because that was not my passion.

'I resigned and whilst still trying to discover what I really wanted to do, I became broke.

'Then I decided to start drawing, painting and designing greeting cards and picture frames.

'I sold my artworks from the boot of my car.

'The idea for the consulting business came back again and I decided to go for it.

'From the money that I made from selling my artwork, I decided to start my consulting business."

LESSON LEARNT

Your original talent may be a stepping stone for your real money-making talent.

The art and painting talent paved way for the branding and creative intelligence consulting which Leke started off with.

"This year, one of the friends whom I pleaded with to attend that conference asked me for money.

'He is not doing well financially.

'I had to oblige him because he is my friend.

'When I started out as a consultant, I was earning about N5,000, N10,000 then N20,000 then N100,000 until I started charging up to N75 million and above in Naira and foreign currencies.

To have a sustainable business, design an economic model for it.

No economic model, no business, no money.

So, I will leave you with these points:

1. INTEGRITY

2. MARRY RIGHT

3. PERSIST (Don't give up)

4. TRIALS WILL COME

5. DON'T BE STUPID (Don't pour kerosene on yourself and wait for your enemy to light the fire).

6. BE HUMBLE

7. DON'T HOLD ON TO ANYTHING IN LIFE (Flashy things do not last)

8. HELP AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN.

9. ENJOY YOUR LIFE.

10. IT NEVER ENDS (Spend at the level of your earning).

11. KNOW YOUR REAL FRIENDS (A friend is born for adversity).

12. DO NOT BE A CONTROL FREAK.

13. DO NOT FORGET THE GOD FACTOR IN YOUR SUCCESS.

Thank you.

(Leke Alder has made me to reconsider my stance on a second marriage.

I will try it one more time if I meet the right person.

Now, I am VERY PICKY but I am optimistic).

 

Musically yours,

DJ Irawo