THE road to success was not rosy for
Ayodele Ogunsan. An astute entrepreneur
from a humble background, he gradually
rose to success in his entrepreneurial
pursuit, attributing the feat to hard work,
an inner passion and the determination to
succeed.
Ogunsan reveals to Sunday Sun how he
became successful in the automobile
business, higher education training travel
and tourism. Ogunsan asserts that he is
more passionate about impacting on lives
of people, not leaving out the vulnerable
in the society. In this interview, the
influential entrepreneur also has a
message for the Nigerian youth.
Could you tell us about your chain of
businesses?
I am the Chairman of Executive Group. It
is a group of companies comprising
Executive Motors Limited, Executive
Voyage and Logistics, Executive Trainers
and Executive Education Consulting
Limited. We are primarily into
automobiles sales and services with focus
on Peugeot brand. I am a renowned
higher education consultant, organizing
training for executives in higher
institutions. I collaborate with 14 business
schools across the globe. From 2008 till
date, I have been engaged in the training
and retraining of higher education
practitioners. I was privileged to know
God very early in life, as early as 1990,
and that has been helping me a lot. I’m
strongly and passionately driven to
achieve greatness. I am surprised as to
how far God has gone with me.
How did you come up with your different
firms and what vacuum are they filling in
the country’s economy?
My first job helped me a lot. I started as
a sales manager with a pure water and
bottled water production company. I was
the pioneer marketing manager of the
company. I am very passionate about
sales management. One day, I picked up a
newspaper and saw an advert for a job in
Kaduna by Peugeot Nigeria. Their sales
had started dwindling and they wanted
young guys to bring up their sales. I at-
tended the interview with over 6,000
others and after the exam, 80 people were
short-listed and then 64 for oral interview
and then the last 21. I was among the
most outstanding of the 21 and to the
glory of God, I was sent to France by
Peugeot and coming back, we were
attached to dealers. I worked with the
dealer I was attached to and rose to the
position of regional sales manager of the
company. I transformed the sales of the
company. In 2005, I decided to
incorporate my own business, because I
already had a wide coverage of clients
and that was how I started Executive
Motors. That was the beginning of the
transformation in my life because sales
was booming and I was doing very well.
Mine became a name to reckon with in
the automobile sector. During that time, I
was privileged to be on the entourage of
the late president Umaru Yar’Adua during
his first state visit to England. I don’t
know how they got my address, because I
was even abroad when the call came in
telling me I had been appointed by the
president to be on his entourage. I was
shocked and asked myself who was I
where all the big names were. That
encouraged me when I got there and I
was able to network. In 2008, I thought
of broadening my horizon so as to have
streams of income and that was how I
started Executive Trainers. I was at the
University of Coventry in England for a
training when I wondered whether we ever
had a school like this in terms of
structures, curricular, students diversity,
administration and the like. I came back
to Nigeria and investigated who was
doing a similar thing, training academics
and administrators of higher institutions
and connecting schools here with those
abroad. I discovered nobody was and all
people were doing was just general
training. I decided to tap into that. I told
a printer to design my first flier and that
grabbed the attention of most vice
chancellors, rectors and provosts in
Nigeria.
They all started calling me. Today, from
one Oxford Brookes University, we now
have 13 partner universities scattered all
around the globe. I run at least two
international programs every month. This
month, we are going to University of
Wolverhampton, UK and Harvard
University in the US. I started the training
for Nigerian institutions in Harvard four
years ago. The fourth edition is coming
up this year. Through my partner,
University of Wolverhampton in the UK,
the University of Maiduguri has been able
to have its entrepreneurial centre. Schools
abroad now donate books and technology
to Nigerian institutions. We can now have
a situation where students would start a
degree programme in a Nigerian
institution for two years and finish the
rest two years abroad.
They get two certificates. One from
Nigeria and the other from abroad. All
these are made possible by our linkages
and collaborations. Go to any higher
institution today in Nigeria and ask for
Executive Trainers, we are not two. For
me, I want to advance the course of
higher education in Nigeria and I am not
losing focus. The other business is the
travel agency, which came later. Virtually
all the travel agencies would line up here
to sell tickets to me to take people
abroad but I later saw that as a waste of
resources, I can always allow the money
flow with- in. That was how we started
our travels agency and to the glory to
God, we are breaking new grounds.
In what other areas do you empower
people, aside employing many Nigerians?
Most importantly, in employment
generation process, for 12 years now, I
have empowered a lot of people. I tell
anyone I employ that five years are
enough for them to vacate and start their
own business.
When the fifth year is approaching, I
support them in setting up their
companies and tell them to move. I tell
them to move on, because if they sat here
for too long, they’ll deprive others of the
opportunity to come in like they did. I
have em- powered many contractors who
supply us a lot of things. It has been a
very fantastic experience empowering
people. I also facilitate helping the less-
privileged. We have sorted out a lot of
people and we are still doing our best.
Doesn’t your chain of business- es feel
the economic crunch?
Virtually all my businesses are
international in their operations, so the
present economic situation is affecting
us. What keeps me going is courage. I
don’t walk by sight. I walk by faith. I
don’t complain, I just keep going. Similar
companies have folded up. What brought
me into business is not about profit
making but about touching lives and
impacting society. The exchange rate
keeps affecting all our businesses. The
recession is only an opportunity to think
out of the box and see how we can create
things locally so we can keep the funds
flowing within. I do more of local trainings
now and the Peugeot cars I sell are
locally assembled. So, I am coping.
Tell us about your background. Were you
born with a silver spoon in your mouth?
Oh! I had a very humble beginning. I come
from an extremely poor back- ground. I
grew up in the jungle. My parents helped
us by simply teaching us values even
when we had nothing. They managed and
struggled to train us. My parents were the
best gift God gave me. From SS1, I
already started organizing tutorials for my
colleagues and made some money to
finance myself in school. Those days, my
siblings would go to the abattoir to haul
beef for others. Those are days I don’t
like to remember. Oh my God! Thank God
my story has changed completely now.
Before my parents passed on, I was able
to prove to them that it is good they
trained us with the fear of God.
What core lessons can the younger
generation learn from your success story,
given your very humble background?
First, the youth of our generation should
learn to discover themselves. Don’t
compare yourself to others. In addition,
be passionate about that thing you love.
Be focused and resolute, because a lot of
people would distract you. I don’t copy
people. I evolve my own strategy. When I
read books or listen to tapes, I only get
to know lifestyles of others, but I evolve
my own strategies. Everything I have
done hasn’t been done by anyone else. It
can be very tasking. I met a great
Nigerian in Dubai and he asked me what I
was doing in Dubai .I told him I brought
about 26 professors to Dubai for training
.He screamed. This is a very big man. I
came in from that same point. It is
assumed that most professors are up
there but I came up with the strategy of
working with them.
Do you have any regrets?
Hmmm, none at all. I am happy I came in
through where I came in through. I am
glad that I was not born with a silver
spoon. I am happy I needed to go through
life the way I did. I don’t regret I’m
Nigerian. I have been able to make
Nigeria proud in several of my
international activities. Maybe I could
move on to be a politician one day so as
to impact that area too. I have no regrets
at all.
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