Exceptional Female Role Models - Oluchi Ikechi

Oluchi Ikechi is a Managing Director and the Head of Business Restructuring & Innovation within the UKI Capital Markets business at Accenture.

Oli graduated with a first-class honours degree in Information Systems at Brunel University, and began her Accenture career back in 2007.

She sponsors Accenture’s African and Caribbean Financial Services Community, actively supporting those from diverse backgrounds and encouraging leadership development.

She supports this community outside of the workplace and previously was the Business Executive for a Nigerian non-profit organisation “ICSN” for young professionals. She secured annual admission for ICSN members on AMEX’s highly recognised leadership development programme.

She is now working with several major banks and professional services firms to create a joint mission and action plan to support, inspire and encourage attraction, retention and development of black professionals in the Financial Services sector.

An advocate for entrepreneurship, Oli mentors entrepreneurs and FinTechs and is pushing the campaign ‘think like an entrepreneur’ to inspire the next generation of leaders.

She was a Management Today ‘35 Women Under 35’ winner in 2019; selected as a 2019 winner for the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Black Women in Business Awards (BWBA). She was a Finalist for the 2020 Brunel Alumni of the Year Award, and was selected to speak by the Parliament Trust, in conjunction with the ‘300 years of Leadership and Innovation in the UK’ celebration at Westminster Abbey in 2021.

#ExceptionalFemaleRoleModels

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Can we start by understanding more about your background?

My parents emigrated from Nigeria - my Dad came to the UK on a scholarship to do a PhD in Maths and Engineering in the 1970s, my Mum lost both her parents and one of her younger sisters, and had to raise her surviving younger sister.

Determined to study, my Mum had an uncle who sponsored her to go to university in Paris. On a holiday to the UK she met my Dad, they soon got married and settled in Brixton in the early 80s.

My parents always told me that the colour of my skin meant I would need to put in more effort than other kids to succeed. I was taught from a very young age to work harder than my peers because I'd often be the only one who looks like me.

When I was 3 years old, my parents moved our family to Wimbledon – I was under strict instructions to not tell the neighbours we had come from Brixton! My parents were determined to find the best opportunities for their children to succeed, and they felt that moving out of a predominantly black area into a predominantly white area would open that door.

This strategy – combined with a hard work ethic when it came to studying – certainly worked, although it did mean me growing up wondering exactly where I fitted in. For the majority of my schooling I was the only black person in my class, and little things like whenever a supply teacher filled in for a class they would always stumble trying to pronounce my name, gave me an inferiority complex. Also though, I suddenly realised that I didn’t really fit in with my black friends anymore.

It was a challenging time in my life, but I threw myself into my studies and ended up going to Brunel University where I graduated with a first-class honours degree in Information Systems.

A big turning point in my life came when my father suddenly died in 2013. Having never known my grandparents, losing our family figurehead was a shock but it also awakened a connection to my family’s culture in Nigeria.

We had all these people coming to our family home on a daily basis for about six weeks, visiting every day, making sure we were okay - and I'm not talking about one or two people, but like 20 people - bringing food for us, caring for us, praying for us and I would hear all these stories that I didn't know about my Dad.

I just remember thinking, 'Damn. Now that's a legacy’.

I started contemplating my own legacy, and thinking if something unexpected happened to me, who's going to come around to my house and tell stories about the impact I had on them?

I decided to carry on my father’s legacy – I joined a non-profit youth organisation called the Igbo Cultural Support Network, and also managed to enlist American Express to sponsor our members to attend their global leadership training programme.

At the same time, I absorbed the language and history lessons the organisation offered. I started getting to know more people who come from the same background as me.

I also became part of the Accenture African Caribbean Network. I remember my first event and seeing the smiles on the faces of 40+ people assembled - all in deep discussion, sharing challenges they faced day to day. Things like being reluctant to bring food from home to work because it’s different, or avoiding afterwork drinks because they don’t drink alcohol, or being afraid to wear their hair in its natural form.

Hearing these people talk, I realised ‘Okay, this is not so much about me. It's about others and some people having that complex that I partly had when I was growing up’. I really wanted to try and help them.

I leveraged my platform within Accenture to support the wider black community by sponsoring the Accenture African Caribbean Network, and I started coaching Accenture staff on both sides of the Atlantic and learned that simply telling my story offered people greater hope.

I now believe that if you are not sharing your lived experiences – if you are not sharing your stories – you're doing a disservice. I don't say that lightly. It may be because you struggle to share a story, or it may be because you don't recognise that sharing something can really help somebody else. I definitely went through a period where I just didn't recognise it would be useful, but now I long for these moments. They give me a real sense of impact and purpose.

I now lead the Business Restructuring & Innovation business within United Kingdom & Ireland at Accenture, and am a recent Mum to a beautiful baby girl.

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What skills do you wish you had learned earlier in life?

Softer skills and mindset. I truly believe that the person who thinks they can, and the person who thinks that they cannot, are both right.

Personally, I believe that with hard work you can do anything you put your mind to. The skill of getting a knock or being told No, but then picking yourself straight back up is essential to develop early in life.

Walking into a group of people who do not look like you, but having the attitude of ‘I am going to be the first person that looks like me to be successful in this area’ – that kind of resilience is key.

I spend a lot of time coaching people around self-belief and self-confidence. When particularly young people lose hope or belief that they can achieve something it can become an excuse not to try, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy around ‘I won’t bother trying because it is never going to happen for me’. We need to control the self-limiting voices in our heads.

Your mindset will set you free to do a lot of things. For me, it's always about the goals. Being very clear on your goals is important - write a 5 year plan for yourself - and don’t forget to include a goal which seems slightly crazy and unattainable.

Then, there's also the massive aspect of being authentic and just being you. Know your story and write it down. Be entrepreneurial, take risks. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

For example, if you don't like presenting - talk more, write down your script, say it out loud to somebody else, do it in front of the mirror.

Sometimes you've got to get out of your comfort zone. Take a risk. It can be fun.

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What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Understand how others see you - meetings are where first impressions form. When I look at my diary, meetings are more important than all the other stuff I do. Those encounters become important, particularly if you're going for promotion, or if you are new.

You're trying to suss things out and people are sussing you out. People don't forget an encounter with someone who made an impact. Every time you meet someone, think, What's the purpose of this meeting? What are you asking for? How are you going to make that meeting effective?

Decide how you want to engage with others - we need our future leaders to think about their brand. Who are you? What's your identity? People are not just going to follow you because you've told them to.

What is it you represent? It's always important to know your brand within your company and also in the market. Why will people want to engage with you?

Also, find people who will advocate for you. You can get far by people helping you, but you really do need people talking about you when you are not in the room.

Write down a PR statement for yourself – What do you want people saying about you? What is the story you want people telling about you?

Then identify people that can help you and ask them directly for help. Ask for coaching and be specific about what you admire about them and where you feel they can add value to you. Build relationships with a network of mentors and coaches, and cultivate these into sponsors.

What is the biggest life lesson you have learned?

You will get out whatever you put in.

This might sound really simple, but when it comes to your studies, or your early career, or when you start going forward for promotions – expect to get out whatever you have put in.

I remember the first time I went forward for Partner promotion and missed out. I came home and told my husband, and he said to me ‘You need to do more!’…I was a bit taken aback, because I felt like I was already doing an awful lot.

But my husband and I have a relationship of brutal honesty and candour, and when he challenged me that he thought I was capable of doing more, I realised that it was actually a fair comment, and I did still have some capacity to raise my game.

The next year I did more, and wouldn’t you know I was successful in getting my Partner promotion.

How important are mentors, role models and sponsors in your opinion?

Role models are incredibly important to help create hope, especially if you are struggling with your mindset and are wondering whether your journey is possible and if your goal is attainable.

I also want to shine a light on the fact that role models don’t have to be a certain age and don’t have to be a certain level of seniority. For example, take a look at somebody like Greta Thunberg and tell me she isn’t a role model undertaking impactful leadership.

So look for mentors and get yourself some coaching, but in my opinion the single most useful thing you can have are sponsors – people who are prepared to advocate for you and talk about you in closed rooms. Advocacy trumps everything, focus on developing your network of sponsors.

When faced with challenges, what process or strategies have you developed for overcoming?

Firstly, I have had to learn how to stay calm in the face of challenge. In my work I am involved with a lot of mergers and acquisitions, so these are projects that are changing on a daily basis. I also work closely with our clients, and they can be unhappy with anything from a specific piece of delivery right through to a specific team member.

I’ve learned to stay calm, be pragmatic and also to dissect the issue at hand. My process starts by working to understand the issue – what exactly has happened? I also am mindful to make sure I have gathered all sides of the story before I make any kind of judgement.

Try asking questions and staying balanced.

As a leader, my final tip would be to always protect your team in times of adversity. Make sure their voices are heard, make sure you promote an environment where people feel it is safe to make mistakes. Being a great leader is about having their backs when times are tough and picking them back up when required.

What does success mean to you now?

Leaving a killer legacy.

For me this is all about impact. I think back again to my Dad and the impact he had on our family and on the community – all those people coming to the house to tell their stories of how he impacted them.

I want to have an impact on others in everything that I do. I want to be an impactful leader, I want my voice to be heard and the story I tell to help to change people’s lives – their vision of what is possible for themselves.