The foundation steps to empower business community is through education. Be it modern pedagogy, business wisdom or consultation support to corporate professionals, the best roadmap to seed growth amongst the community is facilitating a platform that helps professionals to seek expert training and get the reshape business acumen.
Following the same thought, the Founder and Lead Consultant of Pezu Smith Consulting, Nancy Ekpezu took modest steps and measures and soon dived into the administrative area herself and has become a leading face in this sphere enrooting the chasm of management and administration.
With a desire to lead more than 100 employees with a collaboration of schools, she manages to organize with the management for the forthcoming organizations. Accompanied with excellence, ethics in an ethical manner to keep it as real as it gets.
Let’s go through her journey and throw light on their highlights below
Please let us know about the saga story of your career since its beginning.
Pezu Smith Consulting was established primarily to address the gap in school administration and management in schools in West Africa. I have been a school administrator in four reputable schools and each position that I held, I was surprised at how much it is needed to be done because of my predecessors didn’t do few things.
I had my first school administrator job position in 2005, after teaching for 11 years. I have been in the education sector since 1994 when I graduated from university.
During my career, I began to see the need to share knowledge and train upcoming school administrators and those who wanted to upskill. This is because I had an intense desire to see schools and other organizations perform smoothly with proper structure, policies, and processes.
I realized that a lot of people were getting into school administration and management positions without the requisite skills, qualifications, or exposure to the right knowledge.
So, this prompted me to start a Facebook group Educational Administration Network, where I shared knowledge on school and workplace administration and management. The group has grown to over 15,000 members and has made a huge impact in the practice of school administration, even though there is still a lot to be done. Now, it has blossomed into a thriving business.
Tell us about the mission, vision, and core values for your future success.
The vision of my organization, Pezu Smith Consulting is to be the foremost organization in West Africa providing top quality affordable administrative and management solutions to individuals, schools and other organizations.
Our mission is to provide quality training, coaching, mentoring programs, and books for administrative and management professionals, that equip them to function effectively.
Our Core values are professionalism, excellent customer service, integrity, and ethics.
Being a prominent leader, how do you manage to influence others?
Being a thought leader in education administration has been enhanced using technology and the Internet and social media platforms specifically. I share content regularly on my Facebook group and pages, email list, blog, YouTube channel, and LinkedIn. So, people find me on these platforms. I have also been a guest on many television and radio programs on an invitation to share my thoughts on issues around school administration and management.
During your journey what challenges did you come across and how did you overcome them?
I have had many challenges during my career journey. Chief of these was the lack of relevant resources and materials for professional development when I started as a school administrator. I made frantic efforts to look for materials.
This is the reason I have written several books addressing issues in school administration, boarding house administration, and for educators to develop themselves. I also encountered a lot of office politics as a school administrator. I had to learn to navigate the terrains while maintaining my professionalism and ethics.
Do you provide any global exposure in your institute?
Yes, I provide global exposure to my organization Pezu Smith Consulting. People from various countries have visited my website, and I have been invited to speak at various international conferences and summits.
What are the major factors that keep motivating you towards your goal and how do you inspire students for selecting an interesting career for their bright future?
The major factor that keeps me inspired on my goal is to see that every school I encounter operates effectively and efficiently with a good structure, processes, and procedures. And that they remain sustainable.
Which activities do you conduct in your institute to maintain maximum student engagement?
My organization has a mentoring platform for school administrators and managers, and we keep it engaging.
How do you feel when you get to know that others are following your footsteps and what else do you do so that people keep following you?
I feel encouraged to do more whenever I get to know that others are following me or my footsteps.
Being an inspiring leader, what would be your message to students across the world?
My message would be: Students, you are blessed to be in this age when all the resources you need to be whoever you desire to be is right at your disposal. Do not allow distractions or the wrong company to rob you of a great future. Utilize the internet to the best of your ability to explore opportunities.
What do you envision for your institute/organization and you also?
I envision Pezu Smith Consulting to train and mentor school administrators and managers all over Africa and beyond. And seeing more and more schools transformed by the services that we provide. I’d also love to see the organization go on after I as the founder have passed on.