Tête-à-Tête: Yekemi Otaru



Hello everyone,

Today we bring an interview with Yekemi Otaru, powerhouse entrepreneur, author of The Smart Sceptic's Guide to Social Media in Organisations (Rethink Press, 2016) and the Managing Director of YO! Marketing®, a strategic marketing agency working with engineering, technology and advanced manufacturing companies.

Read more to learn about Yekemi's advice to young entrepreneurs and recommendations to marketers.
Excerpts from an email interview with Yekemi.

Sumedha: What led you to start your entrepreneurial journey?
Yekemi: I was fortunate in my early career to work in large corporate organisations. These organisations offered great training programs and exposure to interesting projects. However, I began to find that the corporate environment was quite risk-averse and limited in allowing employees try new ideas. And I had, and still have a lot of ideas. This is how I started to think about entrepreneurship.
Sumedha: Would you like to tell us briefly about YO! Marketing?
Yekemi: YO! Marketing is a strategic marketing consultancy that works with engineering, manufacturing and technology firms. We focus on building and executing marketing strategies that nurture our clients’ product performance in target markets. This includes customer and market research, digital marketing and marketing automation technology.

Sumedha: How do you see YO! Marketing solving challenges faced by marketers today?
Yekemi: I think marketers have several challenges but one challenge that YO! Marketing aims to solve is helping marketing to be focused on those activities that actually impact business growth. This is often not easy to identify. There’s a lot that could distract marketers. I suppose because of our engineering background, YO! Marketing provides logical, cut-the-fluff marketing.

Sumedha: What would your advice be to young women entrepreneurs?
Yekemi: I always say follow your passion. Back in 1997 when I left university, there wasn’t the level of support there is now for young women in business. But now is a great time in history to just go for it. Get a mentor to guide your efforts, and a role model that you can aspire to. Hunger to learn and don’t be afraid to fail. The best companies went through a period of failure before becoming a success e.g. Airbnb, Virgin, Apple.

Sumedha: What would your recommendations be for young marketers in India?
Yekemi: India is growing market with just under 3% of adult entrepreneurs reported last year by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). This percentage is higher than several Western countries e.g. France (1.7%), Germany (2.3%), Russia (2.4%). There is a lot of potential and entrepreneurial drive that could make the world of marketing a better place. My recommendation would be that young marketers in India should look for solutions to local challenges. Are there big ideas out there that you could localise and make more relevant to the Indian market? Learn from the world, then amend for your world.





View Yekemi's profile on Linked here
Learn more about YO! Marketing® here

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