EP Insights & Action

INSIGHTS KAJOLA
A journey of
transformation
Olubunmi Okolosi, founder of Kajola
explains the process that has led to the
launch of a new consultancy.
Building a company from a love of the industry.
If someone asked was it your aim or dream
to start your own business I would have
always answered NO. My ambition wasn’t
ever to own my own business, I just wanted
to be respected by my peers. It was about
eight years ago when the penny began to drop
and I began to understand my value and how
I felt undervalued.
There is nothing wrong with taking home
a salary and working what your contracted to
do, I however never worked in that way. Since
the age of fifteen when I knew I wanted to
be a chef I was always the kid that put in that
little bit more – I’d come in early, often just
for the thrill of it, I would stay an extra hour
no worries. As I made my way up the career
ladder, I put in more with the thirst to learn
and understand more about the key driving
forces of hospitality.
Hospitality is my love and as I began
as this skinny black kid down in rural
Hampshire my boundless energy and
enthusiasm drove that desire to grow. Along
my path to where I sit today (Amsterdam at
the desk with my daughter playing next to
me) I’ve had some incredible role models
– from Whitbread pub operators, Hilton
hotel restaurant managers, to leading Chefs
like Ashley Palmer-Watts, Virgilio Martinez
and Brad McDonald to energetic founders
of businesses like James Walters and Peter
Prescott and legendary college faculty heads
like Gerry Shurman.
All have taught me lessons along this
incredible journey but what I’ve realised now
is I’m tasked to take the next step and at first
I couldn’t figure out how. I’ve now come to a
stage where I’ve completed a very corporate
European group director role which made
me realise that to take the next steps I must
transform myself. The biggest answer I had
to find whilst pondering this was how do I
do that? This role made me move from UK
Since the age of fifteen
when I knew I wanted
to be a chef I was always
the kid that put in that
little bit more.
to mainland Europe at the time when the
UK started to ask the question of BREXIT.
Doing this role made me understand the
battle of mind-set – corporate governance
vs entrepreneurship, tradition vs innovation
and being a conformist vs a disruptor.
In the end, I set about ferociously reading
about philosophy’s, management styles,
leadership and entrepreneurship. I contacted
the CMI, IC and countless other institutes
to understand what I could learn and they’re
offering. I took in brilliant articles like
‘The Busier you are the more you need
quiet time’ by Justin Talbot-Zorn and Leigh
Marz, hbr.org and ‘Creating a Latticework
of Mental Models: An Introduction’ by
farnamstreetblog.com. The article that
really hit home was ‘The Talent Curse’ by
Jennifer Petriglieri and Gianpiero Petriglieri
published in The Harvard Business Review
– The Curse of being labelled a Star. After
that a reoccurring thing came back and
that was at the top you become more and
more isolated and so I set myself a target
to complete a personal development plan
with the aim of not being old school and
isolationist but new school and connecting.
I completed a personal analysis, outlined
some clear goals and added some personal
objectives. Muted goes the volume of an
operator and I increase the innovative to
bring balance to my perspective. I’m now
at the final stage of bringing together a
ten-point philosophy that I’ve already
spent five months chewing over and it’s
underpinned by all the experiences I’ve
had but is modernity personified, as that is
me. What I’ve realised on this journey to
transformation is that my thinking is not
a conformist but more disruptor. I’m part
of a new school of thinking and I’m about
to launch my international hospitality and
restaurant consultancy called Kajola.
epmagazine.co.uk | 45