From newsrooms to global leadership, Toyosi Ogunseye is dedicated to empowering next-generation leaders. Join Kate Byrne as she speaks with Toyosi, President & CEO of the Presidential Precinct, about her remarkable path from biochemistry to award-winning journalism and global leadership. Toyosi shares powerful insights on building next-generation leaders through media, mentorship, and self-belief, drawing from her experiences leading newsrooms, navigating complex global markets, and empowering future leaders at the Presidential Precinct. Discover how she’s using her platform to inspire and equip the next generation to create positive change in the world.
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Leading The Future: Bridging Media And Next-Generation Leaders With Presidential Precinct CEO And Former BBC Executive, Toyosi Ogunseye
We’re going to be speaking with Toyosi Ogunseye. She’s the CEO of Presidential Precinct, which is a nonprofit here in the Virginia area that takes a number of cohorts from the African continent each year and educates them on how to become better leaders. Some are civic leaders. Some are legal leaders. Some are entrepreneurs. It’s an extraordinary program that has amazing results. It was initially started by President Obama along with James Madison’s Montpelier, James Monroe, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundations. Honestly, it’s extraordinary.
Toyosi’s story is amazing for a lot of different reasons, primarily because you can imagine starting off as a wannabe surgeon and then ending up running the African BBC from London. That’s one of the many amazing things that she’s done. There are so many pearls of wisdom. My favorite is, “A closed mouth is a closed destiny.” What exactly does she mean by that? You have to read to find out, and you’ll be glad you did.
Toyosi Ogunseye, CEO of Presidential Precinct, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me.
One of the reasons why I’m so excited is because you have been both in the media realm, and then you shifted over to, frankly, the social impact realm. I’ve got another person who’s done it. I’ve done it but not quite to the extent that you have, so I am looking forward to knowing how all those various steps came about. You took it one step further. You went into an entirely different country. There’s chockablock to dive into.
The Non-Linear Path To Success: Navigating Career Journeys
People always assume when we’re getting our start, or at least the younger generation, “It’s so linear. It was this after this.” In my experience, especially in these conversations, maybe there are a few people who have had that but it’s usually pretty rare. Share a little bit about your path, your journey, and how you got to where you are.
Thank you so much. I’m so delighted to have this conversation with you. Even if you look at life, life isn’t linear. Nothing is linear. Most people don’t even know that my first degree was in Biochemistry and the plan was to study surgery. If I didn’t end up as a journalist, I would have ended up as a surgeon. It’s something I still love. I wish I could go back to medical school on the side and still become a doctor. That was the plan. It was to study biochemistry for my first degree, go to the school of surgery, and become a surgeon. That was it.
Life isn't linear. Nothing is really linear. Share on XIn my second year at university, I talked to my best friend, and we talked about our passions. I loved to write. I still love to write. She said, “You love to write. Why not start writing commercially or publicly, developing your passion beyond being a hobby?” I said, “Okay.” It was my nineteenth birthday and I walked into the biggest tabloid newspaper in my country called The Sun. I introduced myself to the editor and said, “My name is Toyosi. I’m a nineteen-year-old undergraduate at the University of Lagos, and I’d like to write for you.” This man looks up at me and says, “What did you say your name was again? From where?”
I introduced myself all over again and he said, “What experience do you have that qualifies you to be a journalist in my newsroom?” I gave him this big journal. I had this big journal where I used to write my poems and my articles. I gave it to him and he laughed and said, “That’s not what I want. Have you written stories before?” I said, “I haven’t, but I can.” He said, “Okay.” It was a Tuesday many years ago. I remember it so well. He said to me, “Go back to your campus and bring me two stories by Friday.” I went back to my campus and brought him three stories by Thursday.
That Thursday, I was talking to him when the crime editor walked into his office and said, “News editor, do you have extra crime stories on your table? I’m short two stories and I need to close the crime page.” He turns around, looks at me, and says, “I don’t have extra stories on my table, but this young woman has come from the University of Lagos and she has three crime stories with her.” The crime editor takes the stories, looks at them, and says, “Did you write this yourself?” I said, “Yes.” He says, “Thank you. These are the stories that are going into the crime section tomorrow.” That was how I started my career as a journalist.
Talk about serendipity to all the things.
Did I finish Biochemistry? Yes, I did. I finished Biochemistry, but by the time I finished Biochemistry, I realized, “Maybe I need to spend more time with journalism before I go back to medicine and surgery.” I spent too much time doing journalism and said, “Bye, surgery. Bye, medicine. I’m going to stick with journalism.” I did journalism for about twenty years until 2023.
Do you know what’s fascinating about that? I was moderating a panel and we were talking about women, financial fluency, prowess, founders, and whether people are afraid to be founders and people are thinking, “I can’t do it because I don’t have the skills.” The truth is we have more skills than we know that we do. Oftentimes, it’s called something else in a different genre. In my mind, I automatically went to surgery, biochemistry, and all that.
It’s an investigation, number one. It’s analysis. It’s the ability to ask questions. It’s being meticulous. It’s empathy. It’s critical thinking. As a biochemistry undergrad, it is spending so many hours in the lab. My thesis as an undergraduate was trying to cure diabetic albino rats with yogurt. That was my thesis. In fact, my supervisor told me at that time, “If you keep the path and you stay the course, you might find the cure to diabetes one day,” because I was so keen to reverse this.
I made the rats diabetic. That’s the first thing. I got these albino rats in the lab and made them diabetic. My whole investigation was to see the effect of yogurt on diabetes. Feeding these diabetic rats a yogurt protocol will reduce their blood sugar. My supervisor at university was so excited about my project and he said, “Why don’t you keep at this? Take this to your Master’s level. Take this to your PhD level. Maybe one day, you’ll be the one to find the cure for diabetes in the world.” Back to your point, it’s the ability to ask questions. That’s what science is about. There’s very little difference between science and journalism because it’s asking critical questions.
It’s curiosity, determination, and wanting to get to the bottom of the root cause of how this happened.
I’m a scientist.
I love that. I can’t wait to see what happens. Steve Jobs, back in 2005, gave a famous speech at Stanford’s graduation.
That speech is in my office printed out on the board in my office.
I love that speech. It’s so true. That one piece about what’s going to be your crucial dot, that piece ties it all. I guarantee you, it’s going to come back. Surgery is going to come back somehow.
It will come back somehow.
Essential Skills For Career Growth: How To Navigate New Challenges
I can’t wait. You alluded to it already, but what skills would you say that you relied on? You’re 19, you get this job, and then you stay. What happened next? What skills did you rely on?
I loved it too much. I had a fantastic boss. When you start your career, your first boss matters. Whoever you walk with first is likely to determine how far you can go. I had an amazing boss and I loved it. It was encouraging. Talking about skills, the first thing is to do what you love. I know that sounds very cliche, but it’s the truth. Do what you love. I loved it so much and it wasn’t like work for me. Perhaps that was why I excelled at it so much because I loved it. Do what you love. I was doing what I loved.
The second thing is do it as well as you can do it as well as you can. There is room for excellence. There’s a difference between excellence and perfection. I was doing what I loved, and I was doing it with as much excellence as I could muster. I also recognize the people around me who could help me. I strongly believe that excellence attracts excellence. I was a young nineteen-year-old in the newsroom still going to school studying biochemistry but all my editors who were excellent and all the most senior journalists in the newsroom, we gravitated towards one another.
It is true. Excellence and perfection are very different. I love the notion of mastering excellence. I love that phrase.
Mastering excellence is about consistency. That’s it. You do it over and over. It’s like anything. Even when we’re cooking, you can see that the more you cook something, you get better at it. The more you drive, you get better driving. It’s about consistency. You have to do it over and over again and you keep getting better.
Excellence is about consistency. You do it over and over again, and you'll keep getting better. Share on XYou get more efficient. You also get more influential and impactful.
You get more confident even with the way you carry yourself. Everything is intertwined, the skill, the confidence, and the fluency. When you get better, people are saying you’re getting better. When you’re winning awards, they’re telling you’re getting better. It boosts your self-esteem. It boosts your self-confidence. It opens more doors to you. Everything is pushing you further in the excellence part.
What were some of the shifts that took place? After you got this first job, then what came next? I know you did a couple of different things.
My first job was at The Sun newspaper as a crime reporter. I was a crime reporter for about ten years. I did crime reporting.
Was that hard?
It’s hard. It’s very male-dominated, it’s long hours, and it’s impromptu, but this was a nineteen-year-old girl who had no worries in the world. I was in control of my time. If I wasn’t in school or in the lab looking after my diabetic rats or studying organic and inorganic chemistry, I had every time to myself. I worked closely with the police. It was hard but it was fun. I did crime reporting. It wasn’t structured so I could be in school on campus when I’d get a call from the head of homicide saying, “We’ve cracked this case and I want you to be the first person to report it.” With journalism, you also are leveraging exclusivity.
We’re going to talk about how all of this has translated into further roles because a good journalist is able to maintain contact, is able to service those contacts, and is able to make them rely and confide in you knowing that you are going to keep them anonymous. It’s about building relationships. The more relationships you have, the better the script and the more exclusives. Along the line, honestly, a lot of my sources were intrigued by this nineteen-year-old girl.
I’m sure they were. They’re thinking, “Who is she? I want to see her.”
They were intrigued because every other crime reporter in my country at that point was maybe twenty years older than I was and there was this young girl, jumping all over the place looking for exclusives. They were curious and were like, “We’re going to help her. She’s so young.”
They probably loved the spirit and the gumption you had. It reinvigorated them.
All the police officers and the immigration and anti-corruption agencies had my number. When there’s a big story breaking, they’ll call me to say, “We made this arrest. Do you want to be the first to come?” I’m like, “I’ll be there in a jiffy. I’ll write the story.” Bear in mind that many years ago, the internet that we have now wasn’t as it was then. Think about how complex it was then. It wasn’t like I could write stories on my phone. You had to write on paper and give it to the lady in the office who would type it out for you.
I amassed so many contacts. There were so many people who loved helping me. I ended up becoming my country’s most popular crime reporter. In my country, one ended up winning the most awards. I did that for a bit and moved to another newspaper called News Star as a senior investigative reporter. I worked on News Star for a bit and moved to Punch Newspaper, which is Nigeria’s biggest daily newspaper.
As a senior editor, I rose through the ranks, became a news editor, and became the 1st editor in my paper’s 45-year history. This was when I was 29. The only thing I didn’t win was a Pulitzer because my country didn’t qualify as a place where you could enter for a Pulitzer, an American prize, but I won everything outside of a Pulitzer.
There’s still time. I’m rooting for you. I will not be surprised when I read about this. Keep going.
Thank you. I did that, and at the age of 35, I had edited the newspaper for about 6 years. Here’s the thing. That was the most senior editor job in my country. Nigeria is a country of over 200 million people. When you become the editor of the Punch, there’s nothing else to do after that.
You’ve done it. You’ve reached the mountaintop.
You’ve done everything. You had to add two options, go into government because that’s usually the path and become the spokesman to the president or start my own newspaper. Those were the options. Honestly, there was no other job other than to work on newspaper. Here I was, 35 years old or 34 years old, and I said, “I don’t want to be the spokesman of anybody. If this is the highest job in my country, then it’s time to look outside of Nigeria.”
In retrospect, should I have started my own newspaper? Should I have started my own platform? Maybe. One day, I was in my office. It was a Monday. I was driving to work when I got a call from a UK number. The person introduces herself and says, “My name is XYZ from the BBC. We are looking for the head of the West African region. We’ve done the search twice and we haven’t found somebody, but your name keeps coming up. However, we’ve been told that you will not leave Punch. If you want to consider this, we would like to get you to apply for the job. The third application process is closing today.”
I’m not going to mention her name. She was head of talent for the BBC. I said to her, “I’m sorry. My Monday is busy. It’s a busy day for me. I can’t apply today.” She said, “Send me your CV and I’ll put in your application.” I sent her my CV and she put in my application. This is a complete stranger. I have never met her before in my life. She put it in my application, and a week later, I got an email saying, “Could you please come to the UK for your first interview?” Long story short, that was how I got the job as Head of Western Africa for the BBC and I left the Punch.
Your story reads like some sort of spiritual novel where manifestation came about.
I think about these things, and it’s apparent that there is a superpower behind all of them because of the way things are happening. That is why even when I get worried about the future, I’m like, “You’ll be fine.”
From Reporter To Editor: The Transition Between Roles
It’s always worked out. They always say the quickest way to make God laugh is to tell Him how it’s going to work out. I’m like, “Yeah.” The truth is, so often, my experience has been when I haven’t gotten what I thought I was supposed to get, something more spectacular comes around. If you had told me I was going to ever get that, as is your case, I’m sure I’d be like, “There’s no way.” I have a question for you going from reporter to editor. Those require different skills. I know that by not having a media background myself. How was that for you?
Even as an editor, I was still reporting because once you’re a reporter, you’ll keep reporting. I also understood that I needed bigger responsibilities to manage other people to rise in my career. I suppose you have to be clear about what you want. There are some people who want to be on the field forever, and that is fine. However, the challenge with being on the field is you’re not likely to become a newsroom leader.
I wanted the best of both worlds. The deal I struck with my directors then was, “I’ll edit, but I’ll write from time to time.” They were like, “Do whatever as long as you edit.” I understood that if I stayed on the field, I would never rise in my career beyond being on the field, so it was a win-win for me. The good thing was my editing didn’t stop my fieldwork.
Back to your question, I’m the first child of my parents. I’ve learned a lot about management. I have loads of cousins who are younger than me, so I’ve always been the mom of the house. Bringing all those skills to the newsroom, when people respect you, makes it easy for you to lead. People knew what my output was even though I was the youngest in the newsroom and even though I was being asked to manage all those people who were in their 50s and in their 60s as maybe a 24-year-old girl or 27-year-old girl.
Since they had seen my output over the years, they couldn’t dispute my professionalism. They couldn’t dispute the fact that I knew my job. They also were senior editors who were supporting me and who believed in me. It’s a combination of being good at your job, getting people to respect that output, having people supporting you, and also believing in yourself.
I was going to say tremendous street cred. You’ve done it. You’ve got the output, but then, walking in with all of that, I could see how some would be nervous, upset, and jealous.
Quite a lot.
All of a sudden, if they were to shift and think, “If she was able to do this, what could she teach me?” That’s humility.
That’s the difference between leaders and followers most of the time, or should I say that is the difference between excellent people and other people. It’s being able to put your emotions aside. You can’t help your feelings most of the time. We’re human beings. We’ll always fail. It’s asking yourself, “Is my feeling aligned with my purpose?” Sometimes, your feeling aligns with your purpose but most of the time, it doesn’t. It is that maturity to understand, “Even though I feel this way, I’m going to sit on this feeling and go with my purpose.” That is hard work.
Did you call upon that quite a bit when you moved up to London? Did you run the BBC from London?
Yes. My first job was head of West Africa, and that entailed all of West Africa, including Anglophone Africa. I had two briefs on that job. The first one was to keep us in difficult markets. The BBC was having a tough time approaching into market because governments didn’t want us there. My job was to ensure we stayed there. It was loads of negotiations with the government, loads of strategy with governments, and loads of going to courts and defending the BBC. My second brief was expanding the BBC’s audiences on the West African continent. I did that for about three years.
There was a big reshuffle in the BBC in the UK. The directors were given a task in the UK. It was called the sponsorship pathway program. All directors were to pick one person in senior management that they ought to become a director of the BBC and maybe even the DG of the BBC in the future and support that person. My directors picked me. To do that, I needed to move to the UK permanently.
My former job with the BBC was all West African continent. I spent three months in Nigeria because Nigeria was the BBC’s biggest African market and spent three months in Senegal. That was my Francophone base. It was huge. All my French operations went out from Senegal and DRC Congo. I then spent another three months in the UK because all my TV teams were in the UK.
For 3 or 4 years with the BBC, I wasn’t in a place for more than 3 months, but then I moved permanently to the UK through the sponsorship pathway for senior managers. That was the pathway to becoming a director in the BBC. That job in the BBC was looking after our breakfast program and looking after a podcast for young people on the African continent. I did that for about two years, and in 2022, I said to myself I wanted to do something else.
Before we jump to the Presidential Precinct, I’ve got to ask. You all oversaw TV plus radio, right?
Absolutely.
Did you find that to be very different or were those so similar? As a magazine person, which has always been what I’ve been, it is that and the web. I never worked in radio. I did a minute in newspaper. I always thought broadcast was broadcast, and I’m sure that’s not true.
That’s not true.
I knew it.
TV is very different from radio. It’s different from digital. The good thing was I had editors looking after all of this. Even though I was the head of the region, there was a head of TV. Those teams were not reporting to me directly. They had all the editors reporting to me. My job in the morning was to ask one question, “What are audiences talking about today? What are audiences interested in today? What is the data?” We had all the software tools. I ask, “What’s the data telling us? What’s the software telling us about what people want to know today?” What people want to know in India is different from what people want in the United States. It’s different from what people want in Senegal.
My job every morning is to go through all this data. I was receiving as early as 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM and giving editorial direction to my team and saying, We’re doing this with this morning. Eighty percent of women in Arizona are searching this topic this morning. You need to give them a story backing up that search. Seventy-five percent of young people in Ghana are researching this this morning. I need to give them the answer to that question. In Northern Africa this morning, this name is trending. Respond to that.” It was editorial direction. Once I gave the editorial direction, all the editors went back to their teams and started.
Throughout the day, you are checking the chats and the software. What are the results? What are people reading? What questions are they asking? What line are they staying on? That was half of my job. The second half of my job was, “We have a big problem in DRC, Congo. Our TV licenses are in jeopardy. I need to go into DRC Congo, talk to the minister of information there, and negotiate this deal to keep us in DRC Congo.” It was both editorial direction and keeping us in a volatile market.
Tons of variety and lots of different aspects to keep your brain clicking. You are learning so much.
The biggest learning is how to work with people.
Also, different personalities, different generations, and different cultures. Part of the biggest issue that we’ve got going on is the generational and then essentially the distributed workforce. It’s great. I understand it. If you thought, “Everyone has to suck it up because I said so. You’re going to do it,” those those were gone a long time ago.
It’s not going to work. One of the things I also learned was the hat of negotiation and how to negotiate well. It was a skill I had to learn very quickly.
Exploring The Mission Of Presidential Precinct: Impact And Purpose
2022 arrives and you decide, “I want something different.”
I was exhausted.
Understandably.
In 2022, I had worked nonstop for about 18 years or 19 years and I was tired. I was exhausted. I don’t even want to go into all the details. I thought to myself, “You’ve done everything a journalist can do in their career and you’ve risen through the ranks. You’ve held the most senior position in your country in Nigeria and came to the UK.” At that point in the UK, I was arguably the most senior African woman on the BBC. If I had stayed the course, maybe I’d have been the first Black Director General of the BBC in the future.
At that point, I was exhausted and I wanted to do something else in my life. I said, “What I would like to do is apply to a non-journalism job where I’ll still get to use all my soft skills that amassed and do something.” The second motivation for that is I strongly believe that I have so many parts to me. Even though I enjoyed journalism, that’s not the only thing there is to me. I wanted to explore other parts there was to me.
I thought it was time to reinvent myself because what everybody knew about me at that point was, “Toyosi is a journalist and a newsroom leader. She would go to Parliament and ask for more money from the UK parliament to do journalism on the continent.” It was two things. I was tired and exhausted but I also wanted to reinvent myself. That’s part of the journey to the Presidential Precinct.
It takes courage for one to do it, but then to do it and move yet again to the West no less. What a fascinating time post-COVID amidst everything. That has only gotten even bigger. How did you find out about the Presidential Precinct? Why don’t you share with folks a little bit about the mission of the Presidential Precinct? It’s a fabulous organization.
Several years ago, I’d come to the Presidential Precinct on a leadership program. I still remember I was in my newsroom. I was editor then of the Punch Newspaper. As the editor of the newspaper, it didn’t matter where you were in the world. You followed all the social media pages of government. You follow the White House. You follow the UK Parliament. You follow everybody.
On my Facebook page, I used to follow the White House. There’s a video when President Barack Obama came online and said, “My name is President Barack Obama and I’m announcing the Young African Leaders Initiative. If you’re an African leader between the ages of 25 to 35, I’m looking for you. I want to bring you into the United States to support you to become a better leader.” I was like, “What’s this about?” I looked at it, I qualified, and I applied for the program. It’s called the Mandela Washington Fellowship Program. I applied for it and I was selected. That brought me to the Presidential Precinct for the first time years ago.
That’s crazy.
What is the Presidential Precinct? The Presidential Precinct is a five-member consortium. It’s made up of the University of Virginia, William & Mary, Montpelier, Monticello, and Highland. Those are the homes of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Those five organizations all sit on the board of the Presidential Precinct.
What the Precinct does is work with partners like the US government as a state department to help international leaders develop ideas around the rule of law, democracy, social justice, economic empowerment, and civil justice. We’re a soft-part diplomacy think tank looking for young leaders from everywhere, whether in Africa, Southeast Asia, or Latin America. We look for young leaders and what we do is invest in them to become better leaders in their countries. We do that through exchange programs. Every month, we have all kinds of exchange programs for all categories of leaders.
When they come to us, I ask two questions. My first question is, “Who are you?” When I mean with, “Who are you?” is not just about your name. It’s your journey. I want to understand your journey. My second question is, “What do you do in your country? How can I help you do better?” My job is to match those leaders with all the resources in the Presidential Precinct vote, give it to them, and equip them to go back to their countries to become better leaders. That’s what the Precinct does. It’s what we’ve done for over a decade. We’ve impacted thousands of leaders from all over the world to become better leaders.
That’s fantastic. The alumni, do they gather often?
Absolutely. One of the biggest things I’ve been thinking about since I went on this job because we have thousands of alumni all over the world is how to bring us together and organize that as an intentional and proactive community. You’re going to be seeing more of that in 2025. We’re thinking about things like, even if it’s a virtual summit, bringing us together and looking for opportunities for alums or members of our alum community.
I closed a program for twenty international Supreme Court judges. It was called the Judicial Fellowship Programme, and we had 25% of the Ukrainian Supreme Court on that program. We had the head of the Supreme Court in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. What the Precinct does so well is the ability to identify the right people and bring them together to begin to challenge one another. It’s community building. It’s as simple as that.
These are people who would never have met one another. That’s the other thing. It’s bringing complete strangers who are doing the same thing in different parts of the world who would never have met one another, identify them, put them together for two weeks, and say, “How can you support one another now and in the future? I’ll give you the resources, but more importantly, how can you challenge yourselves?”
It’s interesting because the thing with having like-minded people is right from the airport, they meet one another. There’s an instant connection because they have the same ideals and same values. They respect one another. They become best friends in two weeks. They’re saying, “What’s going on in your country? How can I help you?” The strength is building a community of like-minded individuals that would inspire them to go back to their countries reinvigorated to do better for their people.
The strength is beauty in a community, like-minded individuals that would inspire them to go back to their countries, reinvigorated to do better for their people. Share on XThat is amazing. The thing that is probably fantastic is that it does this great work. Are there others like it?
Not like the Precinct. That is why my job for the next year is to go out and get the Precinct in as many people as possible and scale that. There is no other consortium like ours in the United States of America, which is 2 universities and 3 presidential sites. We are the only ones. A few universities will do exchange programs, but the Precinct is a consortium that does this in the order of the United States of America.
That is amazing. Also, university exchange programs are a whole different kettle of wax. It is a very different situation altogether. I can’t wait to hear how this goes on because it’s such a smart way. Up to this point, it’s a little stealthy so people don’t get in your business and you can get it done.
That’s the strength. It’s very stealthy. They see the result but they don’t see what’s behind the result.
Nothing to see here behind the curtain, but look at that. That’s the thing that’s so great. I got chills, which is exciting.
Thank you.
The Power Of Female Engagement In Journalism: Why Women Drive Success
I’ve been fortunate enough to get to go to see and meet some of the different leaders that you posted, which have been lovely. I was very impressed with the entrepreneurs. I loved seeing a number of women in both cohorts, both the civic leaders but also the other.
It’s a no-brainer. When I was at the BBC, there was a metric we used for performance, and that was female engagement. I’ll tell you something. Every story that had a high percentage of female engagement would do well because women share. It’s as simple as that. If a woman likes something, she’s telling everybody about it.
I agree.
When a woman thinks something is nice, she’s telling her friends. She’s like, “Do you know I got this? Do you know I read that?” She’s telling her friends, her kids, and her neighbors. We are sharing people. If you want to know how well your story is going to be shown on the BBC, you need to look at the female engagement. If that story had a high female engagement, that story would go viral.
It would take off.
It was as sheer as the morning sun, honestly. I know that because for years, I’ve worked in newsrooms working on statistics, measuring rates, measuring time, and measuring how women engage, how men engage, and how people below eighteen engage. I’ve spent years doing this. I know that if you want something to do well, you need to bring the women in.
That’s the chemistry of journalism, in essence, in a lot of ways. From a business model standpoint, what is it like or how has it been shifting from a for-profit? Is the BBC for-profit? I should know this.
No, it’s not-for-profit because it’s funded by government and taxpayers. It’s fine because I used to work for a profit. All my life in my country of Nigeria, I had to sell newspapers, so it was for-profit. I moved from for-profit to government and then to nonprofit.
Are the nonprofits that you’re working for highly functioning?
Yes.
Too often, frankly and sadly, that’s not the case. Is there a program that helps some of the nonprofit leaders in the African continent that you all are developing?
I’m not aware. What we do is for all our programs, we have nonprofit leaders coming in and working. Whether it’s the democracy space or the rule of law, we do have nonprofit leaders coming into our programs.
Empowering Women: The Greatest Opportunities Moving Forward
What do you see as the greatest opportunity for women moving forward?
Number one, the biggest opportunity is the fact that there’s technology. Sometimes, when I’m faced with a decision, I say to myself, “This is not what my forbearance died for, so I’m going to make better decisions. I’m not going to make a foolish decision because the women who came before me didn’t die. They didn’t give up everything for me to be foolish.
Number one, the biggest opportunity is technology. The more technology diversification there is, the more opportunities there will be for women. It’s how we can leverage technology as women. When I talk about technology, it’s as simple as even social media platforms because a lot of us are coming from decades where women couldn’t talk and couldn’t engage in so many things. Social media has democratized all of that.
I say this as someone who is very shy on social media, but I also understand the power of social media and technology and the difference it makes in getting women’s opinions out. Also, using that to grow businesses is such a powerful tool. There’s a future in leveraging technology. The second is also the power of women coming together.
Social media has democratized the opportunity for women to engage, speak, and grow businesses. Share on XAlso seen by each other, especially when people are doing well. You clearly have experienced this. When you’re doing well, all of a sudden, it’s such a sense of betrayal when a woman tears you down or is not supportive. It’s so sad. We’re never going to get anywhere if we keep doing that to each other.
It’s about questioning why we do that because a lot of these things are passed on. I do not think any woman wakes up in the morning and says she’s going to antagonize another woman. There’s something in our subconscious, and there’s something about how we love to please other people and how all of that gets in the way of supporting one another.
Agreed. It’s the scarcity mindset. There are only three seats around the table. I understand the validity of that. I get where that comes from. That’s why we need to not do that so we can get more seats.
I like the point you raised with mindset because it’s something you have to constantly question within yourself.
Is it yours in the first place? Is it something that was handed down? That was the reality of those before us. I had this conversation with my eldest daughter. We were joking. She’s getting ready to get married and she’s doing it very differently. I thought, “Wow.” She said, “All of you could have done this.” I said, “I know. We never thought to ask or we didn’t do it. That wasn’t how it was done.”
You raised a critical point about asking. My philosophy on asking is if you don’t ask, you never know. If you feel intimidated by asking, think about the consequences of not asking. I’m like, “Okay.” When I think about the consequences, I end up opening my mouth. My mom would say that a closed mouth is a closed destiny.
I love that.
Talking about abundance, there are three prisms through which I look at abundance, even walking on myself and my own scarcity mindset. I wrote it in my journal and said, “I have three prisms of abundance. The first one is if I don’t have it today doesn’t mean I won’t have it tomorrow. Second is what somebody will not do for me, another person will do for me. The third is if my prayers are not answered today, they’ll be answered tomorrow.” Those are my three prisms of abundance.
It’s true. One of the things that I’ve come to experience and understand is that if something doesn’t happen, there is a reason. It could be as much as, “Even though I think I’m ready, I’m not ready,” or, “That isn’t ready for me.”
I’m going to add a third layer to that, which is, “Who do I need to be for that opportunity I’m looking for?”
That’s true. How many times have I forced situations only to go, “Why did I do that?”
All the time.
Toyosi Ogunseye’s Advice To Her Younger Self: Life Lessons Learned
This is the last question with all of this. What advice would you give your younger self knowing what you know now?
To always bet on yourself.
I love that because the truth is, if you don’t, how can you expect anyone else to?
Don’t write yourself out of any dream or any opportunity in life. Don’t do it because if your mind cannot conceive it, it’s going to be hard for it to come to you.
Another manifesting pro move.
It’s going to be hard. You need to see it. The fact that you can see it tells you that it’s possible because it would never come to your mind if it was impossible.
The fact that you have a vision tells you it's possible. If you couldn't see it, the possibility wouldn't even occur to you. Share on XYou can feel it when it has happened and everything starts coming.
Years ago, I was walking in the newsroom as the editor. I’d come on this program. If you had told me that eleven years forward I’m going to be coming back here to work in the same organization, it wasn’t on my card. I still do not know what the future owes, but what I know is that I’m going to continue taking a bet on myself and keep dreaming because if I can see it, then it’s going to happen.
Thank you so much. There were so many pearls. What a fabulous tale of reality and what it can be when you allow it to be and you bet on yourself.
If you let people take a bet on you, they’re going to undervalue you for less than you are, so take that bet on yourself.
On behalf of the show and readers, thank you so much for sharing. We’ll get together again and we’ll have a little subsequent conversation because there’ll be some other areas.
Thank you so much. It’s been my honor. I’m delighted to join you.
Thank you.
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About Toyosi Ogunseye
As President & CEO of the Presidential Precinct, Toyosi Ogunseye ensures strategic direction in the organization’s commitment to delivering world-class leadership programming that engages and inspires emerging leaders.Toyosi has two decades of leadership experience in journalism, most recently serving as a Senior News Editor for News and Commissioning at the BBC.
She began her tenure with the BBC as Head of West Africa Language Services. Prior to joining the BBC, Toyosi was the first female editor in the 50-year history of Punch Newspaper, Nigeria’s most widely read newspaper. In addition, she recently concluded her term as Vice President of the World Editors Forum and Board member of the World Association of News Publishers.While gaining experience across multiple disciplines and several continents, Toyosi’s steadfast commitment has remained in empowering young people who are committed to improving their community and country.
Toyosi has received over 40 international awards that include the Presidential Precinct’s Inaugural Young Leader Award (received alongside Secretary Madeline Albright), the ICFJ Knight International Journalism Award, and CNN’s African Journalist of the Year.