Leadership in Colour from Shez Iqbal, Powered by Media For All [MEFA]
Leadership in Colour showcases outstanding leaders of colour sharing their personal journeys, offering valuable insights and advice, and highlights their current projects. Join us to hear from these inspiring leaders and expand your perspective on leadership.
Leadership in Colour from Shez Iqbal, Powered by Media For All [MEFA]
Episode 21 - Don’t Offer Me a Cup of Coffee with Ladi Fagbola
In this episode of Leadership in Colour, Shez Iqbal sits down with Ladi Fagbola, E-commerce Account Director at Monks, to explore themes of identity, authenticity, and career growth.
From navigating life between Nigeria and the UK to building a successful career in marketing and advertising, Ladi shares his journey of not quite fitting in anywhere—yet finding strength in authenticity. He opens up about lessons learned from academia, transitioning into advertising, the power of mentorship, and why diversity in the workplace makes all the difference.
You’ll hear Ladi’s take on embracing constant self-development, staying true to your values (even in high-pressure sales situations), and why sometimes… you really shouldn’t offer someone a cup of coffee.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation filled with honesty, cultural insights, and practical advice for anyone starting out in their career.
Your feedback is always welcome, as we strive to enhance the content's value for you. Enjoy Leadership in Colour - Voices you may not have heard from before.
Hello and welcome to the next edition of Leadership in Colour. Pleased to have Ladi on the call with me today. Ladi, how are you?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing great, thank you. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for being here. So just in case people don't know who you are, can you give a little bit of a better introduction than what I just did?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, of course. So yeah, my name is Ladi. Full name Ladi Pofagwola, but everybody calls me Ladi, including my parents. And I'm the e-commerce account director at monks and that's primarily looking after the monks and amazon ads emir relationship so there's a great relationship happening in the us and we're trying to replicate that in the emir region and um i'm nigerian born and raised there came to uk for uni and decided to stay so um have this uh back and forth of um you know when i go to Nigeria, I don't fit as well. And whilst I'm here, I'm still Nigerian. So that's an interesting dynamic for most immigrants and kids of immigrants as well.
SPEAKER_02:I started these conversations to discuss leadership, mentorship, growth, and so much more from voices you may not have heard from before. I hope the conversations inspire you, motivate you, and give you something to think about. It's Leadership in Colour with myself, Shezik Bal, supported and powered by me. That is an interesting dialogue i make actually i wouldn't mind uh having a chat about that in a second but before we get there tell me about your name what does your name mean
SPEAKER_00:ah okay so that's that's that's a so my ethnic group uh were called yoruba that's one of our favorite things because all our names have to mean something they're not just labels they're they're they're the names that carry meaning and more often than not historical meaning so my name for starters is the exact same name with my dad so um growing up i used to be called junior a lot because we we share the same name um so my full name is so my birth certificate is and then everybody calls me laddie so there's more or less three variations of it and it roughly translates to my wealth has increased or my wealth has multiplied um you know my the quality of my life has significantly significantly um improved so um yeah that's that's what my name means very cool name it's a very cool meaning yeah thank you thank you
SPEAKER_02:how does it feel to have the same name as your dad oh it used to be
SPEAKER_00:a lot of pressure it used to be a lot of pressure because growing up he was a um it was a pillar it was a very it was a very big name very big shoes i felt i had to fill and i mean that physically i tried to to wear his shoes when I was probably 13 and they were like five sizes too big for me. But over time, as I started to work on myself, as I started to introspect and not just look up at this big mountain that I had to climb and more focusing on myself and the inside, who do I want to be, how do I want to perceive myself and all this kind of internal work, gradually I started to focus on, yes, we share the same name, but I am my own person I am who I want to be and more importantly I'm always becoming and I think that's the most recent part of that journey to accept that you know it's not static it's you're always becoming this person
SPEAKER_02:it sounds like you've really embraced the idea of being on a constant journey and there's a lot there about self-development as well
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely
SPEAKER_02:but if I go back to the point that you made on on being from Nigeria, coming to London, studying here, then staying here, and then going back. Whenever you go back, you say that you don't quite fit in. So on my end, I'm really surprised to hear that. And the reason why I'm really surprised to hear that is because I'm first generation over here. Or I guess second generation, technically. My parents came over. And the reality is that being born and raised in London, as an Asian Asian background, I don't feel like I quite fit in here, but when I go back to Pakistan where my family's from, I definitely don't fit in there either.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So the culture that I had at home over here was different to the culture of a lot of my friends. Yeah. And, and even a lot of my Pakistani friends, to be honest with you, my parents were, are an odd group compared to some others, but you know, in, in, in a fantastic way. And then in in Pakistan is very different as well, right? So I always thought that if I had come over as someone who grew up in Pakistan to London, that when I go back home, and when I say go back home, I really mean home, right?
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_02:would just slip in and just feel like one of the locals and everything would be rosy.
SPEAKER_00:On the face of it, that makes perfect sense. I'm not disputing what you're saying, but if you look at cultures as static That makes sense So the Nigeria I left When I was 18 is not the Corinth Nigeria that's there right now and I've missed transition so I come back obviously I still see the same infrastructure the same cultural backbone hasn't changed massively but the slang the music what's hot what's the most popular thing what's the most urgent thing what people are aiming for yes everybody's still aiming for a good life but what a good life means all those definitions are constantly constantly evolving and when you step out of course I still follow Nigerian news I still listen to Nigerian music but that's not the lived experience so I guess if I stayed for maybe if you and I both relocated home maybe it would take me less time to catch up and then to get embedded and it might take you longer but regardless as long as you're not physically in that space it's moving and evolving and it comes back to the whole nothing is stagnant
SPEAKER_02:um that's interesting that's fascinating
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:because essentially once you've left a country you become a person of nowhere or a person of everywhere
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:So do you find yourself gravitating towards other Nigerians that came over at the same time as yourself?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's the very, very important part because they are the ones who have the most sort of similarities to me, especially the ones who came at the same period that I came to the UK as well. The problem is most of them are no longer in England because of a lot of the political environment. So that can be a bit of a struggle as well because most of them have then moved on to canada us i have a friend in netherlands so
SPEAKER_02:i i feel like i can relate a lot to people for example that come in from the west country and move to london because it's a different pace of life and they've got you know stronger values to maybe like anyone from africa majority majority of africa you know doesn't even matter if it's north africa or west africa or east africa i feel like there's a lot of sort of cultural similarities you know we just had that sort of so it's uh whereas I feel like I'm one of the very very rare few who've done that and you are really case in point of the fact that yeah you know you go to those that have had exactly the same lived experience and is it Nigerians in particular that you seek out or do you
SPEAKER_00:see Nigerians specifically because speaking to a Nigerian who came to UK after me is slightly different because again Nigerians are moved on. Again, their static image of Nigeria is slightly different. Those who came before me, again, slightly different.
SPEAKER_02:How far before or after are we talking? Are we talking about a few years? Probably five on either side. Really interesting. Does that make a difference to your working environment? Do you have Nigerian friends at work?
SPEAKER_00:My current work? No, not know where i am right now um have you ever yes so when i used to teach um there's a lot more nigerian so just generally there's more nigerians in academia than in marketing and advertising um they are nigerians in advertising and marketing but nowhere near as much as when i used to teach um so yeah during that period yeah and i would say probably 50 of my close friends were nigerian um and it Again, they had that similar age, similar life, life, life stage and things like that.
SPEAKER_02:And do you think that you would enjoy work where you are right now a little bit more if there were more Nigerian people in the mix?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, absolutely. It's even just having Black and Asian friends and colleagues already, you can, the impact is already massive. And so where I work, previously was in a relatively wide area north of Nottingham and it was a fantastic place to work it was lovely I got on with everybody but when I walked into Monks I remember seeing one the first thing I saw was there were two men at the reception I was like okay that's interesting and then one of the men is from Eastern Europe and the other guy is Black British with a Caribbean heritage. So even from day one, you know, at the reception, you know, it's Wagwan. I'm like, okay, this is interesting. This is cool. And of course, Monk's massive agency, very diverse. So even just that alone makes things interesting. But I can only imagine what having that layer of Nigerian-ness attached to it would be like.
SPEAKER_02:We've skirted around and sort of referenced in a number of ways your your early years so you started off did you start off in teaching is that right yeah so i
SPEAKER_00:started engineering that's why i came to uk to study and that didn't go well um it was quite weird because i was good in maths again the uh ethnic slash immigrant uh stereotype i was good in math so therefore i should do engineering two very very different things i was terrible at engineering i didn't come out with a good grade so i worked as a photographer for about one and a half years so i went as how far can i get from engineering and you know it was pure creative and all that good stuff. But within that, I was self-employed for a little bit and then marketing my skills, marketing my products, I actually realized I started to enjoy that more than the pictures itself. And then one thing led to another, did my PhD in marketing, teaching in marketing, and that was set. I was very happy, very comfortable to be a lecturer in marketing and especially because my supervisor who is so she's Scottish so although we were in an English institution the fact that she was born and raised in Scotland and I was from Nigeria that she's not an immigrant at all but she did have that not fitting in feeling and we could relate a lot on that so I really she really set the she set me on that journey on how great academia can be and then COVID happened in 2020 and at that period I was on a zero hour contract so you only get paid when you're teaching now Nottingham Trent University were lovely they were like oh your contract runs till I think April or May will pay you till the end of your contract and I was like cool but at the back of my mind I'm like yeah but what happens after May because yes Boris said lockdown is only going to be for two weeks but we're week six now week three okay something i need to do something else for when my contract ends and we're still in lockdown so i got a job which is where i was before monks minster fb as an advertising exec you know um it was a role that needed minor experience but was mostly did you have an aptitude for numbers because it was search advertising it was quite spreadsheet led i was like you know one thing i'm good at it's maths not engineering but maths so i went in there had a great time i was the only ad exec under I grew my team into a team of seven and I was first doing teaching and advertising at the same time but over a while of course you can understand Amazon specifically I was an Amazon advertising exec doing 2020 and 2022 the rate of growth the rate of features the rate of opportunities was just times 10 compared to what I was seeing in academia which was relatively static quite stable but you know nothing from my experience or my perspective nothing new was happening so I went full time into advertising and here I am still still doing it just by happen chance you enjoying it absolutely it all those things I said haven't changed the rate of features the rate of growth the rate of learning I was telling we were discussing before the podcast and then monks specifically which is a whole different environment from where I was coming from coming from you know I'm on my I've been here since November last year and I'm on my fourth notebook so you know it's just constant and I'm I'm loving it yeah
SPEAKER_02:so if you were to say the three things that you love the most about your current role and I'll put you on the spot here yeah the audience I'll let them know that I didn't I didn't tell you I was going to ask this question if I was if I was to give you you know ask you three things that are the key things that the best things about your role for anybody listening and thinking that they'd like to do something similar what
SPEAKER_00:would you say? Yeah I think the pace the pace is frenetic and I know that's not for a lot of people but for me who can't sit still who gets itchy after 15 minutes it's in a weird way it's quite freeing I like it that every quarter every month every day there's something new fresh and exciting happening number two is the people like I said that diverse workplace since I've been in the UK it's probably the most diverse workplace I've been in although academia had more black people or more people from Nigeria monks has that but on a more broader scale so I'm working with somebody from Venezuela I'd never met a person from Venezuela before prior to this encounter. Well, I've never met a person who told me they were from Venezuela. So just the spectrum of, spectrum sounds, doesn't sound as good. The diversity of people is incredibly broad. So I really like walking with people, meeting with people. And then I, there's one, there's a guy, I think, again, the first person I've met where bought their parents out of mixed race heritage. So I'm usually met, I usually met a mixed race person or maybe a person with one mixed race parent so you know just yeah it's very very diverse very interesting different background and everything there and then the third and the third for me is also the the the independence so it's not you're not you know there's this there's a there's a strong level of trust and that also obviously comes with flexibility but it's not the flexibility in itself it's the independence to go this is why i want to do okay can you justify it they're happy with my justification cool let's let's see how it goes and sometimes it doesn't go well and they go okay cool that's a lesson we should learn what's next so that independence that trust i get from my senior colleagues and from my colleagues is is very um uh yeah i enjoy that a lot
SPEAKER_02:sounds like a great place to be
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah yeah
SPEAKER_02:yeah you mentioned diversity uh a number of times. How important is authenticity for you?
SPEAKER_00:Especially going back to that not really fitting in bit, that feeling of not fitting in amplifies that need for authenticity. So yes, I might be a square peg in a round hole, but I will be the squarest of pegs. I'm going to be so square, you know this guy is square from 10 miles off um and yet you know trying at the same time you know we're talking about always still becoming so it's not a static sense of being authentic but at the same time it's very very important that i i don't for lack of a better i don't lose myself i don't you know try i'm not trying to fit into a mold i'm not trying to be somebody i'm not to make my work easier or to make forming relationships easier this is who i am this is who i about and you know trying as much as I can to stay true to that and it's actually it's actually there's a different dimension to it since I've been working at Monks so originally my role was relatively operational although I was leading a team it's like management but what I'm managing is an operational delivery of advertising campaigns and originally that was where I thought I was going to spending most of my time when I joined Monks. But over time, it's shifted slightly more to sales. I'm supporting the sales team more than anticipated. And that's because they've not done as much selling of our Amazon ad services compared to Google, for example. So if they need to sell Google, they don't need support. The sales team can sell 110%. Amazon, I'm more involved in the sales process. And It's challenging my authenticity or what I think of my morals and what I think of right and wrong has challenged it because it's a lot easier to just, you know, blag it. The client goes, can you do this thing? And I go, right. If I say yes, it will increase my chances of winning this pitch. But I have to say, no, that's not who I am. I don't say yes to tick a box. I don't say yes to win a pitch. Of course, I don't have sales targets. I'm not in the sales team, so it's slightly easier for me to pull myself back from that cliff. But I know for a fact, once you jump down, you just start saying all sorts of untruths without thinking about it. So that's been an even more interesting challenge. It's easier to be honest with a client where you already have a contract. You have two, three years relationship. You've already done multiple mistakes and you have a working relationship that has been established over time it's very different trying to be authentic self in a 15 minute pitch you know in a 30 minute discovery call where you're like you're trying to make yourself likable easy to talk to you want to make yourself at the same time yeah trying to be your best self is one thing absolutely but you know it's very easy to go from your best self to this fake self where i'm laughing at the jokes that i didn't find funny now that's polite i Absolutely. But if they say something inappropriate, am I still laughing because I find it funny or because I'm trying to close that deal? So those dynamics has, you know, has really pushed at my sense of self, more on the moral side, you know, what are the things I think are appropriate or inappropriate and, you know, making sure I double down and go, no, this is what I stand for. This is what I believe. I know you want us to be able to do that thing. I'm sorry. We just can't but these are the other things we can do for you and you know i'm still keeping the conversation going but without you know losing a bit of myself in the process
SPEAKER_02:sounds like being honest and you know being sort of ethical yeah as a strong values of yours
SPEAKER_00:yeah oh absolutely yeah
SPEAKER_02:yeah i mean there should be strong values to everybody
SPEAKER_00:yeah that's something i was like
SPEAKER_02:okay that honesty you know as you said if you're in a if you're in a commercial role i would say per personally be honest about the fact that you're going to say yes to something but you need to work it out right but you do start off with a yes so it's yes but can I get 24 hours to confirm right but it sounds like with you it's like well I know that it could be yes but it might not be yes so let me say no right now and then explain why there's a difference in the way that you're presenting it
SPEAKER_00:oh absolutely there's context and what it is you know sometimes it can you come to my office in Brighton I'll say yes I'm known for the fact even if a company doesn't want to pay for it I'm happy to pay for it myself that's a minor thing but it's yes can I do this big thing that we're not you know structured I know it's an absolute no regardless of how we reposition then it's more likely to be a no so it's still definitely contextually driven but at the same time underneath is making sure I'm not moving into a space where I find myself, I don't recognise the person I become in the long term,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. When most people talk about authenticity they talk about their culture and their upbringing so what part of your culture and your upbringing is that connected to?
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is and I think it's generic but amongst Yoruba people for example being a good host, being welcoming is such an important part of who we are and you know when I meet people I have to you know sometimes it's forced I had a very funny conversation with a guy from Australia and you know he just like right let's get into I'm like no no no how was your day and he's like it's 6pm I was like I know I'm really sorry but how are you doing how is Australia I've never been to Australia tell me about your job tell me about what you do and you know making sure and you know I could tell he was irritated but you know halfway through him talking about himself which we'll enjoy it was a completely different person so that's definitely still there
SPEAKER_02:Was that 6pm your time or his time? His time so 6pm So there is that need and willingness to create connections and to be that great host okay and that's not a bad example of that because the reality is that most people would have sensed that frustration and just got straight into business and got out you sensed that frustration and said i know you're frustrated let me just make you a little bit more frustrated before i make you make you really really like me so and that's uh there's some brave there's it's quite a brave thing to do strengthen those connections and the relationship is really important checking in with people and seeing how they are is really important um
SPEAKER_00:and yeah just just been just been a pleasant person to be around it's very easy to go into the office when I'm having a bad day and just you know frown and send a signal leave me alone but actually again that's more cultural really Yoruba people know people you need to check in on people you need to say hi you need to you know you don't have to be the life of the party but okay I'm sat as an open office hot desk asking, okay, at least the two people, you know, the person on my left, the person on my right, how are you? Having a good day? How are you? Having a good day? You know, very simple. Actually, one of the things I've had to stop doing is offering to get people tea or coffee. So in my previous role, you know, you would be looked at negatively if you just stood up and get yourself a coffee or tea. You know, you have to ask, would you like a coffee? Would you like a tea? Whereas at Monks, it's slightly different. because one not everybody drinks coffee and tea the my Venezuelan colleague she drinks this thing with a straw um so I've you know I still had to adapt and go you know what I'm just gonna get up and get myself a drink because that's in this in this environment that's the norm so you know I do adapt you know it's not just about doggedly doing whatever you like um but yeah I
SPEAKER_02:struggled to do that by the way okay yeah I really struggled to do that so we we had a co-working space where I was genuinely asking strangers if they wanted a coffee because I was going to the coffee machine when I go to the dump and I see my neighbours I'm like hey do you want me to take some stuff as well I can't and that is definitely an upbringing thing because my dad would do the same thing my mum would do the same thing you know we just
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_02:you know so I totally and I'm not making a conscious decision to do that I struggle to not do that I feel like it's rude I feel like yeah
SPEAKER_01:yeah
SPEAKER_02:you get up and you make a cup of coffee and you don't offer out if I see someone doing that I don't think anything of it but if I do it
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:I feel like I'm being really rude
SPEAKER_00:the one of the ways my partner helped me understand it in a different context is think about it as you asking them makes them uncomfortable is that what you're trying to do if the answer is no then you sit with your discomfort depending on the context again how am I making someone uncomfortable when I ask them if they want a coffee Because now you're forcing them to make a decision that they're not interested or willing or ready to make. Oh, okay. So sometimes people saying, no, I don't want a coffee makes them feel uncomfortable. So sometimes they will say yes, not because they want to, but because they don't want to disappoint you. Again, this is happening in people's heads. This isn't, you know, mathematics. But sometimes people will say yes because they're like, oh, it's so nice of him to ask. I feel bad saying no. Or worse, they send... they do say no and any part of your body language that's that hints at being disappointed for the next 30 minutes they go oh i wish i said yes you know that's that's even the worst one where you just go oh okay but maybe you know that's too fast and they go oh my god i've made him upset now he he would never ask me for tea or coffee again and then for the next 20 minutes that's at the back of their mind so again it's so small i i wouldn't put too much effort on it But yeah, that sometimes can happen.
SPEAKER_02:I want a whole episode about this. I mean, this is just, I never really thought offering someone a cup of coffee would make such an impact on 20 minutes of their life. Okay, so that's great. Clearly, you take direction from outside your own thought space. It sounds like your wife is fantastic in terms of being a sounding board for you. Have you had other people that have supported you in that way? And I'm thinking more broadly in maybe allies or mentors that have supported you in your career?
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, mentors, massively. So I think we met through MIFA. So I joined MIFA, Media for All. I joined MIFA for the mentorship program. And so Adrian Williams was my first mentor and he was great, really helped me around LinkedIn. and how to present yourself, how to interact and how to just being constantly, how to show up constantly on LinkedIn. And that was fantastic. And then now my mentor again through me is Ryan Asher. And ironically, this is actually very funny in that regards where when he first became my mentor, I was still in this operational headspace, but he's actually, his current role is quite a commercial sales background so i'm just like oh my god this is meant to be so i the first meeting i had i was like i know this wasn't the plan but how can i be better at sales and he was like what do you mean this is massive you need to be specific laddie i'm like i don't know i just need better sales skills so um yeah so he's taking me on that journey as well in terms of what actually does it mean to form a relationship with a business prospect what does it mean to um you know create commercials on the spot on the fly or more importantly he even asked you know do you even understand fully what monks can offer you know i've actually even gone the other way and i was like not really i said cool go back into monks you know fully understand what the full offering is not just your single amazon space so um so that's happening right now and that's brilliant so officially those two have been my mentor but i also talked about my uh phd supervisor she was amazing as well professor moving so yeah here and there and just life in general parents all the siblings things like that
SPEAKER_02:your mentors are two really good friends of mine and they are amazing people so i'm uh i'm so happy to hear the positive things about them okay i'm i've got to wrap up the conversation but before we wrap up the conversation i wanted to ask you for your advice then so tell me someone's just about to kick it off in the industry what advice would you give them
SPEAKER_00:so i would say say don't spend too much time being a generalist and this was something I had to fight growing up where it's more of a you're hedging your bets so you let you try to learn as much of loads of different things as much as you can one of the things that's benefited me is actually being a specialist and it does take taking a punt it does take you you know, taking a bit of a gamble because you don't yet have enough experience to know exactly what you should specialize in. But take a punt, double down on whatever it is. How you decide on that thing is a completely separate conversation. Whatever it is you've decided on focusing on, you know, double down on it, become an expert in the thing. Even if you don't even have the work experience, okay, what are the different, what are the other different routes you can start to, you can start that journey of becoming an an expert before you get the job. So are you following people who are experts in that field on your socials? Obviously, LinkedIn from a professional perspective is probably the most useful. Are you subscribed to some of those newsletters from that specific industry or that specific vertical? One thing I've not even done is I have specific clients I'm interested in. So I'm interested in client in electronics, for example. Actually, I should be subscribed to electronics newsletters, even though I'm not going to understand half of it. That is the kind of direction we should consider going to. And if and when you can, especially if they're free conferences, webinar, just attend, just show up. If you're shy, that's fine, just show up. If you can go say hi to people, go say hi as well. But just being physically there or even virtually is a great
SPEAKER_02:start. I agree with you. All fantastic, great advice. Ladi, the closing tradition on this podcast is you name the episode and i've been scribbling down a couple of notes here just in case you struggle but i'd love to hear what your thoughts are on naming the episode
SPEAKER_00:no you go tell me what you've written out
SPEAKER_02:so i got a couple of ideas so one is um something about static not static was the thing i was thinking about and the other one was uh don't offer me a cup of coffee these were the there were a few others but those are the two that the sort of winning ones on my list
SPEAKER_00:yeah go on then don't offer me a cup of coffee it's Feels very catchy. I think that would give us more
SPEAKER_02:downloads. Well, let's find out. Thank you so much for being a great guest here on Leadership in Colour. Really appreciate you and your time. And the advice was fantastic. Thanks also to everybody who's tuning and listening or watching. Thank you. Cheers. Great to be
SPEAKER_03:here.