Joe-Ezigbo’s Take On Success In Business

Audrey Joe-Ezigbo, the Executive Director of Falcon Petroleum, is a woman of many parts. Her books, Uniquely Woman and Double Impact, would be officially launched on October 31 at The Oriental Hotel, Lagos. For its work, Falcon Petroleum was recently awarded the “Best Gas Pipeline Construction, Gas Distribution and Equipment Conversion Services Company of the Year 2013” by the Institute for Government Research and Leadership Technology in Abuja. OLUSHOLA RICKETTS had a chat with her.
UNLIKE many of her peers during the university days, young Audrey understood clearly what her objectives were. She had her nose stuck in her books all through. She attended just four parties in her first year.
  “I recall attending one more in my final year because it was a friend’s 21st birthday. Somehow, that social scene did not and still does not work for me. I am an academic at heart. I enjoyed my courses and the learning, kept very few friends and generally had a quiet, focused and purposeful time as an undergraduate,” she says.
  For her primary education, Joe-Ezigbo attended military schools in Kaduna, Owerri and Lagos. She then proceeded to Queens College, Lagos. She had her first degree, post-graduate Diploma (PGD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from University of Nigeria.
  “I also have an MBA from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, an Executive MBA from the Lagos Business School, and leadership certifications from Harvard Business School. I am the second of 10 children.”
  Despite venturing into many things almost at the same time, she is a living testimony of success in its entirety. She is a consultant, businesswoman, motivational speaker and writer.
  According to her, “I do not cope in my activities, I thrive! I thrive because I understand clearly that my husband and my children are, aside from God, the most important people in my life and so I give them my utmost priority above all else. I thrive in business because I am an entrepreneur at heart and love the dynamics that play out in the business space. I have also worked with my husband for almost 20 years and I love being with him. So, that also adds to the love I have for my work. My core belief is that all our success in business is nothing if we do not have a good relationship at home....”
  Similarly, she also informs that her triumph as a consultant and speaker is as a result of her passion for building up people. She sees people whose lives would be very different if they only had the right people in their lives with appropriate counsel and support.
  Joe-Ezigbo is a columnist with TW Magazine and runs her own blog for women called ‘Uniquely Woman.’ Though she has quite a few male readers, her writings are particularly targeted at womenfolk.
   “Writing is just such a part of me. By the grace of God, I have published two books recently titled, Uniquely Woman and Double Impact. They didn’t happen overnight, but this is the beauty of life. When you apply yourself to your passions, using the ‘gap time’ such as traffic or while waiting for a meeting, it is amazing what the final output will be,” she notes.
  Regardless of what curve balls life has thrown at any individual, Joe-Ezigbo believes that the ability to remain focused is imperative for anyone to be successful. She laments that too many people are running around laying blame on what their parents or someone did to them. But according to her, “Everyone has a story. It is just that some people have refused to let their past hold them down and they are the same people we are looking up to today.”
  For Joe-Ezigbo, success is not about big names or having all the riches in the world. In her books, success is still having a wonderful loving relationship with your spouse through the years, having children who are doing extremely well and living exemplary life, having a close loving family, and ultimately having a close relationship and fellowship with God.
  However, based on her childhood experience, she was determined as a teenager not to work for anyone. And as God would have His way, her husband, Prof. Joseph Ezigbo, also had an entrepreneurial leaning even though he was a lecturer at the time they met.
  Her words: “it was more divinely orchestrated than anything else, that we found ourselves sharing knowledge, experiences and counsel in our independent forays into business. One day, it just clicked that we should pool our skills and resources together and Falcon Petroleum was birthed out of that dream.”
  Since 1994 when Falcon Petroleum was established, the couple has worked doggedly side by side and their success today is hinged largely on their shared vision and values, and the optimisation of their individual competencies in the best interests of the business.
  Falcon has two principal lines of business. On one hand, they are an EPC company of repute, and on the other heavily vested in the gas sector – being the Local Distribution Company (LDC) charged with the responsibility of the construction, operation and management of the Ikorodu Natural Gas Distribution Franchise. Joe-Ezigbo also discloses that the company has ventured into the provision of maritime support services.
   Not long ago too, Falcon engaged 58 women in free vocational skills. According to her, the company recognises the importance of operating in a sustainable and responsible way. “This was just one of the various initiatives and projects that we carry out in order to fully engage with our host communities. We are particularly passionate about the development of women and so designed the programme to run over a few intensive months, followed by industrial attachments for a month to allow the participants gain additional experience in established institutions in their areas of training prior to graduation,” she explains.
  After the training, they gave the participants starter packs and working tools to enable them start up their own businesses effectively. Joe-Ezigbo says they understand clearly that the maxim ‘train a woman, train a nation’ is very real and this was the underlying theme for the initiative.
  “We have since followed this up with formalised business management training for the 58 women, as well as initiated a financing scheme with our bankers to support them with soft loans for their growth and expansion purposes. The results that we have seen out of this project have been simply remarkable and we do not expect any less in the subsequent runs of the initiative.”
  As to the award given to the company recently as the “Best Gas Pipeline Construction, Gas Distribution and Equipment Conversion Services Company of the Year 2013’ by the Institute for Government Research and Leadership Technology in Abuja, she says the award and others received in past firstly represented the validation of things that God has spoken to them.
  “He is the One who brings promotion and recognition and the awards are simply God’s way of telling us we are on the right track. Secondly, the awards are a marker reminding us not to relent in our efforts, not to lose the momentum in the midst of the accolades. There is much more territory to conquer, much more impact to make in our industry and in our nation,” she says.
  She identifies the general state of insecurity in the land and the lack of unity, national identity and ownership as the major problems affecting the economy. For her, insecurity is something that the military might and concerted State intelligence efforts can contain if they set their minds to it. Until everyone begins to see Nigeria as a treasured entity and individually and collectively committed to doing our bit to better the country, she fears that the country will continue to struggle as a nation.
  Unfortunately, also, she says the oil theft rocking the nation currently is just one of the fallouts of the symptoms of the general economic malaise the nation is dealing with. According to her, it is happening at two levels – the big boys who are siphoning barrel loads, and the lower end who have to vandalise to access the product. Either way, she charges government to be decisive in dealing with established cartels that are well known to them. But she quickly admits that it might not be easy due to godfatherism syndrome in Nigeria.
  She sees marriage as what God has designed for a man and woman to come together for companionship, for procreation and to achieve oneness. She believes marriage is designed to be a fulfilling and enriching experience but society is redefining marriage by putting couples under undue pressures.
 She relaxes in the evenings, shares dinner together as a family and later spends another hour or so around the table telling stories and making jokes.