The Managing Director of Manifolds events Bukola Oviase speaks on how she has been able to keep the business running for 17 years.
According to Bukola, Manifolds event was started by her mum when she was quite young. Her mum was a banker that started to buy chairs and tables.
All You Need To Know About The Business of Events | Exclusive Interview With Bukola Oviase
“It’s just a side business. We started as a rental business, we use to rent out chairs and tables to people and over time my mum started to be interested in decoration. She started buying decor probes and all that and started a business as a decorator.
All my friends that got married when I was in Uni and all that, we did their decoration. We built up from that but again, I grew up in that environment where my mum has always been a business person.
Over the years after going to school, I came back and decided three years ago to come into the business fully as the managing director and see how I can get to the next level.
My mum is the CEO of the business. My mum is very resourceful as well so I really like that she’s also there. It’s a very interesting journey working with your parent but I am really enjoying it.”
What is the one thing you will tell anybody who is interested in the business of events?
For any business in Nigeria to be honest, we like to run a business with structure and all that but in Nigeria, it’s a bit difficult but we still try.
What happened with Manifold is that, because my mum was a banker, she was working and doing business so she had a lot of people mismanaged the business. So you need to build a team with people that really want to see it grow.
In three years we have been able to grow a team that is passionate about making the business grow.
How can an aspiring event planner get started?
What I have seen in my three years of running this business so far, there’s so much opportunity in the event and vent decoration space.
Maybe because the government doesn’t take us seriously, they feel we just party. Event is a 200-million-dollar industry per annum.
See the video below for more!
