Temitope Ayo-Adedeji
Temitope is a sales and marketing enthusiast who seeks to help businesses achieve growth and profitability by focusing on touch points in the customer journey. Born and raised in Nigeria, he has a background in the telecommunications industry. Starting off his journey as a technical telecoms engineer, he was involved in hands-on activities as well as customer trainings. He later moved on to network consulting and eventually technical sales and marketing. Having passion for seeing organizations win, he decided to further his education at IE Business School in order to gain more knowledge on how companies can achieve success in the dynamic business world. Temitope currently handles technical sales and pre-sales activities at Aviat Networks, a leader in microwave communications technology. At his leisure time, he loves to play the drums, participate in art and spend quality time with family.
"The program transformed my ability to think differently and was equally a spring board I needed to take my career to the next level."
DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE GLOBAL ONLINE MBA USING ONE WORD.
There are too many words to describe my experience. In just one word, I’ll go with “enlightening”.
WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT?
I am passionate about winning and seeing my team achieve success. I am quite resilient when it comes to my craft and I put in my all to ensure success is attained.
WHAT DO YOU LOVE DOING ASIDES WORK?
I love art and music a lot, I spend time listening to good tunes and I also play the drums. I recently picked up an interest in theatre, and not too long ago I was the executive producer for a stage play in my home country, Nigeria.
IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU THINK PROGRAM HAS CHANGED YOUR LIFE PROFESSIONALLY AND PERSONALLY?
Professionally, having an MBA from one of the world’s top business schools is quite an achievement and good on your resume. Consequently, the knowledge and skills acquired from the program are priceless. I am able to view businesses and take decisions from a position of deeper knowledge and understanding of how things should be. My approach to business is more customer centric and I always seek to add value wherever possible. The program also gave me a hat of creativity. The mindset shift to understand that there’s always a better way of doing things came as a result of my interactions with team members and professors. I am able to come up with innovative ideas and solutions to challenges when faced with them.
Personally, I see life in a different way and I am able to understand the views and perspectives of people from various parts of the world. This understanding guides my relationships with friends, colleagues and individuals you meet in the course of your day to day life.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY OF YOUR EXPERIENCE?
So many fun and interesting memories, from the role plays, to group meetings, difficult deadlines, hilarious class mates and professors, to mention a few. My favorite memory has to be my final group project for the MBA. My team came up with a solution for my home country, Nigeria whose people are faced with challenges of getting authentic products from abroad seamlessly into the country. The energy, zeal and passion dedicated to this final project was a wonderful experience for me.
WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO STUDY THIS PROGRAM AT IE?
I always wanted a program that provided me with a lot of flexibility and also the opportunity to gather business acumen as an individual coming from a technical background. Similarly, I wanted a program from a top school with a track record of excellence while still giving me the knowledge and experience needed to take my career to the next level, IE Business School gave me that.
WHAT WERE SOME OF THE MAIN CHALLENGES THAT YOU ENCOUNTERED ON YOUR WAY? HOW DID YOUR MASTER PROGRAM AND IE HELP YOU THROUGH THESE CHALLENGES?
Coming from Nigeria and having to school internationally, some of the topics and discussions were new to me. Likewise, my knowledge in Finance was limited before the program as I had spent the early years of my career deeply involved in computer networking activities. Thankfully, I had very patient professors who understood the struggle and were always willing to help. Some even dedicated extra hours just to ensure we all got the best out of the program. My team members also assisted a great deal. We met frequently and discussed projects, assignments and shared knowledge where applicable.
As expected, IE also provided lots of resources and materials to help navigate your way during the program. These resources made life much easier during and even after my MBA journey.
WHAT IS NETWORKING LIKE IN THE GLOBAL ONLINE MBA?
Networking was and is still fun at IE. Everyone always has an interesting story to tell, also with the over 35 diverse nationalities in my cohort. We met quite often online in groups, one-on-one sessions over what we called “coffee breaks” and also in person during our face to face sessions. Usually, conversations would ensue by starting off with what interests each party and what you want to get out of the program. There were also fun moments created by professors and dinner events organized by the school. IE provides a level playing field where everybody feels very welcome.
