Why I left the banking sector – Imelda Odiagbe

 Mrs Imelda Odiagbe worked in the banking sector but later dumped the lucrative job to start a business. Today, she sits at the helm of a business she grew from the scratch and made it a major hospitality business  and she is also an employer of      labour. With tenacity, hard work and professional trainings, she was able to transform her business fortune. In a chat with OKEY OBIOZO, Odiagbe explains  the reasons she went into  business. 

Mrs Imelda Odiagbe is the Managing Director of  Top Chef Bakery, Lekki, Lagos. A bakery she runs together with her husband. Prior to starting the business, she worked in the banking sector for some years before she finally resigned because of some circumstances she could not control.
Odiagbe    hails from Delta state and started her secondary school education in Asaba, Delta State. Immediately she completed her secondary school education, she gained admission into Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State where she studied Geology and Mining.
During her National Youth Service , She  worked  with the defunct Platinum Bank     and that chanced opportunity tossed her into a career in banking.
At the end of the  Service   year,  she got a job with Equatorial Trust Bank and she spent five years in the banking sector.
Fortunately for her, she met her husband who was also in the same sector and they got married  .  But for Odiagbe she knew that life held a different calling for her because she was never comfortable with the stress and uncertainties that characterised banking job in Nigeria.
But for the want of what to do to make a living she stayed on, not until she was forced out of the sector by tragic circumstance. Sometime life naturally leads people to their destinies and for Odiagbe, it was the  miscarriage  she had  which  would have being her second born .
It was a devastating experience for her that ultimately changed the scope of her life. The trauma made her bid a final goodbye to banking in a characteristic manner. To her belief, she would have had the baby alive if not for the stress she encountered as a banker.
So , she left for good to chart an entirely different course in life; attend to her health and have time to take care of her family.
Describing further how she loathed her nerve-racking job in the bank, “I personally prayed to God that if I continue in the banking sector, He should never allow me get pregnant again .
“The stress was too much for me and the experience, terrible, she added”
However, it was still that terrible encounter that motivated her into starting a business of her own.
According to her, “when I resigned from the bank, I started a supermarket by renting a shop along the fast growing Ajah-Epe Expressway. I have high taste when it comes to what I eat and use, I discovered that while I ran the supermarket, my personal preferences influenced what I sold. I was always going for quality products.”
Every business they say started with discovering a major need to be met so on setting up her business; Odiagbe discovered that quality bread was nowhere to be found around the entire vicinity. So she went to fill that need by going to the mainland where she knew she could find some quality bread to stock her shop.
Without minding the distance, she started buying quality bread from the mainland to sell on the Island and so that was the beginning  of  a business that later grew into so many outlets that now cater for people’s need for food, quality pastries and hot bread. But the journey was never an easy ride.
When she started selling her type of bread and demand started increasing, along the line, her suppliers were not able to meet her high demands, so she tried other avenues of sustaining her customers even to the extent of getting a franchise that will help satisfy her high demands.
Truly, Odiagbe got what she really wanted and her business continued but not without the regular challenges that comes with rent and other overhead costs that every growing businesses faces in Nigeria, she could not break even in spite of her efforts.
Cost of everyday running of her business became so high and burdensome that it adversely affected the growth of her business. As she put it, “The landlord was so demanding and inconsiderate to the extent of cutting me off major power supply due to some bills. I resorted to alternative power supply which was not good for the business though but since I was left with none other option I had to carry on with the high cost.”
After going through several challenges from shop owner, the major supplier of her main source of business which was the bread closed shop too due to internal challenges, in the process, she thought of setting up a bakery of her own.
Planning about it and considering several other challenges of land, labour and capital, she decided to go headlong and acquired a landed property along the express. It was a good site considering the kind of business that regularly entertains high traffic of customers that she intends to set up, so she started.
“While buying the land, we knew quite well that we did not have the financial muscle to start the kind of business we want, but we bought it with the intent of erecting a container shop for a while till business improves.” She revealed.
But her intention soon met strict opposition because the real owners of the land will not condone such structure within the vicinity for fear of government acquisition or sanctions since the mega city project was already underway and her site was on the course-way of government activities.
Imelda said that while she was planning of starting her business in small scale, she was oblivious of God’s mega plans. When the land owners stopped their planned work, they had to gather all they had and sourced for funds from other means to start concrete constructions however.
“As God will have it, in less than two week of construction, the structure started taking shape. When we saw the progress, we were encouraged to complete it.”
Consequently, while the Odiagbes were thinking of how to get started after completing their business premise, one day a call came through to Imelda from an associate whom she had stopped dealing on her products.
Through the call, she was asked whether she would be interested in setting up a bakery, being that such has been her major objective, she admitted but informed the caller of her lack of funds as a major challenge.
She went ahead to narrate how she had tried to set up a bakery through her little effort but failed to get it off ground, on discovering the futility of her efforts, the caller promised to visit her site and observe what is on ground in other to ascertain the level of assistance needed in setting up the bakery.
“When she did visit, she was surprised at the level of progress she discovered, so she decided to support us by providing the relevant machineries that we did not have which was important in establishing and running a standard bakery.”
They were however put through on how to run the bakery, mix and bake quality bread for people’s consumption. The assistance came to them in the form of a take-off grant with the leverage to pay back gradually without pressure on the growing business.
That was how the Odiagbes realised their dream of owning a bakery and running a confectionary business. With that support, Imelda said that she was motivated to commit herself to the growth of the business. She started studying deep into the art of baking of bread as a result of the demands; she also suspended her master’s programme.
Knowledge however is power, so in pursuit of excellence and growth, Imelda went to Le saf Baking Centre  in France which incidentally is one of the best in the world for further training on how to make bread and other pastries in readiness to the type of quality products that is readily available from the stable of Top Chef.
Today through her resilience, focus and hard work, the business has really grown so big to meet people’s needs. Within the area and beyond, Top Chef’s new innovation of hot but oven fresh bread fascinated people and soon the demands increased.
It is now a common sight to see people queue up in front of the bakery to buy hot bread and even when it is yet to be ready, customers choose to wait while it gets ready.
“Our major selling point is hot bread. We sell hot bread here and we make sure that as a mandate, our customers get hot bread whenever they come here. The demands are unprecedentedly high and we are working to meet up.” She disclosed.
Adding that, “I have flair for food and I like feeding people with quality food. I love whatever that has to do with the opportunity to feed people with good food and quality.”
The need to provide people with standard, tasty and quality bread as a treat, on discovering that there was none around the environs motivated Imelda to establish a hot bread outlet.
Like every other business in Nigeria, the major setback to the bakery business is power; it is a critical factor because the art of bread making is time bound and consumes a lot of energy. When the dough is prepared, there must be light ready to bake it else it gets damaged.
Imelda  however , confirmed that she spends so much on alternative power supply and her happiest  moment  is  whenever there is power supply,   a luxurious feat she prays to always happen because of her business.
Speaking on Le Saf Baking Centre , she said they specialized  in manufacturing  of  specific baking materials for different parts of the world who have knack for quality bread and pastries  as different countries have different approach to bread making and all these the centre accommodates in other to serve their customers according to their local unique demands.
“In fact they made me understand the art of bread-making. They take you to the basis to know what sugar does to bread, what improver does, why you need to add salt and if there is any problem with bread, it becomes easier to identify the cause.” Imelda declared.
She went further to explain that setting up a business requires a lot of considerations especially a business that is built to survive.
‘’ The health implication of what people eats has to be made paramount because the fact is that a lot of Nigerians gradually eat to their deaths due to the substandard products they consume daily’’ , she noted.
Knowing what she wants and what she wants to offer her customers has been what has kept Imelda in business ever she started. She goes through several quality control systems to ensure that people really eat healthy.
To her credit, First Blend, an Indian company that specialize in blending people’s recipes around world is the company she contracts to blend hers and the taste of her bread and other products speaks for it.
Finally Mrs Odiagbe, is grateful to God and determination to never compromise quality.
“People have come here to buy my bread and took it abroad. Also I have had proposals to go and set up this company abroad but that is not my priority. My focus is to grow this business here first.” She concluded.