Eno Eka is a business analyst and consultant based in Alberta, Canada. She is an award-winning career coach and keynote speaker who has been recognized for helping more than 100,000 professionals in 90+ countries kick-start their professional careers.
She is the CEO of Eny Consulting Inc. and the Founder of Business Analysis School. She is also a business analysis content developer and course instructor at the University of Manitoba Within four years of arriving in Canada, Eno has touched the lives of thousands of immigrants in the country. She has curated mentorship and coaching programs for immigrants, and her dedication has been recognized globally.
Eno is an embodiment of service as she volunteers with several non-profit organisations to help immigrants to Canada integrate successfully and become gainfully employed. She volunteers as a mentor with the Calgary Region Immigrant Employment Council (CRIEC) and sits on the Board of the IIBA Calgary Chapter as Director of Education. She also volunteers at the Calgary Drop-in Centre and Calgary Dream Centre. She is a Giving Back Sponsor for the Women in Need Society (WINS).
She is the host of the podcast, Fireside Chat with Eno where she shares valuable insights on job search tips and strategies for new immigrants.
In this interview, Eno Eka, speaks about her interest in business, her passion for supporting immigrants, and more.
You have an impressive profile having helped over 100,000 professionals in 90+ countries kick-start their professional careers. What informed your decision to become a business analyst and consultant?
I studied accounting and I had a good career working as an accountant, however, I was bored in that career and I just saw that it was somewhat of a glass ceiling in terms of what I’ll be able to achieve. I then decided to find something else that would spark that creativity in me.
I was really interested in the technology sector. I saw the growth of technology and how technology was springing up and how everything that we would do in the future was going to revolve around technology. So, I was very interested in that and I knew that although I was working in the accounting space, I just couldn’t keep doing the same thing every day, it was very monotonous and I didn’t enjoy that at all.
So, I started looking for opportunities to work in the tech space without being technical because I tried to learn how to code and also a little programming but that was just not my thing. I checked out all the careers available in the tech space that would also help me to be able to work in the sector, and I found business analysis. That was my start in getting into tech.
After a couple of years working as a business analyst, working on multiple large projects around Nigeria, the US, and Canada, I decided to set up my consulting company to help small businesses. My focus on consulting is small and medium businesses that do not have the finances to afford expensive consulting companies. I help them leverage technology in their business, set up their business processes, re-engineer their business processes, and help them use technology to grow their revenue.
These were what informed my decision and why I’m in this career today.
You migrated to Canada from Nigeria, and within four years of arriving in Canada, you have been able to touch the lives of thousands of other immigrants. What advice would you give to someone thinking of taking this leap and migrating to another country?
Here is my advice to anyone who is looking to move or migrate to another country. I would say it’s definitely not an easy journey for sure but if you are determined, you will be successful. Also, I would say do not just pack your bags and move to another country. I did not do that, I prepared for my move.
What do I mean by preparing for your move? I mean you want to do a lot of research about the new country you’re moving to, you want to learn about the culture; learn more about the city that you would live in; ask questions, speak to people who are already there; understand the career requirements in your field, and ask about the job opportunities available.
You also want to find out if there are any regulations, and if there are specifications that are required, and this is why you need to speak to people who are already in those roles that you seek. Also, given the amount of information that is available online right now, you should do your research thoroughly at that. That would be my advice to anyone who is looking to move to another country.
Lastly, there is the God factor. As a Christian, I will advise that you let God guide you and lead you. Also, have that self-belief. A lot of times I see immigrants who do not have self-belief, they feel like they have to start from the bottom, which is not true.
So, believe in yourself and know that your experience is valid. Yes, you’re from Nigeria for example, and moved to a First World country like the USA, Canada, and the UK which are way more advanced than Nigeria, however, your experience is still valid. You’re bringing something new, something fresh that they haven’t experienced before and that is valuable so please, do not underestimate what you’ve done, don’t downplay your experience. Make sure you leverage your experience and always remember that you don’t need to start from scratch, that’s my advice.
What drives your passion for mentoring and coaching immigrants, as well as sharing your knowledge and experience through your podcast?
What really drives my passion for mentoring and coaching immigrants is my own experience as a new immigrant to Canada. When I came in, I reached out to people, not everyone responded to me but there were some amazing people who did and they provided advice that was truly helpful. However, there were people who told me that it was impossible, and they gave me negative advice about the country. Fast forward to about two weeks of being in Canada, I landed my first job, in six months I landed a six-figure job, and in nine months I started my consulting company. My success was very fast and very uncommon and because of that a lot of people reached out to me – they were curious about how I was able to achieve this in such a short time. I realized that there weren’t a lot of success stories being shared.
I’m pretty open about my journey, the things I do, and how I achieve them. When I began to share my journey, I saw people achieving success based on my advice. I can speak to someone for an hour, provide coaching and they go and get a job; I review their resume to get interviews and to get jobs, provide them with advice and they’re able to even get promotions or negotiate higher salaries. So I knew that I had to share this information with everyone and that is why I have a podcast and my YouTube channel where I provide free information for people that they can leverage in their careers, and I get feedback from people within and outside of Canada. We need more people sharing their experience and their knowledge.
What can the Canadian government, and its society in general, do to better the lives of immigrants?
Well as for me, I would say the Canadian government and society in general help immigrants, but in terms of the support programmes for immigrants when they land, I feel it’s very one-size-fits-all. It is very generalized and that shouldn’t be the case because everyone’s situation is different. We all have different careers, so providing the same kind of support to everyone would not work because we all have come from different backgrounds, different skill levels, different years of experience and things like that, so I definitely would recommend that there are specialised programmes.
I also recommend that these programmes are also prepared by people who have gone through the same immigration experience and understand what it is like to be an immigrant. That would be my advice to the government and then also in terms of entrepreneurship, as an entrepreneur it was pretty hard for me to get credit or get support when I needed to start my business. I had to leverage the income I was making from my day-to-day job, so I would definitely advise the government to provide support programmes for an entrepreneur even if they don’t have a lot of credit history so that they can get access to grants and microloans that could help them get started in their businesses.
Entrepreneurship comes with its peculiar challenges. As the CEO of Eny Consulting Inc. and the Founder of Business Analysis School, what are the challenges you have faced and continue to face daily, and how do you overcome them?
Some of the challenges that I have faced and continue to face are definitely one of the major biases of my being a woman. People feel like because I’m a young woman I probably don’t have the knowledge, skills, and experience, and then when I share who I am or they look me up they are very surprised by what I have achieved. So that’s one of the biases that I typically faced as a business owner.
I also face the challenge of being a minority as well. At times people just say because you’re black or from Nigeria, they may have certain biases about you. I’ve had people tell me “Oh! you speak English very well, where do you learn how to speak English?”; “you’re so well-read, you’re so intelligent, you know you’re so you’re so well-spoken”, and that kind of surprises me because I am from an English-speaking country, I do have an advanced education but there is that bias in terms of all Africans are not educated, they are suffering and in poverty so they don’t expect us to be educated.
Another challenge we tend to face and then also as business owners are typical challenges like access to funding and that was a really big challenge for me when starting my business. I had to really depend on my own income as an employee and basically bootstrap – spending my own savings to get my business up and running. I reached out to the bank at that time for a credit facility or loan because I was a new immigrant to Canada but it was impossible. I didn’t get any assistance, not even a business credit card to help me to start my business even though I had a nine-to-five which could show some stability in my life, but still, I wasn’t qualified to get that. Lastly, support is lacking, I know that there are some government agencies that are available to help small and medium businesses but that’s really not enough, to be honest.
Those are some challenges faced by new immigrant entrepreneurs, which I faced and overcame. It’s really not easy, it’s not easy at all, and that’s why support is really important. I tell people to make sure they get a good-paying job and be able to build their business at the same time while they still work there nine-five. Also, leveraging communities like WhatsApp and Facebook groups has been helpful for me as well, and then just focusing on building my brand more than anything and focusing on making an impact in my community. Those are my key focus areas more than anything else and these have been very helpful for me to be able to grow this business in the last couple of years.
Do you think you have met all the goals that you set out for yourself when you started?
Absolutely not, I definitely have not met all the goals I set for myself. I have surpassed some goals that I thought would take me way longer to achieve so now I know that every one of my goals is very possible and that I will be meeting them in no time.
I definitely am surprised at the growth that my team and I have recorded in my company but at the same time knowing that the impact we have in people’s lives is indescribable, we know that for all the goals that we have set as a business, we definitely would achieve them and of course like they say, the sky is the starting point so I am excited to see what the next five years have for the business.
Success is subjective. What are your parameters to measure success?
For me, success is measured by impact. Success is the number of lives you can touch every day and the impact that you have on people’s lives. So, because that is my measure of success, I focus more on impact and income. When you impact people’s lives, the income will follow, and that has been my principle and how I measure success. If I can say that I have touched a good amount of lives so far – that is success to me.
What do you take pride in?
I take pride in my fantastic people skills. I have people skills, I know how to work with people, I have great communication skills, I have leadership skills but also very importantly, my resilience and adaptability skills, I can adapt to any environment very fast. I am a fast thinker, and very creative. I’m always finding ways to solve problems, nothing is a problem to me.
When people bring issues to me, I’m able to solve them in a matter of minutes and think of multiple ways that I can fix that problem so I’m kind of like the fixer, but my greatest pride so far is the lives that we have been able to touch through our programs. We have helped Nigerians and other people from other immigrant nations who were working in survival jobs, who were driving trucks, who were working as security guards, who were working in minimum wage jobs. And now, they are now making over $100,000.
I take pride in the fact that I created a program and that I have a company that is changing people’s lives in these ways. Sometimes I have these people reach out to me and say I have bought my home or made a major investment, and I’m able to take care of my family, and that makes me so happy because I know that the work that we do is transformational.