The queen of public relations bares it all

She gave up a promising job in the United Kingdom to set up her communications firm from scratch with little resources over a decade ago. Since then she has been able to build a brand that ranks at the top of the list for international organizations looking to do business in this part of the world. The multi-talented entrepreneur also served as a radio host with her show, ‘Talk Business’ on Smooth Fm. In this interview with Rita Ohai , the Chief Executive Officer of Sesema PR, Alima Atta,  shares her success nuggets.

It’s been 12 years since Alima created Sesema PR, Nigeria’s bespoke public relations and marketing communications agency.

Having studied studied French and Sociology at the University of London, she envisioned herself serving as a Diplomat or foreign language translator with an unrestricted visa and the free-will to travel the world at a whim. However fate had a different twist in store.

The dynamic businesswoman who’s got a great sense of humour put it this way, “Yes I wanted to be a diplomat and I still do. I want to be an ambassador and live in different countries and offer my services as a citizen of Nigeria showing people how good, cultured and how disciplined a Nigerian can be.”

According to her, there’s no reason why she can’t fulfil this dream later in life but for now PR is where she’s willing to stay.

After graduation, Atta decided to acquire a post-graduate diploma in Marketing, after which she clinched a job in the telecommunications sector as a conference producer.  This position offered her the opportunity to hone her skills in event management, marketing, sponsorship recruitment and creative thinking.

Like a true Arian, she soon wanted to explore other career platforms. According to her that phase was “fun but exhausting”.

Once she was done contemplating her options without a clear cut plan in sight, the PR guru decided to try something else and went to see a recruitment consultant who assessed her skills and suggested a switch from marketing to public relations.

Seeing how far she’s come in the last decade, Alima is glad she made this change.

Sometimes it is hard to gauge how productive a business has been, but when a number of global agencies begin to show interest in partnering with that company; it’s a good sign.

This is the case with Sesema PR as one of her greatest achievements in the space of time Atta has functioned as a sole business owner is her company’s recent affiliation with Edelman, the world’s largest PR firm.

In spite of the seemingly gleeful prospective, it’s been a rough ride up the ladder with staff members acting out of line and overbearing clients demanding more than their due.

Although no one ever really takes on the role of an entrepreneur fully prepared for the curve balls they’d be forced to catch, there are strategic steps many apply in navigating through life with relative ease.

For Alima, a deep knowledge of your strengths and the ability to learn quickly from setbacks are key; “I have always been very organised and focused. I have never been a follower but then again I would not say that I was a leader. I’m someone who enjoys learning and who enjoys watching and I believe that these are qualities that help you when you are going into that role of managing director or CEO.

“You have to be very careful when you’re dealing with other human beings and their different methods and this sensibilities and as the CEO you have to be very sensitive to people. I also learnt on-the-job. I made many mistakes and have had to correct myself and I had to move forward” she said.

Sourcing initial startup capital for most small and medium scale enterprises is still a challenge. Even though she started her business with very little money, she was able to make a go at it by applying some level of wisdom.

Here’s how she put it, “Definitely setting up a business is a challenge.  Nobody wants to give you a loan and you really don’t want to be in a situation where you are borrowing either.

“The lump sum for Sesema PR actually wasn’t that much. I had an office within my mother’s office and I shared it with the one staff I had.  We had two laptops one I already owned and one I bought.

“I also had one of those landlines with dial-up Internet service and we would dial-up whenever we needed to go online and then log off so we went wasting our data.

“When I look back it seems funny to me that I had that situation when I did not even have a server. I remember when my laptop crashed and all the information we can call our clients was on that laptop and there was no backup. That was the devastatingly for me and I knew it wouldn’t happen again.”

The constant competition between internal communications personnel of organizations and external PR companies for relevance has been a cause for concern for professionals in the sector.

To scale beyond the operational bureaucracies, generate business for the brand and keep clients happy, she says, “It is very important to separate roles and to be very clear about expectations.

“Demand a brief and ensure that you stick with it. And when it’s not working you have to very subtly point out to the organisation you working for that you’re both on the same side and that you’re both essentially working for the greater good of the company. “

And peradventure all else fails after doing this, she states that it’s wiser to walk away because “it’s the best thing to do for ones reputation and for your health“.

In addition, if Alima had the power to change anything about the way business is done in this part of the world, it would be to instill ethics founded on integrity and to boost the capacity of the power sector to function at optimal efficiency.

Finding quality personnel is not the easiest the task anywhere on the planet, however there are some managerial decisions that can be made to improve the efficiency and skill-level of employees.

As far as the visionary lady is concerned, “The only thing you can try to do is improve them and if they’re willing to learn you keep them, and if they are not, send them on their merry way.  We do a lot of in-house training, send people on courses and do alternative training through documentaries.

“I have spoken out a lot about the quality of education in Nigeria and how depressing it can be when you interview people and you take them on and then you find out that they aren’t as good as you hoped,” she says.

Growing up as a child for her was fun and having a father [Abdul-Aziz Atta] who was the head of civil service and subsequently a permanent secretary in the Nnamdi-Azikiwe administration had its perks.

It afforded Alima, who is the third child, and her family the opportunity to travel the world and experience a wide variety of cultures.

At present her mother, Iyabo Atta, runs the family property business and Alima whose sister is the award winning novelist, Seffi Atta, recently took up managing a music group, Digable Underground.

With the creative juice running in the family, BD Sunday asked if in the near future we would see her publish a book, act a movie or record a song.

She responded thus: “Definitely not acting in a movie. I have written a script for a sitcom and filmed a pilot with Ego Boyo but finding funding is hard though.

“I am writing a book, but have been writing it for 7 years – the problem with Arians ; great starters, rubbish finishers!  As for recording a song – you never know because I love music and because my sister Sefi is very accomplished, I think I’ll leave the writing to her,” she concluded.

For the record, if she had to pen a song telling the story of her most memorable event, the lyrics would be an infusion of salsa, havana and mojitos.

Go figure!