• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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When mother and daughter are in sync, that business thrives

When mother and daughter are in sync, that business thrives

In celebrating Genevieve magazine at 16, the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Betty Irabor and her daughter, the Editor, Sonia Irabor, takes Kemi Ajumobi down memory lane while sharing on current strategies, changes and projections for the magazine.

Betty Irabor

Biography

Emerging from humble beginnings as a daughter of a Nigerian police officer and a seamstress mother, Betty Irabor learned the value of hard work and developed a strong conviction and drive. She learned early in life that even without the so termed “model family” to support her, she could still achieve excellence in whatever she did.

Betty Irabor has been a major player in the Nigerian publishing industry for over fifteen years. Betty at 46, with six years industry experience decided to take the plunge and publish her own Magazine – Genevieve, Nigeria’s leading lifestyle, culture and fashion magazine. She is the author of the best-selling book “Dust to Dew” a book which chronicles her seven years battle with clinical depression and her journeys through life. Through her book, she has raised awareness and increased the conversation on mental health.

Betty is widely acknowledged as the woman who started the conversation on Breast Cancer awareness in Nigeria. Through her Pink Ball foundation she began a massive advocacy programme on breast cancer. She was named a Hero for the Lancôme Paris ‘My Shade. My Power’ beauty campaign in Nigeria. Betty Irabor is a wife and a mother.

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My life’s journey

I learnt early in life that hard work does not harm you but it strengthens you even though that time I was young, I used to think it was punishment. You know the way we laugh at Nigerian mum’s now, I used to think that when my mum was raising me and not sparing the rod, I saw myself pretty much as an errand girl as I did most of the housework in the family but later in life, it helped prepare me for the journey that I was going to take in starting a business like this, because I was used to working hard, being tenacious and being disciplined knowing that you have to have integrity in whatever you do.

Such things prepared me for what I am doing now and basically publishing Genevieve has been a labour of love.

Starting Genevieve

Starting Genevieve, I really wasn’t prepared for what I met. First, I was a woman, I was forty-six, I was also starting something that hadn’t been done, I had no template to work on, and so it wasn’t a copy and paste experience. We had to start everything, create our template from scratch and then go into this journey that men said wasn’t for women. It was supposed to be like a boys club and women were somewhat excluded, it wasn’t intentional but it was just the way it was packaged to us that publishing was for men.

I just felt that there was a hungry market and I have always been a magazine person. I would travel and buy magazines and I would read because I wasn’t really into books. Then one day, I woke up and I was forty-six, my husband had travelled and I was in the room alone and I was looking through foreign magazines and I thought to myself, ‘this is one thing we do not have’ and I started running, creating a dummy, creating contents, trying to get a business plan done and trying to get investors on board and I never stopped running until I had a copy in my hand. That was a good thing because I didn’t have time to look back and second guess myself.

It was later that it dawned on me ‘oops, how are we going to survive this?’ I asked myself and by the time the first edition was in my hand, it was anything but what I wanted, the quality was sub-standard, the pictures and everything about it was not what we wanted and I remembered that I shed a few tears at the printing press when we had that copy.

I wanted to blame the printer but then I realized that it is garbage in, garbage out. Then we made so many other costly and expensive mistakes. There was a whole edition that we had to set ablaze and by the sixth edition I had lost N3 million to a vendor, an agent. So we made all our mistakes but we just kept going and that’s one thing about something you are passionate about. Even though you may not see all the reasons to continue, even though it may not bring you the kind of money or prestige at that particular time but passion just keeps you going and I think that is how we have managed to stay relevant in sixteen years.

Pink Ball

PinkBall was something that found us as it were. Because I remember thinking that so many magazines have this thing in October where when you open the magazine, you just see pink, and the pick ball ribbon, so who were the people going to come forward to say ‘I have breast cancer’ or ‘I’m a survivor’ or ‘my family died of breast cancer?’ Nobody. The stigma was very intense and how could we have a pink ball or breast cancer edition when there are no story tellers.

But the minute we put the word out there, Dr. Orija, who was in this meeting with us, said she knew a few people who were survivors, and then she reached out to them but it was difficult to get them to come out because the stigma was so intense. So when she couldn’t find somebody, she said, ‘okay, I’ll tell my story’ then we said okay, but we want somebody with a cancer story. Then she said ‘I’m a survivor’. We all looked at her…shocked! You are a survivor and you’re alive!? It was strange. This was in 2005 when nobody was talking about cancer.

After that, next thing, we just found that we were now the voice for survivors, we became the advocates to talk about cancer, to preach self-examination, to preach early detection, and before we knew it, we had a hotline, we were the go-to place for people who found lumps, and we ourselves, were not prepared for that. That was how we started the narrative on breast cancer awareness, that’s how we came to be the first magazine to take that on as a course.

16 years down the line, what are you grateful for?

I’m very grateful that I did. That I was able to not allow my fears to rule me, because I’m that kind of person that, when I have an idea and the minute I start thinking about it, I’ll start seeing all the mountains and immediately, I’ll drop the idea. But for some reason, Genevieve was something that I wanted to see through. It was very difficult, hectic, I didn’t have enough publishing knowledge, there was no structure, no infrastructure, it’s just the kind of business you’d start and you’d say to yourself, ‘how am I going to even survive one year?’

I said to myself at a stage, let me just do one year. Let it be on record that I did something for one year. So that we’re still here now, there is pretty much a lot of grace, there is a lot of self-effort, there is a lot of grit. I’m just grateful for the fact that we stayed the course.

The book Dust To Dew

Building Genevieve, I gave much more than I should have given. It’s like when you have a child, you give everything –your energy, your wellbeing, your resources, you give to that child because you want to raise a child that is functional, not dysfunctional. And that was the same energy I put to Genevieve. I never do anything half way or 50 per cent. It’s a 100 percent or nothing.

In building Genevieve, I was not really focusing on the fact that it was taking a lot of me to run a successful business. Somewhere along the line, I didn’t pay as much attention to my health as I should have. I suffered from insomnia, from years of staying late to editing, to meeting our deadlines, there was so many crisis I had to manage. I was editing into 3am, I wasn’t sleeping. But I didn’t think it was problem even though I had suffered from insomnia for years. The pressure I put on myself was so intense that my health started to suffer until I reached that breaking point, and I hit ground zero.

It’s not only about my battle with mental health. It’s a story from way back when I was eight, all the things I went through as a child, and some I thought I had overcome, but I didn’t realize that I had internalized them so much that they had become like a cancer eating from inside, and it wasn’t until I went into therapy that I was able to talk about it, to trace some of the things that had happened.

So who is Betty Irabor now?

I am just a woman who at 62 still believes that she has the whole world ahead of her and where she has been is just a rehearsal for where she is going.  My birthdays are behind me, I am very optimistic about the future, I have big dreams, I am not that person who was insecure, people-pleasing. I am a blend of satin and steel, soft on the outside but very strong-willed inside. I am not easily broken.

Sonia Irabor

I am an animated creative, with an extreme amount of focus, but such an enthusiasm for ideas that I constantly battle those two sides.

Sonia Irabor is a writer, filmmaker and the Editor of Genevieve Magazine, Nigeria, where she began 16 years ago as their teen columnist, aged 13. She is also a classically-trained actress who started her career on stage in London before making her Nigerian debut on the hit Red TV series, Inspector K (which she also co-wrote). She can next be seen in a new comedy series out in February. Her contributions and endeavours have been acknowledged by Forbes Africa (The Under 30 List – Creative Category, 2018), YNaija, New York Times, Lancôme, and more. She is also an advocate for mental health awareness and equal opportunities, fair treatment, justice and access to basic necessities for young girls and women across Nigeria.

Joining the team

I started at the beginning with the magazine’s first edition till it evolved and I think that eased the insecurities of me being seen as Mrs Irabor’s daughter. Upon reaching adulthood and being more aware of the impact and influence that they both have, that made me want to focus hard on working independently and be sure that I was confident enough  that I could present my work, talent and skills and that this is me.  So it has been more motivation than anything else. 

In narrating the story of Genevieve today, were you challenged with synchronising the story of what it used to be and what you now want it to be?

What I’ve noticed is that there has been an organic enough transition. Genevieve has been around for 16 years, and in that time, what we found is people who hadn’t consumed it themselves had heard enough about it. As my mum had mentioned, the challenge for me was opening it up for younger audience, letting them know that we are for all women and not just focused on women over 40 and I think that was an interesting task to some degree.

I guess it was an organic transition into a broader audience and broader stories to tell. But looking back on the stories that we were telling back then, a lot of them still stand firm till today and a lot of them are stories that can be consumed by women from the age of 21. We weren’t telling stories that were so exclusive or so specific to one group of women, but we were telling stories that a lot of women across Nigeria, in the diaspora, and Africa will be able to relate to.

How has working with your mum been… then and now?

When I started at 13, there was a little bit more governing of what I was doing, and a little bit more monitoring. When I went away to school and when I was working, I had a little more autonomy, but there was still that governing. However, I think when I saw a change in the dynamic was before I moved to Lagos, it was when I became assistant Editor, I think by that point, I had built a lot of trust just by my portfolio, and by what I had been able to do. So, making that transition to Editor when I came back, came with enough confidence in my capabilities, abilities and vision. So what has made this quite a good partnership is the fact that it is a partnership. It’s no longer governing, and that trust allowed me space and a lot of room to work and to create.

Did you ever see yourself in the position you are today as Editor?

I think it’s a number of things. Starting with the magazine from such a young age, I always had an idea of what I wanted to do. I knew that I was never going to do… just one thing. I just didn’t know how that was going to work. I did however know that Genevieve would somehow be a part of it, I didn’t know in what capacity. I turned down the offer to be Editor a few times before I picked it. However, that was not because I didn’t feel it was possible, I just, at that point, did not feel I could present to myself with enough skill, talent and a good enough, reputable CV to give me the confidence to accept that job. I am not the sort of person that would take up something if I don’t agree with myself, and that’s for good and for bad.

So taking on the role, Editor, I knew it’d come with the weight of what the magazine means to people, it would come with the inevitable comparison. My mother has done an impeccable and remarkable job, but that weight is there, and I am taking that on, and will be looked through that lens. For me, it was important that internally, I took confidence in what I was bringing, and that I would be able to balance this as well as my other pursuits, and I think that’s been the real important thing for me. Yes, I’m the Editor of Genevieve, but I have other parts of my identity, and other parts of my career trajectory that have brought me here.

When you say other things, you mean?

I am a professional actress, a published writer, a published ghost-writer as well, and I’m a film maker. These are things that I am pursuing with the same enthusiasm, the same amount of energy, and the same determination with which I am working with Genevieve magazine.

How are you marrying all together, please share some of your works in the same category as you mentioned?

I trained for two years to become a professional actress, I trained at the Drama school in England and then I went on to do a lot of stage work. So I was a stage actress before I moved back. Then I co-wrote Inspector K which came out on UBA’s WebTV which I also acted in, and I’m working on my first feature film. I do sing too.

My knowledge that I’m doing this from a place of passion is something that has really helped me to look at it as a different thing that I’m birthing, but there is that weight, I must really emphasize that.

Being Editor of Genevieve

I think in the past year, I have added a little bit more life to it. I have also shifted the voice back to what it was. I think a lot of what I’m doing now is not really a case of reshaping the magazine, we are returning it to its glory days but expanding that and presenting that to a wider audience. So I was looking through a lot of the old magazines and I realized we had the voice which was unabashed and unafraid to tell very daring stories, we were talking about feminism in 2005 quite strongly, we were talking about the life of strippers in 2006. Nothing is new under the sun, but I’m operating from the place of unabashedness and I think in doing so, I am reclaiming what Genevieve used to be and presenting that to a wider audience and I hope a decent job at that.

Also, we are bringing it to a digital space, which means that people in the diaspora and other parts of Africa are able to consume content; and I think that’s something that has been exciting to see the way people are engaging with us, and how many people now want to be part of what we are doing who not just in Nigeria.

When was that moment you said to your mum you were ready, and what made you make that decision?

I walked up to her and told her. It was until it was announced it dawned on me what I had done. But I couldn’t shift gears. I don’t think anyone is ever 100 per cent ready, but at some point you are just going to have to do what you have to do.

What is it about your mother that inspires you?

She goes hard for what she believes in. It’s a very admirable quality, that never-say-die energy that she has. When I think back to when she just started and the number of times she had come home a little bit dejected because someone had laughed in her face, like this is never going to work, but she kept going. At the time, other publications that were prominent were very specific, and consumers enjoyed her specificity. For her to just keep going despite the hurdles and to now have something 16 years later and still such a market leader is as a result of that energy that she has.

Who is Sonia?

I am an animated creative, with an extreme amount of focus, but such an enthusiasm for ideas that I constantly battle those two sides.

Challenges?

Professionally, one of the biggest adjustments has been working as an adult in Lagos. The tendency is that when people go away we come back to the chaos of Lagos and have very different approach to things and so, we just adjust to human interaction, to how people go about businesses here. It has been a big adjustment, and that is something we have been working on.

As everyone would say, lack of infrastructure has been such a large, looming challenge and so, that’s something that I constantly have to battle with.

Do you battle with generating content?

Yeah, from to time you always have to toe that line between what’s great on a global scale or what’s great in The US and The UK, and what’s great locally. Realizing as well that what’s relevant there does not always translate and having the clear enough vision to tap into this market. Yes, sometimes, it feels like it’s narrowing the pool, but it’s not. It’s just challenging it to just ignore specifics.

Being Betty Irabor and Soni Irabor’s daughter?

What I’ve noticed is that the real root of that feeling of ‘it’s me, I have a name’, is the patronizing nature of it. It’s not necessarily that someone would ask, “Are you Betty Irabor’s daughter?” that is a problem, it’s that I’m a 29years old that people would speak to me as though I am 12, that condescending energy is the thing that I push back against, and I also do not feel challenged hiding what I feel about this.

I battle with social anxiety, so my feelings sometimes do retreat and that comes across in a certain way. So when those patronizing things happen, I tend to want to just remove myself from the situation which again, people would take personally…which is unfortunate.