Ebun Fakolade

I attribute my success to resilience, first and foremost. But beyond that, I anchor my career on three core values: integrity, accountability, and impact. Integrity means I won't compromise - I make sure that what I say is what you find. Accountability means I hold myself responsible just the same way I want to hold someone else responsible for whatever commitment they've given to me. And impact is the biggest thing for me - I like to measure how well I'm doing. What impact or value am I creating out there? Is it making life easier? Is it putting a smile on people's faces? Is it helping people move from one stage to the other? Is it helping people grow? It all goes back to seeing that growth - that's where the impact comes from.

The best career advice I ever received was: do not underestimate the power of your voice. This advice came from one of my mentors when I was sharing my experiences with her. Along my journey, I had to advocate for myself a lot. In my previous career in the IT world, I faced many challenges being a woman in the sales industry - there were a lot of challenges thrown at you for just being a woman and trying to sell a product. I knew what I wanted, I knew what my standards were, and I chose not to compromise on those standards. I was a strong advocate for it. My mentor told me I need to constantly speak up and not be afraid to speak my mind - if you're not comfortable about something, just say it. That's what I live by now: be an advocate for yourself, and don't underestimate the power of your voice.

Do not underestimate the power of your voice - that's what I would say to any young woman I meet. Be an advocate for yourself and don't be afraid to speak your mind. Also, I want to encourage women that you don't need an engineering background to succeed in the energy sector. There's this huge belief that if you're going into the energy sector, you have to have some sort of engineering background, all those fancy degrees, but that's usually not the case. I think that belief draws women back, where you feel like engineering and energy is like a man's world, and we don't see many women. But it doesn't have to be engineering - I didn't study engineering, but I'm here. Don't let that perception hold you back.

The biggest challenge right now is obvious - tariffs. I don't think we fully understand the impact yet. The tariffs have impacted our industry so much because we're a multinational company in almost every part of the world, and we ship things around. Raw materials are coming from different places, product parts are being built in different factories all across the world, and just getting things across everywhere has been the most challenging part. This isn't just affecting my industry alone - it's impacting everyone. The second challenge I see is the men-to-women ratio in the energy sector. There's this huge belief that if you're going into the energy sector, you have to have some sort of engineering background, all those fancy degrees, but that's usually not the case. I think this belief draws women back, where you feel like engineering and energy is like a man's world, and we don't see many women. My company is consciously working to increase the number of women within our organization, which is encouraging.

The values most important to me are integrity, accountability, and impact - these are the anchors I put my career on. Integrity means I won't compromise - I make sure that what I say is what you find. Accountability means I hold myself responsible just the same way I want to hold someone else responsible for whatever commitment they've given to me - I make sure I'm very accountable and responsible. Impact is the bigger thing for me - I like to measure how well I'm doing. What impact or value am I creating out there? Is it making life easier? Is it putting a smile on people's faces? Is it helping people move from one stage to the other? Is it helping people grow? That's where the impact comes from - seeing that growth. I'm also a person of faith - I'm a Christian, and I would say that my greatest mentor, aside from the human mentors I've had, is God.