Career Roadmap
Yemisi's work combines: Food, Entrepreneurship, and Accomplishing Goals
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Apparel and Textile Marketing Management
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Here's the path I recommend for someone who wants to be a Founder & Owner:
Bachelor's Degree: Business/Commerce, General
Learn more about different paths to this career
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
I grew up in Nigeria and was raised with an appreciation for food, built around helping my mother in the kitchen, and always seeing food at the center of our celebrations and gatherings.
2.
When I went to college in the U.S., I started learning how to cook our traditional Nigerian dishes myself to share with my friends.
3.
I started out as a pre-med major to please my parents but didn't enjoy it at all—I decided to take a semester off for a fashion buying internship in New York, which I was much more passionate about.
4.
After my internship, I finished college as an apparel marketing major.
5.
After graduating from college, I got a job as an allocation analyst and then worked my way up to becoming a buyer—this is how I gained the understanding of what it takes to run a business.
6.
In my free time, I really enjoyed bringing people together, cooking for them, and sharing my culture—I realized that this is what I should build my brand around.
7.
I worked in fashion buying for another decade—all while dreaming of starting my business—before I actually started researching how to get my food into stores and out to consumers.
8.
After a lot of research and hard work, I founded my company Egunsifoods, which produces ready-to-eat food derived from West African dishes.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Parents:
You should become a doctor. That's how you'll have a successful life.
How I responded:
As a child of immigrants, my parents wanted me to pursue medicine and become a doctor. They saw these jobs as the best way to become successful and have a better life than they did. So I went to college as a pre-med major and worked hard at it for two years. However, after doing some soul searching, I finally admitted that I didn't enjoy medicine and didn't want to work in a hospital. I realized I needed to make myself happy, so I switched my major to apparel marketing.