Board of Directors
Lola Owolabi
FRSA, FinstLM, MA, is an award-winning leadership/transformational coach and mentor. She has inspired, motivated, coached and mentored women and girls from various backgrounds via her organisations.
She is passionate about women, creativity, social enterprise and entrepreneurship and is very keen to see women of all ages fulfil their potential and unlock all their latent ability. She has a deep understanding of how low self-esteem/well-being and self-doubt can hinder a woman, and thus, her organisation focusses on the boosting of self-esteem and confidence levels to enhance leadership, ability and influence.
Nike Odubola
My name is Nikki. I attended Greenwich University in London. I have a Degree in Mental Health Nursing. I’m an extremely organised, calm and patient professional with excellent nursing skills. I have a passion for providing quality care to patients and people around me. I am a Director of proudtobeme. I love working with young people helping them to have a positive impact on their own lives as well as on the environment they find themselves.
Esther Koroma
Hi, my name is Esther and I am a qualified Careers Adviser. I have a wealth of experience working with young people giving them impartial educational, occupational, labour market information and helping them make realistic and suitable choices. Worked with young people both in mentoring as well as a counselling capacity. It gives me great pleasure to inspire, motivate and challenge young people to aspire, meet and if possible, exceed their God-given potentials in life. I do enjoy working and interacting with young people a lot as I find them fun to work with.
Patricia Knightley
Patricia Knightley is an experienced business marketing coach, mentor and consultant specialising in enabling business owners to grow and sustain key business goals. Her expert guidance and support enable businesses to achieve success by learning, incorporating and executing marketing activities that are effective and income generating. In addition, Patricia facilitates a strong personal development change programme that encourages great team working and promotes emotional intelligence and therefore effective leadership and presentation skills.
Patricia is an NLP Master Practitioner that has held a number of top executive positions within the Publishing, Telecom and Renewable Energy industries. She has acts as a change agent and facilitator by offering solutions focused on changing behaviour and fostering growth. She is also a doubly accredited Teacher of the Enneagram, a powerful personality framework that she has used to great effect with young offenders, vulnerable adults and people across the board. Patricia is now training as an Advocate for Rethink, a charity who supports people to speak for themselves in whatever way is way is required.
Olutola Arinola Ayeni
She had her initial training in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ibadan and a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Strategy from Anglia Ruskin University.
She also holds various professional qualifications including Combating Financial Crime, Financial Advice, Mortgage Advice & Practice, Certificate in cybersecurity & digital Forensics and Business Analysis. She is a member of the Institute of Enterprise & Entrepreneurship, Institute of Money Advisers and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. She is currently studying a Theology course facilitated by Kings Church.
Her career spans over 30 years in financial services. A career which started with Ernst & Young and continued with Citibank, FCMB, NatWest Bank, HMRC, Edward Jones, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, Accenture & Community Money Advice. Her role has been varied including auditing, internal control, compliance, mergers & acquisition, transaction advisory as well as process design projects.
A pastoral leader, and a member of the wider leadership group of Kings church Manchester and is involved in both missional & discipleship work.
She is a member of several professional bodies and sits on the board of Citadel Agribusiness and SevenOaks School amongst others Tola Arinola delivers training, workshops and individual coaching on leadership, personal development, financial education amongst others.
Her passion is Transformation through Learning & Competency (TLC). She lives in Manchester with her daughter.
Patricia Knightley
Patricia Knightley is an experienced business marketing coach, mentor and consultant specialising in enabling business owners to grow and sustain key business goals. Her expert guidance and support enable businesses to achieve success by learning, incorporating and executing marketing activities that are effective and income generating. In addition, Patricia facilitates a strong personal development change programme that encourages great team working and promotes emotional intelligence and therefore effective leadership and presentation skills.
Patricia is an NLP Master Practitioner that has held a number of top executive positions within the Publishing, Telecom and Renewable Energy industries. She has acts as a change agent and facilitator by offering solutions focused on changing behaviour and fostering growth. She is also a doubly accredited Teacher of the Enneagram, a powerful personality framework that she has used to great effect with young offenders, vulnerable adults and people across the board. Patricia is now training as an Advocate for Rethink, a charity who supports people to speak for themselves in whatever way is way is required.
Debra Sokunbi
I have a passion for supporting young people in my career and through volunteering as I believe young people need all the love and support, they can get. As a teen, I too attended proudtobeme and I gained invaluable life skills, confidence, friendships and learnt a great deal about myself. It was an experience which I still remember and value even in my adult life and it’s a privilege for me to still be a part of the charity today. I have a degree in psychology and currently work as a primary school teacher.