By Dendy Media
Today we’d like to introduce you to Okey Lawrence Emeagwali.
It’s an honor to speak with you today. Why don’t you give us some details about you and your story. How did you get to where you are today?
I am Dr. Okechukwu Lawrence Emeagwali or Okey Emeagwali for short. I am a professor of strategic management (a.k.a business strategy) and chair of the business management department at the American University (a.k.a. Girne American University) here in Cyprus. I am also a visiting professor at the Emirates Aviation University, in Dubai, the U.A.E. At both institutions, I have had and continue to have the privilege of teaching strategy and strategic leadership courses respectively at both the undergraduate and graduate levels for a combined total period of about a decade and half.
I am also the founder of US-based Stratworth Strategy Consulting – an innovative strategy consulting firm, and Stratworth University – its professional development arm with a vision of providing the most innovative, experiential, immersive and impactful strategy education in the world. So, in a nutshell, I would describe myself as a holistic strategy professional who combines experiences and insights from both the academic and practitioner perspectives to provide valuable strategy solutions to corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, non-governmental organizations, government organizations as well as individual executives and captains of industries.
With regard to my journey, interestingly, I started out as a microbiologist, but a family tragedy saddled me with managerial responsibility which forced me to switch to the management field pursuing a masters in international business management and then a doctorate degree in management (strategic management concentration) in the process. The rest as they say, is history.
I’m sure your success has not come easily. What challenges have you had to overcome along the way?
Well, while I would say I have been fortunate to have divine guidance or what some would term luck on my side enabling a smooth career thus far, with the exception of the typical and general life challenges that show up every now and then in the lives of everyone -me inclusive, one major challenge worthy of note I have faced on this journey stems from the fact that there has always been this disconnect between academicians and practitioners in almost every field of endeavor and the field of strategic management is not immune to this. Thus, initially while traversing both academic and practitioner spheres of this important field, the main challenge I initially faced had to do with convincing stakeholders across the divide especially strategy practitioners and interestingly, their corporate clients as well, on the complimentary and indeed the triangulation benefits of merging supplementary and complementary insights from empirical strategy research and those from practice. To overcome this, I developed the Strategy Insights Sweet spot (SIS) framework which aims to provide a method for demonstrating and convincing strategy academicians of the importance of inculcating the latest insights from strategy practice during the process of theorizing strategy – related phenomena using empirical research data, and similarly to encourage strategy practitioners to incorporate strategy theories and insights generated from empirical scholarly research in the development of the numerous business strategy frameworks, models and tools usually developed in house within corporations, with little-to-no scientific rigor.
Let’s talk about the work you do. What do you specialize in and why should someone work with you over the competition?
As a business strategist, I specialize in helping corporations, small and medium scale enterprises, individual executives, captains of industry and aspiring strategists attain their strategic objectives by sharpening their strategic visioning, thinking, sensing, cognition, and planning skills to enable them gain the strategic clarity needed to forge a winning path and execute with precision to attain above normal performance outcomes.
I do these through my capacity as a professor of strategic management where I help train the next generation of strategy leaders; through Stratworth Strategy Consulting and Stratworth University which affords me the opportunity to professionally develop C-Suite executives, top management teams, corporate board executives, start-up founders and leaders of small and medium scale enterprises.
At Stratworth Strategy Consulting, we provide be-spoke, data-driven and innovative strategy solutions that provide our numerous clients a measurable competitive edge in their markets irrespective of the nature of the strategic issue they face. Unlike other management consulting firms, our undistracted focus on only strategic issues, have provided us with the depth and breadth of strategy expertise which shines through in the ease and speed with which we both diagnose and solve strategy problems, providing one of the most effective strategy solutions to our teeming clients.
At Stratworth University, we partner with the best strategy minds from academia and practice to provide the most innovative, immersive and impactful strategy education in the world. Again, unlike other professional education providers, our depth of expertise and unique value lie in our exclusive focus on strategy education.
What’s your best piece of advice for readers who desire to find success in their life?
I normally offer the following four pieces of advice to anyone passionate about succeeding in life. First of all, believe in God (or a higher calling or any other term you have for it); obtain clarity of purpose; be consistent, persistent and practice perseverance; and finally, be willing to adapt the vision. However, you have asked me what the one best piece of advice is. Yet if you will indulge me, I would like to offer two of them as what I consider to be jointly the most important. The first is believing in God. Over the years close friends, family and acquaintances have stated that I have been lucky to have had transformational opportunities show up for me usually at the right time, but as a spiritual person, I believe they are referring to the numerous unmerited favors God has shown me over the course of my life, for which I will remain eternally grateful. So, I would say faith in God is very important. Secondly, consistency, persistence and perseverance – the power to stay the course over the long term not only empowers your vision to reach its actualization, but creates the depth and deep rooted expertise that will make you stand out of the crowd and be counted as one of the best at what you do. Thus, I consider these two ingredients to collectively be the most important in forging a successful future.
Speaking of success, what does the word mean to you?
Success to me as to most people is multifaceted and means quite a number of things. However, if I were to provide a simple summary of what success means to me. It would be the ability to positively impact as many people, organizations and communities as possible while doing what I love to do the most (strategizing) and generating a sizable amount of revenue in the process to fully partake of the incredible experiences life has to offer while laying the generational foundation for the legacy to be sustained and replicated across generations; all while making sure that I make eternity (whew! That was a mouth-full).
What’s next for you?
The focus right now and into the future remains the pursuit of career advancement alongside building and transforming Stratworth strategy Consulting and her learning and education arm: Stratworth university into the most formidable one stop location for premium strategy solutions and strategy education respectively.
For future next steps, in our bid to be the one-stop location for all things strategy and because of the interdisciplinary dependencies inherent in the very nature of strategy, we intend to introduce bespoke political and military strategy solutions and education to our teeming clients to enable them access and draw from an expanded and broadened set of strategy tools and insights to tackle wicked strategy problems. Secondly a crucial next step will be our introduction of Stratworth Capital – the venture capital arm of our organization, to help fund some of the most brilliant start-ups deploying the most versatile and disruptive business strategies within their industries and ecosystems.
Finally, how can people connect with you if they want to learn more.
To learn more, I can be contacted through email, LinkedIn or Instagram as follows:
Email: lemeagwali@gmail.com LinkedIn: Okey Lawrence Emeagwali Instagram: @lawrence.emeagwali
To check out our strategy consulting firm and professional strategy education platform please see the website addresses below:
Stratworth Strategy consulting: www.stratworthstrategy.com Stratworth University www.stratworthuniversity.org