Amandla Ooko-Ombaka: Ask for forgiveness, not for permission
[bctt tweet=”We need people who can walk between the worlds of business and government @AmandlaOO” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] When you’ve graduated from not one but two Ivy league schools it’s safe to say you are one highly educated individual. Amandla Ooko-Ombaka is not only book smart but has built her professional career with years of experience as a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, the world’s biggest consultancy firm. You’d think that would be it for her but not at all. Amandla’s ambition has her advising various non-profit boards as well as co-founding initiatives such as Second Story Africa and the Yale Leadership Institute. We can’t resist adding that she’s currently writing a biography of her late father, top Kenyan lawyer and politician, Oki Ooko-Ombaka. Our SLA contributor managed to secure a few minutes of her time to see if she does ever Our SLA contributor, Diana Odero managed to secure a few minutes of Amandla’s time to see if she does ever catches a break and to find out what motivates her. How does one juggle the various hats you wear and do it so well? I think the notion of daily balance is false so I don’t try and achieve balance on a day to day basis. It’s impossible with the job I do, where sometimes I work 17hr days, to say that I will go to the gym today, I will cook today, I will see my friends today…it’s just not possible. So I think the first step was allowing myself to think about balance over a period of time and that also gives me time to evaluate. Every two months I try to live a balanced life. Meaning in those two months, there’s good periods of working out, of sleep, of seeing my family and of work. [bctt tweet=”The notion of daily balance is false so @AmandlaOO doesn’t try to achieve it on a daily basis” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] The second step was learning how to say no, which I think has been a much harder lesson for me to learn. I find it very hard to say no especially to people I care about. So, I sort of tell the person asking me to do this or the other; that this is a really cool opportunity and I’m grateful but have to say no in the hope that this opportunity will be there again in future. Once I remove this notion that I’m not the only one who can do this thing, it makes it easier to say no. On top of your quite extensive and busy schedule, you are also writing a book. Tell us more about it and why you felt a need to do this now. The book is a biography of my father. It has been a passion project for the past 10 years. My siblings and I had constantly talked about doing it. I finally took some time off between graduating last year and going back to work to put some real time into the book. The process revealed itself in many different ways one being the more we work on this, the more it becomes our own story. We’re discovering who our father was and the contributions he gave to this country and to this world. I realize we are in a very unique position as his children to write about our perspective of him. We are trying to juggle telling his story and telling ours because his story has so much merit to stand on its own but our story is also valid and legitimate. The timing of this could not be more perfect as I finally moved home after living abroad for a while and I would love to get engaged in politics at some point. In many ways, my political identity is very much tied to my father’s political identity. So I need to understand him, who he was in his early years of politics and what formulated his opinions in order for me to make my own opinions. [bctt tweet=”Amandla Ooko-Ombaka’s political identity is very much tied to her father’s legacy” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] You recently completed a dual Masters degree at Harvard, something not many achieve – what motivated you to pursue the two courses – an MBA and MPA/ID (International Development), simultaneously? I chose the dual degree because it was a reflection of who I am as a person. Some people may think it’s a lack of focus but my heart is very much in the public sector and my mind is very much in the private sector and I’ve just stopped fighting that. I’ve embraced who I am and my heart and my mind need different avenues to be fulfilled and to work optimally. Harvard business school catered to my mind and the public sector school while Kennedy catered to my heart. [bctt tweet=”My heart is in the public sector & my mind is in the private sector – Amandla Ooko-Ombaka” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] At a more fundamental level, I think that we need more multidisciplinary thinkers in the world we live in. Things are exceedingly complex and we need the sectors to work together. I don’t think business and government should be the same thing but we need people who can walk between the two worlds. Harvard doesn’t want you to be half a business person and half a public sector person. You should be able to completely hold your own in the two separate schools which I think is really important. I’m multidisciplinary by nature and I think there’s a role for people who think like me. A lot of the things I care about like power and utilities will not be funded by the government. The private sector will fund a lot of these projects, but they need the government to eventually take over asset ownership, right of passage etc. These two disciplines need each other so much more than we like to talk about. It is my life’s mission to bring them closer together. The joint