•SHADE KOLADE OGUNPITAN, CEO, Pholard Events
Shade Kolade Ogunpitan is one of the most hardworking & dynamic Events Planners in Nigeria. She runs Pholard Events. Recently, she spoke to City People Publisher SEYE KEHINDE about her successful career. Below are excerpts.
Tell us about Shade, the CEO of Pholard Events.
I am Shade Kolade Ogunpitan. a mum, a wife, an event entrepreneur, a decorator and I am an event business coach. Wow, it’s really all encompassing.
What services do you offer?
Our services range from event consultancy, event management, planning, decorations and I am an event business coach. We started out as an event planning company, and over the years, as we grew as a company, we started diversification and started drilling down the value chain of events.
Event Decorations started as we grew our brand and as we write today, we have lost counts of the number of events we have beautifully decorated, styled and designed.
While drilling down the value chain of our business, we started event rentals, we do rentals of event items and as we grew as a company. we also diversified into training. We now have a training school that is called Pholard Events Academy
This is another aspect of our business where we train people to become Event Planners because we’ve looked at the economy that we are and also seen the level of unemployment in the country, so we started encouraging people to be creative, there are so many things you can do in the event space and do it well and become an expert in it. We ran Pholard Events Academy stream 1,2 and now we’re putting together another batch that would be coming for the academy training for Stream 3
How have you found the Event Business?
That’s such a brilliant question and a very interesting one, trust me. It’s been a very very interesting journey. A journey that I have learnt consistently as I have progressed in my business in the last 10 years, it’s been a learning phase. We’ve handled loads and loads of events that I’ve even lost count of so many of them. We’ve handled events for several families, several corporate organizations, we’ve handled different types of events but I’ll just pick about a few.
Few of our Clients are Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbenidion and family, The Esama Of Benin Kingdom.
We are the event planner and Decorator to Synagogue Church of All Nations whose founder and General Overseer was Late Prophet TB Joshua. We’ve handled events for the family of Sir Kessington Adebukola Adebutu, the Odole Oodua, not just one event for that family but several events.
We are the event planner and Decorator to the fourth family, The Gbajabiamilas.We have been handling Grandma Gbajabiamila’s birthdays in the last three years and other events for the family. We’ve worked with the family of Late (Dr) Fredrick Fasehun, his funeral was a one-week package, a very loaded one, we had Events back to back from Lagos to Ondo. We had team members coordinating the Lagos Events and team members coordinating the Ondo events as well. The former commissioner of police of Lagos State,Mr Hakeem Odumosu and wife as well where we handled their installation events at Olubadan’s Palace in Ibadan.
We’ve also worked with the family of Dr Wole Olanipekun, the senior advocate of Nigeria. The Folorunshos. Mrs Veronica Folorunsho and her husband, we were the official event planner to the SIMS Movie Premiere. Before I forget, we also handled an event for Otunba Peter Obafemi which you were also a part of. City People were on ground to cover the event.
We also had an event for the family of Late Comrade Yinka Odumakin who was the spokesman of Afeniferere, an event that came with it’s own experience. We had to do it from Lagos down to Osun State in the town of Moro. It was a very detailed one, I mean you all saw it. A very colorful event which started from Police College in Lagos and then we had the candle night Procession, then the final event on Saturday, putting all of these events together is not a three-day thing, it’s something we’ve been working on.
I’ll love to use this opportunity to thank the entire planning committee and then thank especially the wife of the deceased, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin for totally trusting Pholard Events to handle the funeral. We thank her. There are loads and loads of events that if we continue, trust me we won’t end
Why and what year did you go into Event Business?
I started my event career over 10 years ago as a staff at Elizabeth R. Then, I worked with the Late Mrs Ibidunni Ituah- Ighodalo at Elizabeth R Events. Along the line, while we were working with Elizabeth R Events, we were students at Lagos State University then, so it was just trying to strike a balance between schooling and working with Elizabeth R. So having worked those days, myself and a couple of my friends, Kehinde of Finess Events, Bisi Sotunde of Busy Bee Events, Bisoye of Ball Events and Motunrayo of Tea Makes Events, we were all working with Elizabeth R then, I mean there was no Pholard Events then and my friends didn’t also have their companies so we were basically working with Elizabeth R.
So few years after I worked in Elizabeth R, about 3 years, I had to proceed to Zapphaire Events. Then their office was at Obalende, the company was upstairs. It was a three-storey building and I proceeded to Zapphaire Events. Started working as an hostess and then I proceeded to become an Events Coordinator over the years. So I worked with 2 established event companies then. I mean I started growing my love for event business, started having a flare for the event business. I started loving what it is and then we were making money.
I remember there was a day my self and Kenny were coming from an event, we just discussed basically about having our own businesses and then I had my fears because, after school while I was working with these two organizations I was also working in the bank, Oceanic Bank. So it was for me, balancing being a bank staff and also working with these two event organizations. So my friend wanted to go to Law School then but for me, I continued working in the bank for awhile and while working, I was still with my boss at Zapphaire Events. So after awhile, one thing led to the other and then we had to birth Pholard Events and that was the beginning of our journey in Pholard Events. I got married while working in Zapphaire, I had a child and my child is actually over ten years now. When she was about a year old, we started the business. So as we speak now, the company is about ten years old now and it’s been grace, grace, grace all the way.
Our Instagram handle is @pholardevents and our contact is 08028320765
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