Making a Mark as a Woman in a Tech Company

These were some of the lessons we learnt from our Meet the Boss session with Mohini:

The session was with Mohini Ufeli a.k.a Mo, a Media Manager at Paystack, a technology company powering payments for businesses in Africa. Prior to Paystack, she spent over three years wearing many hats at Andela, which shared the common thread of helping to tell the Andela story.
Mohini studied English and Multimedia Journalism and her passion lies in exploring the evocative powers of visual media to change perspectives. Before college, she developed a passion for photography mostly using her mum’s phone for most of the photos she took. In college, she continued taking photos for fun until it started fetching her money through shooting video on events etc.
Mohini started with Andela as a headshot photographer but kept on with hard work and networking till she was fully engaged as a documentarian. She found herself in a field dominated by men but that didn’t discourage her but rather motivated her to put in her possible best to create a mark in such a unique environment.
At Andela, she learnt a lot because she wasn’t very skilled into the position she found herself. Below are few lessons she shared in trying to make a mark as a woman.

Take a chance: If an opportunity looks interesting and it’s a chance to connect and practice things that you love even when it doesn’t necessarily pay but you feel you can gain a lot, then go for it.
Be dynamic: Do your best to adapt to change in the role you find yourself, don’t be static to change and to unlearn to learn new stuff. Open up to new ideas to get updated.

Be impactful: Work hard and let the world feel of your impact. The impact of your work should be felt by all and sundry hence the need to put in more effort.
Be ready to learn on: Search for information by reading a lot and consult from people who have been there. (Google can be your best friend). If you don’t know it at that moment, there is always an avenue to learn it and to know it. Make the most effort for things you don’t know and get it known.

Do good work: To make a mark you need to do a lot of work. Strive for excellence in all your works and make sure your work speaks for itself.

Push till you make the mark: Don’t ever think you are not good enough to hit that mark. Invest in yourself and spend much time in making yourself better and growing in your career.
As a documentarian, Mo’s role was to build up social media functions and plans, upload pictures and videos, facilitate interviews, tell Andela’s story and manage social media accounts. She did her work very well and as Andela grew, her tasks also increased but she managed to step up her game.
Recommendations for her work got her working with Paystack and has since continued to grow her personal and career life.

If you want to build yourself, shape your thinking, become really skilled at what you do, make a mark and tell a story of your own brand, then below are recommended books for you:
Brian Tracy: No Excuses! The Power of Self Discipline
How to win friends and influence people
So good they can’t ignore you
Finally, if there is something that you want to do and you really put your mind to it, then nothing can stop you from making it happen. Surround yourself with good people and thrive hard to make the mark as a woman in the tech company by doing excellent work.