Its another time again on CELEBRITY’S WORLD. You all are welcome from all parts of the world. Today, i have a very important celebrity who has made us all proud in helping people, showing them and doing great things by starting his own foundation, GEANCO. A graduated of law from one of the most famous school here in USA. Let me not tell you everything, lets go straight into the interview with AFAM ONYEMA.
1.Hi AFAM, please can you introduce yourself to everyone
ANS: I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1979 and grew up just south of the city. I graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where I was a member of the 1997 Ivy League Championship-winning football team. After Harvard, I worked for two years in the Chicago office of Hill & Knowlton, a global public relations firm. I then spent one year working in the marketing department of Mayer Brown LLP, a leading international law firm.
I entered Stanford Law School in 2004. During my time in Palo Alto, I served as Vice President of the Black Law Students’ Association and was a two-time Public Interest Fellow. During my two summers off, I worked for the Los Angeles offices of Paul Hastings LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP (where I was a 2006 Minority Fellowship recipient).
While in law school, I co-founded The GEANCO Foundation, my family’s nonprofit organization. GEANCO’s mission is to save and transform lives in Nigeria. After graduating from Stanford in 2007, I declined multiple corporate law firm offers in order to lead GEANCO full-time as its CEO.
In 2020, I was named one of the Top 10 Influential African Immigrants in the World by WorldRemit. In 2012, I was named to NBC News’ theGrio.com’s list of “100 People Making History Today”, and Mother Nature News selected me as a member of the Innovation Generation: 30 fresh thinkers helping humanity adapt to what’s next. I was named a Future Leader by the prestigious Nigerian Leadership Institute (NLI) in 2009.
I have been profiled and/or interviewed by National Public Radio, US News & World Report, Forbes.com, Newsweek, The Hollywood Reporter, Huffington Post, American Lawyer, NBC News, JET Magazine, Harvard Magazine, Stanford Magazine, Stanford Lawyer, and Ebony.
I have presented GEANCO’s work at Harvard Law School, Stanford University’s Center for African Studies, Stanford Law School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, UCLA Graduate School of Business, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and TedX Ashburn.
How did you start GEANCO Foundation?
ANS: When my father attended a prestigious British boarding school in Nigeria back in the 1950s, he served as a student assistant to a British missionary doctor who was caring for his school and the surrounding community. She instilled in him a passion for medicine and a desire to care for his people through improving their healthcare. As a young man, he made a promise to that doctor (who is still alive) that he would bring better healthcare to his homeland — that he would save lives there. He left for the United States with my mother with that promise still warm in this heart.
For decades, he dreamed of returning to Nigeria to help those who are still suffering terribly there. As my siblings and I grew up, he told us constantly about his dream and the promise he made to that missionary doctor.
I graduated cum laude from Harvard in 2001 and worked in Chicago for a top public relations firm. I then spent a year working in the marketing department of Mayer Brown LLP, a leading international law firm, after which I entered Stanford Law School.
Throughout this time, my father’s dream remained a spark within me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. While at Stanford, I was inspired to help my father formally created a nonprofit as a vehicle through which to see his dream made real. After graduating in 2007, I turned down multiple, incredibly lucrative corporate law firm offers in order to lead GEANCO full-time.
What is the passion or motive towards helping people around you?
ANS: In Nigeria over six decades ago, a missionary doctor inspired my father to go into medicine and save lives. It is one of the great mysteries of life that the seeds of my own life’s calling were planted at that moment. Those seeds were alive but dormant throughout my childhood, as my father told me stories about his dream and the promise he made to that doctor. As a young adult, I first sought ways to balance that dream with various professional and educational pursuits unrelated to life-saving in Nigeria. I explored whether I could subordinate that “do-gooder” passion in favor of status, financial success, cultural relevance, and/or political power.
As I went through Stanford Law School, however, it became fiercely and wonderfully clear to me that those once-dormant seeds had finally germinated and bloomed in my head and in my heart. I had no taste for power or money or fame. In the end, my decision to turn down corporate law and build GEANCO from scratch was less a revelation than a quiet evolution. I just reached the point where I could not not do this work. It was — and remains — in perfect harmony with what brings me the greatest joy and hopefully injects a bit of hope and healing into this scarred and weary world.
You have accomplished a lot for yourself and for helping people, can you tell us how you feel about all your achievements and the awards you have gained
ANS: The awards and achievements are by the Grace of God and because of our generous donors and supporters. They are the ones who make our work possible, so any recognition I receive is because of their belief in me and in GEANCO.
You read law in one of the most recognized school in the country, you did not continue with law instead you went on to start the foundation, would you say you regret your choice
ANS: I have not regretted for a single moment.
What are some of the setbacks you have faced with your foundation and how did you overcome them?
ANS: As a young foundation, we dealt with challenges raising money and growing our base of supporters. We also dealt with issues as we conducted complex medical missions in rural Nigeria – the power went out, machines and equipment broke, staff didn’t always show up. Our dedicated and passionate medical mission teams always persevered, however.
As a black successful man in this country, do you look at the people first before helping them or you help everyone no matter how they look?
ANS: I give help and receive help from anyone, regardless of how they look.
Can you give us three top successful tips in being successful?
ANS: Be Kind. In every situation, in every interaction, ask yourself, “What is the kind thing to do here?” Then try your best do it. Our world is starving for kindness. Let kindness break out and spread like wildfire through this angry, brittle world, and watch it change so radically and so joyfully that we will barely recognize it — and ourselves.
Be patient — true success can take years, often decades of hard work and dedication.
Be flexible — realize that, while your mission or overall goal should stay the same, your tactics for getting there can change, and often must change.
Who are the people that one should look up to in being successful in their various positions?
ANS: Always try to find mentors who believe in you and are willing to invest serious time and energy in your personal and professional development and success.
Apart from Law and your foundation, what other things do you find yourself doing or do you refer to be doing what you are doing now?
ANS: Almost all of my time is spent on the foundation. When I am not working on the foundation, I like to spend time with family and friends.
What do you do when you are free?
ANS: I enjoy watching sports and movies. I also enjoy reading biographies and novels.
Lastly before you go, can you please give an advise to the youths who want to be successful as you are?
ANS: The most important step is to just dive in and begin. So many great ideas wither and die before growing into world-changing organizations because their originators are too paralyzed, too daunted, too overwhelmed to start. The idea is the easy part. What is most challenging is making those first concrete steps with the understanding that those steps are going to be brutally difficult and that success will not come overnight, or even after many, many nights.
There is a powerful piece of scripture that I hold close to my heart, and I encourage people of any faith or of no faith to consider its counsel: Do not despise small beginnings, for the Lord [or the World] rejoices to see the work begin.
It is okay to start small. It is okay if your idea to change the world begins with trying to change one village, one school, one family, even one person. It is not only okay, it is powerful, magically even; for in that small beginning lies all the propulsive power necessary for you to grow, to draw in more support, more funding, more partners, more energy. Snap the chains of inertia that cause so many transformative ideas to remain stillborn, and watch how your courage, tenacity and faithfulness are rewarded, if not right away, then in due time.
This has been very educative and I learnt a lot. Success doesn’t come easy, you have to be ready to work and make sure you aim high.
This is CELEBRITY’S WORLD, this week. I am Nancy Anyakwo signing out, See you next week.
