Today is my last day at Rise.
I joined the Rise team in 2019 on a part-time basis to lead its marketing efforts and transitioned to full-time Head of Marketing in 2020. My journey with Rise began after Eke, the Founder and CEO of Rise reached out to me to drive the rebrand of Rise from Cashestate and help launch the Rise app. It was a good opportunity, a role I was well suited for and also one that came with a lot of uncertainty for my career.
One go-to-market strategy and a few marketing campaigns later, I couldn’t be more proud of how much growth I’ve contributed to the product and how impactful I’ve been on the team.
My exit from Rise is sudden. It was a part of my long-term career plan but this day is preceded by a series of events in the last couple of months and most recently in the last few days — when I was asked to send in my resignation if I couldn’t work from the office every day. My primary concern was how being at the office every day made me less safe from the COVID pandemic that has troubled the world. I visit my mum and grandma every other weekend and as much as possible, I try to limit going out, and as someone who battled the virus, I’ve had to be extra careful. Also, by my contract, my work location was remote, and I wasn’t required to be at the office every day. But it was either that or to send in my resignation, regardless of what my concerns were. It wasn’t up for a discussion either and before I could wrap my head around the situation, an announcement that I resigned was made by the CEO during a team meeting; where he also shared some of my confidential work/career information.
While I hoped this would have gone better and I had more time with the team, I’ve decided to prioritize my mental health and focus on what’s ahead of me. To everyone at Rise, thank you for the incredible, surreal, and wild journey. I feel honored to have worked with some of the best people in the ecosystem — Bosun, Tunde, Tony, Mayowa and Chinedu and proud of what we achieved together.
From my experience at Rise and working in startups for 8 years, here’s one thing of the many things I’ve learned — people are the biggest resources for growth. As leaders, we need to strive to do better in creating an enabling and healthy work environment for people. One where people feel safe to ask the tough questions of management and peers, in an open setting, built on respect and empathy. When the culture is great, you attract the best talents around organically, and it inspires people to do their best work while putting the company in their mouths.
Overall, it was an amazing ride and I’m excited to begin my next.
