We were lucky to catch up with Oladotun Idowu recently and have shared our conversation below.
Oladotun, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I started Sisters In Media with the hope of increasing the presence of women of color in media. When I started back in 2016 I remember desperately wanting a mentor of color to guide me throughout my early career. I struggled to find that because truthfully there were not as many Black women in leadership at my former employers.
Sisters In Media initially was created to create a space for young Black and Brown women in media to connect. The very first event I organized was a brunch with about 10-15 of my friends in the industry then it slowly started to grow. Now we have a membership of about 500 members.
I can confidently say that our mission is to offer women of color in media more access to mentor/mentee relationships, job opportunities and create safe spaces for those professionals to commune and share their experiences. I’m proud to say that we’ve done that in the last 7-8 years of existence. My end goal? Making sure women of color have a real voice in the media industry.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
After graduating from Syracuse University (Newhouse) I was so focus on building my career in entertainment and I was even more thrilled to begin my career journey at NBCUniversal then shortly after, Fox Searchlight Pictures. After a few years exploring film and TV, I took a slight shift in my career and went over to Twitter (now known as X) to execute events. Although events was super fun, I missed the entertainment side so I joined the Entertainment Partnerships team at Twitter before leaving the company. Today I’m at Campari, a spirits company, managing entertainment marketing across all of the major brands.
I’ve loved entertainment since I was a little girl so I’m so grateful to God that I get to wake up and continue to pursue my passion. I’ve always loved storytelling and this industry is so perfectly suited for that. I couldn’t be more proud of my career journey. Although I’ve encountered many bumps and even more challenges, I feel like it was all worth it.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
For the first 5 years after college I was working in film and TV doing marketing and publicity and felt like that was what I would end up doing for the rest of my life. When you get your degree in something it feels like that’s the thing you’ll do forever. Well I learned the hard way.
I later was laid off and it forced me to figure out what I really wanted to do. Truthfully it was challenge landing my next role so I had to re-think my usual career strategy which was PR/Marketing and film and TV. I was so blessed to land an events role at Twitter which I absolutely loved. Although nervous about the shift, I am so very happy I made that pivot because it led to even bigger blessings I couldn’t predict.
Now I’m back in entertainment and happy because all of the life lessons and pivots I experienced led to this moment.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
100 percent social media! It’s helped us get in front of eyeballs we would have never attracted. We’ve also been able to grow clients and members through our partnership events with media companies and word of mouth. Never sleep on word of mouth people.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sistersinmedia.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sistersinmedia/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SistersInMediaNYC/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14869463/admin/feed/posts/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sistersinmedia?lang=en