Leaders Investing in Leaders: Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye

“As human beings, we do not exist in isolation. We’re here to support one another, to help one another.”

Creating Change

When Toyosi Ogunseye reflects on her career and her vision of leadership, two threads run through the conversation: connection and service. Her passion lies in using her skills and experience to improve the lives of others.

Toyosi has worked as an investigative journalist in Nigeria for more than fifteen years. Before joining the BBC, she worked at Punch Newspaper, the most widely ready newspaper in Nigeria. There, she became the first female editor in the newspaper’s over 40-year history. When she thinks back on the accomplishment, she is particularly proud not of what it meant to her own career, but of the doors that it opened for other women in the newsroom. Since she accepted the role in 2011, multiple other women have moved into editor roles at the newspaper.

Rather than lingering on the major career milestones, accomplishments, or the dozens of awards that she has received, Toyosi prefers to focus on the impact of her daily work. She is grateful to be doing work that allows her to positively impact other people’s lives through writing. Change, she knows, can be big or small. Celebrating the big steps forward is important, but equally so is recognizing the ability to use every day work to enact change – however narrow the scope of impact may be. “Just being able to write a story and changing someone’s future for the better is so powerful.”

Engaging with the Precinct

Toyosi’s introduction to the Precinct came through the Mandela Washington Fellowship. She is a 2014 Fellowship Alumna – part of the first cohort of Fellows hosted by the Precinct. She credits the experience with shaping the way that she thinks and believes that it came at a pivotal moment in her career. In addition to what she learned from the academic curriculum, the depth of connections she built with others is what stands out to the most. She describes the Precinct as “a place where young people come together with shared purpose, where they can continuously derive inspiration from one another and do even bigger things.” Many of the Fellows from her year remain in contact with one another, celebrating each other’s wins and helping find solutions to challenges when they arise.

These enduring relationships exist not only with other Fellows from across the African continent, but also with Precinct staff and board members. This long-term connection is something that Toyosi identifies as being unique to the Precinct, setting it apart from other organizations that offer leadership development and training:

“As a leader, you can’t thrive in isolation, you can’t thrive by yourself. You need a community of people that believe in you, you need a community of people that inspire you, you need a community of people that encourage you and see value in what you do. And I think that’s what the Precinct stands for.”

Leadership and Service

Strong community and connections are part of what led Toyosi to agree to chair the Precinct’s Global Advisory Council when it was established last year. In chairing the Council, Toyosi hopes to pay forward what was invested in her during her experience as a Mandela Washington Fellow. She encourages others to give of their time and resources to contribute to the continued growth of the Precinct’s impact. Toyosi believes that there is something “gratifying about contributing to make a change, contributing to positivity, contributing to changing the narrative, not just in Africa but in different part of the world.” She stresses that giving even the smallest amount of time or funds back into the Precinct can have real impact that will resonate in communities around the world.

We are honored to have Toyosi in a leadership role at the Precinct, not only because of her expertise and her experience as a program alumna, but because of the way she understands leadership. She sees it as an opportunity use each day to seek out new ways to serve the community. To Toyosi, the moment you stop centering service is the moment that your leadership ends, because “at the end of the day, leadership is service.”

What’s next for Toyosi?

Toyosi’s decorated career in journalism shows no signs of slowing down. She has been with the BBC since 2018, when she became the Head of West Africa, leading a team of over 200 journalists. Recently, she moved into a new role, looking after teams in the UK as well as markets in India and Latin America. She’ll be relocating from Nigeria to the UK soon, and is looking forward to taking on the wider role while embracing a new culture.

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The Mandela Washington Fellowship is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and administered by IREX. The Presidential Precinct is a sub-grantee of IREX and is implementing a Leadership Institute as a part of the Fellowship. For more information about the Mandela Washington Fellowship, please visit the Fellowship’s website at www.mandelawashingtonfellowship.org.