Dr. Victoria Ekhomu is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Transworld Security, President, School of Management & Security and President, Association of Industrial Security & Safety Operators of Nigeria (AISSON).In this interview with VICTORIA OJUGBANA, she shared her experience about security business, among others. Excerpts:
What were the initial hurdles you crossed to reach your goals?
I was brought into volunteer work for ASIS by my husband, Dr. Ona Ekhomu. He was my mentor, sponsor and cheer-leader.
The volunteer work in security helped to launch me into mainstream security profession while being one of the pioneers and fourth person to attain the Certified Protection Professional (CPP) by ASIS, which made me certified by ASIS Certification Board, and first female CPP holder in Africa, as well as earned me the Gold Standard Award by ASIS International, Chapter 206 Lagos. Since the CPP is the highest security certification worldwide, this gave me respect from my fellow security professionals.
My husband and Chairman, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, had appealed to me to assist with serving as the secretary of ASIS Nigeria Chapter 206, when they were having some issues due to the poor quality minutes rendered by the then Secretary of ASIS, which caused crisis at meetings at the early times of ASIS, then called American Society for Industrial Security.
As a result, I accepted the secretarial position and served for one year. Thereafter, having resolved the situation, my husband wanted me to step down, but all members rose up to beg him to allow me serve my two-year tenure during the elections since they all agreed that I had done a great job as the secretary.
Meanwhile, since I thought my husband had given his consent, I proceeded to go through with the election.
So, I discovered that everyone voted for me except my husband and the man who contested against me. That was when I realised that my husband wasn’t in agreement with it.
As a result, I had to struggle to perform my secretarial role for that year since I didn’t have his support.
Meanwhile, my husband had been the programme chairman. So, at the end of my two-year tenure, I was ready to call it quits, but the then
GM of Chevron, Mr. Uwaka, who was going to be the chapter chairman, invited my husband and I to his house in Chevron.
He requested that my husband should let me take up the programme chairmanship position, since my husband was moving up to become his chairman.
He said that the programme chairman determined the quality of the meetings and for them to succeed; they needed a very competent professional to help with good programmes for the business meetings and events.
Read more click the link https://independent.ng/my-journey-into-security-profession-as-a-woman-has-been-inspiring-ekhomu/