Scotland-based lawyer and Chief Executive Officer of Metropolitan School of Business and Management, United Kingdom, Tolulope Ariyibi-Oke, tells AYOOLA OLASUPO how her determination to defy poverty shaped her journey from a young girl hawking bread in Nigeria to becoming a ambitious business leader in the diaspora
You grew up in Ibadan before building a career in the United Kingdom. What was growing up like for you in Nigeria?
I grew up in Agbowo, Ibadan, and we were poor. Success has a funny way of editing poverty afterwards. Once people make it, everything becomes “humble beginnings.” The crowded house becomes character-building, hunger becomes motivation, and struggle becomes a beautiful chapter before the breakthrough. It did not always feel beautiful when you were inside it.
Poverty is very physical when you are a child. It is about knowing what your parents cannot afford before they tell you, learning not to ask for certain things and hearing adults discuss money without understanding the figures, but knowing something is wrong. We lived in a face-me-I-face-you house, where privacy was almost theoretical.
I hawked bread when I was about nine. I hated shouting on the road, so I took the bread into university hostels and spoke directly to students. But I do not want anyone to conclude that poverty was good for me. Poverty did not deserve me, and it does not deserve Nigerian children. I know what it feels like to have ability before access.
Did the experience in any way shape the woman and leader you eventually became?
Yes, it did very deeply. My mother always said, “À ń kó ó bí eni tí ń kó ilé” (We are teaching you like someone building a house). As a child, you do not hear philosophy in that; you hear another lecture coming. But I understand it now.
My parents believed strongly in education, discipline and responsibility. Growing up without much made me conscious of wasted talent. I find it difficult to look at someone struggling and immediately conclude that they are lazy or made bad choices.
I have seen intelligent, hardworking people limited by things that had little to do with effort. Sometimes the opportunity never came. Sometimes the money was not there. Sometimes family responsibility arrived too early. Sometimes someone simply had the right introduction. That does not remove personal responsibility.
You still have to work, prepare and take responsibility for your decisions. But I do not believe everyone was given the same choices. That shaped my leadership. I look at both what people did with what they had and what they actually had. Merit matters, but access matters too.
Take us through your journey from Nigeria to the UK?
It was Nigeria to Dubai first, and then the UK. I studied Law at Obafemi Awolowo University and, after university, worked at Layi Babatunde (SAN) & Co before moving into business.
In 2011, I joined the founding team of Metropolitan School of Business and Management and worked in business development in Lagos. In December 2013, I moved to Dubai and lived there until June 2022. Almost nine years there shaped much of my professional thinking.
Dubai forced me to think differently because I worked with people from different nationalities, cultures and professional backgrounds. I learnt that what works in Lagos may need to be presented differently elsewhere.
In 2022, we moved to the UK, where I studied for my MBA at the University of Sussex. We lived in London until August 2023 before moving to Glasgow. So, it has never been a simple Nigeria-to-Britain story.
Nigeria gave me my foundation, Dubai international exposure, London another professional and academic environment, and Glasgow stability. Migration adds places to you; it does not completely remove those that came before.
Did you encounter any challenge when you started building your life and career abroad?
The motivation was simple: we wanted to scale. By 2013, we had built MSBM in Nigeria, but we did not want the business tied to one market. We wanted to see whether what we had built could work internationally. Dubai made sense because it was already very international. It gave us access to a wider market and forced us to think beyond Nigeria.
The first challenge was learning that experience and recognition are different. You may know what you can do, but the people around you do not know yet. Your network and reputation are somewhere else, so you rebuild. You learn how people communicate, buy and negotiate, and discover that some things you thought were universal were simply familiar. Then the UK brought another adjustment. I was studying for my MBA, still working, raising a family and learning a new system.
Relocation does not clear your desk because the emails still come, children need you, businesses have problems and bills arrive. The move was about scale; the challenge was learning how to grow without assuming what worked before would work again.
When did you realise you could build a significant career and create opportunities for yourself outside Nigeria?
The real turning point was when the naira weakened badly against the pound. At one point, the exchange rate was around £1 to ₦250, then moved to more than ₦600. For us, that was not something happening on a financial news screen because we saw it in our students.
A programme had not become more expensive because we increased the fee; it became more expensive because the currency had weakened. Students who wanted the education and could have afforded it a year earlier suddenly could not.
That was when I understood how economics can decide opportunity long before talent gets a chance to speak. You can genuinely want to make education accessible, but the exchange rate does not care about your mission statement.
We had to admit that if MSBM remained too dependent on Nigeria, every major economic problem became a major problem for us. So, we had to think beyond Nigeria. We realised we could build something Nigerian and serve people elsewhere. The currency crisis forced us to look beyond the limits of where we started.
Did you ever doubt the possibility?
There are many times. I do not think anyone builds something over a long period without doubt. One of the hardest periods was raising investment. We spent two or three years speaking to investors: meetings, pitch decks, follow-ups, due diligence, encouraging conversations and, often, silence.
That period taught me that a good idea does not simply receive money because it is good. Connections, timing, geography and familiarity matter. At some point, we stopped behaving as though funding was coming to rescue us. There were salaries to pay, students to teach and customers to find. So, we returned to the basics: students, product, revenue and keeping the organisation moving.
That period changed my relationship with doubt. I stopped expecting certainty before moving. Sometimes you are afraid and still make the decision. Doubt does not always mean stop; sometimes it means you understand the risk.
You have worked extensively in education and business leadership. What attracted you to these fields?
Education made sense to me because I have seen both sides of access. I know what intelligence looks like when opportunity meets it, and what happens when opportunity never arrives. I trained as a lawyer, so Law taught me to examine arguments, evidence and consequences. Then I moved into business development and advertising, where I learnt how to understand markets and make people see value.
Education became where those things met: the intellectual, human and business sides. You can care about students and still have salaries, technology, staff and systems to fund. A good mission can collapse if the numbers do not work. For me, education gives the reason, while business provides the structure that keeps it alive.
How did your Nigerian upbringing influence the way you approach leadership?
Nigeria taught me very early that nobody really succeeds alone. There is usually somebody in the story: a parent, teacher, relative, colleague, someone who lent money, made an introduction or gave you a chance before your CV looked impressive enough.
That is why I am uncomfortable with the phrase “self-made.” Even the most independent person benefited from something they did not build themselves: a school, a road, family sacrifice, a functioning institution, someone who believed in them or simply good timing. That shapes how I lead.
I do not see leadership as standing above people. I see it as holding something temporarily that affects other people’s lives. My decisions can affect someone’s salary, career, education or future, and that should make me careful.
But community also has a difficult side. The first person who succeeds can become the family bank, employment agency and emergency department. So, I have learnt to care about people, remember who helped me, maintain boundaries, build fair systems and remember that power is temporary.
What sacrifice did you have to make along the way that people may not see when they look at your achievement?
People usually see the title at the end. They do not see Wednesday, and most of life happens on Wednesday. They do not see the ordinary days when you are studying for an MBA, working, raising children, managing a business, answering emails and thinking about payroll.
There were times I wanted more rest, certainty or someone else to make the difficult decision. Leadership does not always give you that option. But I am careful about glorifying sacrifice. I do not want my children to suffer because I suffered or prove themselves through exhaustion because I once did.
If hardship teaches you something, take the lesson and build from it. For me, success should make life better. Otherwise, we are simply becoming better at surviving.
As someone who has experienced both Nigeria and the UK, what misconceptions do you think Nigerians back home have about life and success in the diaspora?
The currency conversion always makes me laugh because someone hears that you earn £4,000 a month and immediately multiplies it by the naira exchange rate. In their head, you have become Dangote. Meanwhile, your rent, council tax, electricity bills, children’s expenses and supermarket costs are all British, and none is interested in accepting naira.
The bigger misconception is that once you leave Nigeria, life becomes easy. It does not. Some things may become easier because systems work better, opportunities may increase and you may earn more, but migration also takes away things you did not realise were carrying you.
Your social standing may mean little. The person you could call when something went wrong may be thousands of miles away. You can arrive with experience and discover that your social capital did not travel with you. In Nigeria, help can be almost accidental. Abroad, many things must be arranged or paid for. Migration does not remove difficulty; it changes its shape.
What do you think Nigerians abroad sometimes misunderstand about the realities, resilience and aspirations of people back home?
We forget very quickly because once our lives become stable, instability can look like bad decision-making from a distance. You hear people ask, “Why doesn’t he just save?” Save from what? “Why doesn’t she start a business?” With what capital? People are also trying to eat, pay school fees, care for family and get through the week.
Context matters, but it is not an excuse for everything. People still have agency and responsibility. What I reject is the idea that everybody has the same choices or margin for error. One person makes a mistake, and it becomes a lesson; another makes the same mistake, and it becomes a crisis. Once things work out, it is easy to mistake your outcome for proof that the system was fair.
How have you been able to navigate questions of identity, belonging and culture while living abroad?
At first, migration can make you feel you must choose where you belong. You leave one country, settle in another, and face pressure to explain yourself: are you still Nigerian, or has somewhere else become home?
Eventually, I realised I did not need a neat answer. I am Nigerian, and that did not disappear because I lived in Dubai, London or Scotland. Those places shaped me too. Migration adds layers; it does not erase those underneath.
Living abroad has made me question Nigerian culture more honestly. Stepping outside a culture helps you distinguish wisdom from habit, fear and traditions we no longer understand. Loving a culture does not mean defending everything within it. Some things should be preserved, questioned, changed or left behind.
I still value ambition, hard work and responsibility, but success is never produced by effort alone. I love Nigeria enough to tell the truth about it.
What have been the most difficult professional setbacks you faced in diaspora?
Trying to raise funds was one of the hardest periods for me, because when you begin, you think the process is simple: build something good, show investors, raise money and continue building. Then you discover invisible steps between those sentences. Who knows you? Who introduced you? Do they understand your market? Capital does not move only towards good ideas; it also moves towards familiarity, networks and trust.
We spent years trying. There were meetings, pitch decks, follow-ups, due diligence, promising conversations and often silence. After a while, you start questioning yourself. We did not get the outcome we wanted, but reality is very efficient.
Payroll still arrives, students send emails and customers have questions. So, we returned to what we could control: students, product, revenue, technology, staff and customers. Disappointment is real, but disappointment and defeat are not the same thing.