Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. Aren’t you lucky? My guest today is serial entrepreneur, Flavilla Fongang, founder of 3 Colours Rule, a branding and marketing agency, founder of GTA – settle back by the way, there’s a few here – Black Women in Tech, a non-profit organisation improving representation, diversity and opportunities in the technology industry, and Flavilla is the founder of Black Rise, an AI powered business platform connecting Black professionals and businesses. Growing up in hardship in Paris, then moving to the UK without speaking a word of English, Flavilla’s career moved from oil and gas to fashion and luxury – as you do – before focussing on technology, with her own branding agency 3 Colours Rule. Frustrated by a stark lack of diversity in the tech industry, Flavilla launched her non-profit company, then TLA Black Women in Tech, to work to change this. There are now a network of more than 22,000 tech leaders, entrepreneurs and experts across 50 countries and there’s a series of books, The Voices in the Shadow, featuring stories of Black women in tech, are sent to secondary schools for free across the UK and Ireland to inspire kids to think the industry can be theirs too. And in 2023 – yes, there’s more – Flavilla launched Black Rise, a curated platform aiming to bridge the gap between businesses and the immense potential of Black talent. Great to have you here.
Flavilla Fongang
It’s lovely to be here.
Elliot Moss
What a story. So, I just want you in your own words to talk about the woman that decided to come to the UK not speaking a word of English. I will say in French, “Pour quoi?” which is my, the French I can remember, which is “Why?”
Flavilla Fongang
Why?
Elliot Moss
Why?
Flavilla Fongang
Why? Do you know the answer is actually pretty simple. It’s frustration and it’s limitation because when I say to people I come from Paris, they always imagine the Eiffel Tower, the baguette with sexy French men and anything else that falls with Paris, but they don’t see a version of Paris which is also terrifying and scary and ugly where you know people come from minority backgrounds, put into council flat and so many other things, you know, I, I you know I say I grew up in Paris and but I also grew up with a family where we were living in a small flat with five of us and you know rats and, and cockroaches, all of these trying to escape, obviously we did escape that to go, you know a better situation but I think your parents want more for you and I felt that Paris was limiting me and London gave me the opportunity to go further, and I think life is about being comfortable, being known and I’ve always I’ve done that, that’s why it was the drive, entrepreneurs being known and yeah, that’s why I left Paris, as much as I love it and I will always be in love with Paris but it wasn’t the place for me to be able to achieve my full potential as a person of colour.
Elliot Moss
And, and the person of colour now sitting in front of me, this is, I’m going to jump to where we are now, I mentioned, and it’s a long intro because there’s so many things to say, multiple founder, what’s that about? Why is, why isn’t one thing enough for you?
Flavilla Fongang
I know, it’s a good question. I think the way I see life is most people choose to have one career and for me, as my name defined it, I’m a butterfly. Think about a butterfly and…
Elliot Moss
That’s the meaning of Flavilla in Argentina.
Flavilla Fongang
Exactly. Argentina or Brazil and whatsoever, so people always a bit confused at which one is you? And so when I think about a name it’s always a matter of evolution and I don’t see myself having the same career for the rest of my life so I get bored after three, five years so I change, so I was like yeah, I’ve done, I’ve achieved a challenge, I’ve managed to surpass it, what is my next challenge and that’s how I see life so, I start something, I put myself out of my comfort zone and I find something else. So now I’m doing something and I know very, very soon I’m going to do something else and who knows maybe a, be a jazz presenter.
Elliot Moss
That’s coming up right there. Welcome to Flavilla’s Jazz Shaper, she’ll be here next week interviewing somebody or other, but right now though don’t go anywhere because she’s going to be with me for the next hour and I can’t wait to find out a lot more about this person who gets itchy feet very quickly and goes and does other brilliant things.
I whistle-stopped tour through the various things that you’ve done so far, whether it’s the 3 Colours Rule or whether it’s GTA Black Women in Tech or the most recent thing, I’m jumping to Black Rise. The theme of, of race and of colour is important to you and I meet many people who happen to be black, happen to be brown, happen to be white and it isn’t a thing for them, they have decided to just be the commercial person, be the entrepreneur, but for you it’s been a focus in terms of kind of advocacy. Tell me why.
Flavilla Fongang
It’s been a focus in terms of advocacy because I can see the commercial value of it and I a day from the starting point of my career, people always call me ‘The Enabler’ so it means that I’m able to see the talent in someone before you even see it, whether it is my employee, whether it is my client, agency, whatsoever, I can do that. I think being able to recognise your talent, utilise for more than yourself, this is a superpower. And for me when I’ve entered the cupboard space, again people couldn’t see my talent so I had, this is why a lot of people choose entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship is not for everybody and I’ve used my ability to understand how to present things in a certain way to then appeal to people and sometimes I always, I always laugh about it and say until you have a well-seasoned chicken, you don’t know what you’re missing. The same thing, when you have, we go to a Jamaican family and they cook that jerk chicken, you will never have it any other way. And I think that’s why when I think about diversity is that sometime you don’t know what is missing in your life and it’s my responsibility to help people on both sides of the bridge to see what they can if we can bring them together. So, in that journey whatever it is, agency whatever it is, social impact, I go with the same intention is that can we see how together we can achieve so much more, we can do great and someone can achieve a success but how about we rebalance that and we make this world a better place.
Elliot Moss
I think it was your mum, if my research is right, that said, “remove expectations from your head, nobody owes you anything, start asking from a place of excellence”, so collaboration and diversity, and by the way it’s, it is ridiculous that people don’t understand the commercial value of diversity, you, it, it’s a no-brainer when you look at the stats, but the excellence point to me, how have you brought excellence to the branding world? How have you brought excellence to the networking world? What have you actually done that says, “the standards are going to be high here, and by the way, it’s about diversity”?
Flavilla Fongang
Yes. I think with standard and my expectations started from myself, anybody who can work with me, know that I have very, very high standard because what I expect to give to people, that’s what I expect from myself and coming back to what you say about my mum, you know, when you go into a place where you are outnumbered, I always say to people that you are meant to be here because your perception of the world is different from everybody else so bring that to the table but most importantly, as I say, like my standard of level of what I want in the world starts with me, with me and what I don’t see and therefore I need to work on myself first, most importantly start with the choice that I make so, when I think about if a client expect A and B, my approach to life is that okay, if you fix A and B, can we deliver C? Always go beyond what people expect and that’s the best way to approach life. But again you know for any entrepreneurs listening to this story because a lot of time people come to me and say I want to partner with you and that happened even just yesterday and they said I don’t go to a place of poverty, it sounds really bad into our mindset, it’s like do you understand the value that you bring and actually played that to that person so they can see why they chose to work with you or even if it’s just looking for a mentor, like are you going to ask why this person will want to spend time with you. So it’s about finding your uniqueness and bringing that as you, your USP, your unique selling point in anything that you do so, the first time again, some of these stories, the first time I went into working as an entrepreneur, I didn’t know what I was doing but what I needed to know what to do was, to power dress and address myself in a place where I wanted to be and therefore I was able to command power and get that it into other rooms which open more opportunities. So, branding is one aspect of it in terms of how you present yourself but then you have to do the work and everything starts with you first. The culture of the company, how you want people to treat the clients, how do you want them to work together, all these elements define and build excellence but you always start with us first, we can’t expect to achieve, to have something if ourselves, we don’t give that same level.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my fabulous guest today, Flavilla Fongang and she’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Right now we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya’s Martha Averley and Matt Robinson talk about equality, diversity and inclusion with regards to recruitment and how employers can recruit in a fair but diverse way.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop the words ‘Jazz’ and ‘Shapers’ into your favourite podcast platform. My guest today is Flavilla Fongang, founder of 3 Colours Rule, a branding and marketing agency amongst many other things. That, that sense of being comfortable in who you are and of talking to people about, you know, you talked about the way you dress and you talk about your standards and your, and your substance, were you always, did you always rather manage your confidence and your ability to be confident despite how the inner Flavilla was feeling? Because I imagine when you arrived in the UK and you didn’t speak English, you must have felt pretty vulnerable, to say the least.
Flavilla Fongang
Yes.
Elliot Moss
So, how have you managed that dichotomy between the outwardly and clearly confident based on substance person I see in front me and the sense that inside, as you break new boundaries, as you do new things, go to countries where you don’t speak the language, you really are, you know, you, you’re facing a struggle.
Flavilla Fongang
Yeah. Such a great question, right, and I think confidence is never built overnight, it’s, it’s putting yourself more and more out of your comfort zone that you build that armour and I always say that every single experience either teach you a lesson or gives you another milestone that you achieve in your life and it comes back to also realising that a lot of people, a lot of us, you know, play the game and pretending, you know, so if you don’t have it, pretend a little bit.
Elliot Moss
Fake it to make it.
Flavilla Fongang
Fake it until you make it. At some point you have to make it, you can’t fake it forever but I think it comes down to time and experience and I think the more you, you put yourself in new situation, the more you will feel comfortable 11.20 and I think now being the first at doing something is not only that it excites me but I do know the importance of sharing that story with somebody else who can relate to help them build that confidence, right. So, I would say time and experience and the more you do something and I think the best way to learn, I always say to people especially the young ones before you settle into marriage and mortgage and everything else, is travel the world because you realise how narrowminded, you know when I left Paris I was really narrowminded, I felt like oh my gosh, my way of thinking, that’s exactly how everybody thinks and when you go to Africa or you go to the Middle East, you go to South America and you realise everybody, we all are very subjective and the more you do that, the more you realise this is why it’s important to actually get yourself in an environment that are unknown and from that you just thrive from it, you know our ability to adapt, as I say like success is not limited to your technical skills, it’s actually the power of developing great soft skills, so it means relationship building, adapting, communication and so many other things but that’s what success is about is comfortable with the unknown and going even taking the first step one at a time and just embracing that journey so like what am I supposed to learn and why have I, what lesson have I achieved. But just take your time, your journey is your journey.
Elliot Moss
But on top of that, and I buy all of that 100%, but I read somewhere that you taught yourself how to market and to brand and then you t…, you, you give companies those services, there’s deep substance and delivery that’s required in that area so that thirst for learning, and I know, you know, you Flavilla will know this but if you’re listening you won’t know this, she did a double Degree, did two Degrees at once, she’s taught herself to do a whole bunch of stuff. Where is that thirst for learning from?
Flavilla Fongang
My muse is my mum, as you mentioned at the beginning, she’s been the one who’s always giving us the best advice and sometimes when you’re young you don’t pay attention to it and one thing she always say to me is that your first husband is your education and with your education you can go anywhere, nobody can touch you because if you have the mind, you know, you can achieve whatever you want in life and I think from that I realised that’s what helped me come out of poverty was my education, the skills that I’ve learned and whatsoever and to this day, even now, I’m always learning new things, I’ve just signed up to another course, I just want to learn or reading a new book and whatsoever. The more you learn, the more you build a currency that nobody can touch you, you can be fired, I can be, well if I was working for somebody else, I could be fired tomorrow I know that I can fall back on my feet like a cat because what I have is my own and nobody can take that away from me. Think about AI, think about new technology, you can be scared by it or figure out how can I adapt to it and be better at my job and it’s funny because I was delivering a keynote for, in front of marketers and I say, “Everybody should feel like Tony Stark” and they’re like “huh”, I say, “Yeah, Tony Stark, always build with JARVIS, right”, so, nowadays if you try to avoid it, you’d be behind and I say to people all the time like if you’re not utilising technology you’re behind me, I’m ahead of the game and that comes back to that, you know that thirst of learning to this day. Because when you learn the secret of being happy is from learning and doing new things and you’ve, you know I’ve studied people who live a long life and do good things it’s that community, obviously good food and health but most importantly it’s training your brain and, and make sure your brain learn new elements and if you don’t do that on a regular basis, you’re missing out and depression kicks in.
Elliot Moss
And we don’t want that. Flavilla Fongang is my Business Shaper, multiple founder and also, I’m just going to, I, I do this occasionally when there’s accolades because why not, Top 100 Black Power List, Powerful Media and JP Morgan, Global Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent - Futurists and Innovators, Entrepreneur of the Year, Black Tech Achievement Awards, I could go on. I mean, it, it, it’s kind of crazy and there you are whilst you’re being super successful and being recognised as, as such, you’re bringing stories to the fore that others wouldn’t have heard about. Just talk to me about the impact, if you know of it, give me one little snippet of a story around this Voices in the Shadow project which you’ve been driving. One short story and one impact that you know of where someone heard that story and it changed their life.
Flavilla Fongang
Yeah. I think, first thing that we need to start with numbers is only we’re 0.7% of black women in technology and the reason is not because black women are not interested, it’s because sometime people are not aware of the opportunities available on the table and 15.57 is always a matter of opportunities and so when I launched The Voices in the Shadow, one of our biggest inspiration was a woman who had twenty years in industry and I said how come I’ve never heard from her and I think sometimes we don’t recognise the power of our own story and I say you know what, I’m a marketing person and a creative person, let me package that and also educate not just the black woman but also the parents and also the teachers and the principals and whatsoever so we can kill many birds with one stone and that moment of seeing somebody crying and seeing themselves in a book and realising that having the whole family came together, why is the moment that really solidify for someone another milestone and I think this is what’s so powerful about what I do is that I can do it and achieve, make a lot of money for myself but can I also make great impact, that’s why it really gives me the satisfaction, oh, someone was working for one of the biggest firm, and I’m not going to say the name, and she became partner because people read her story, you know, if she was just another employee in the company but when her story became global and people pay attention, people were in the US office, say “well, we want know more about you” and she’s been able to now, she tell us that same power to, to do something else in terms of social impact and I think for me it’s that’s why I call myself ‘The Enabler’ is that what can I do to help you and as a consequence you will also do something else to help somebody else so I want to create this biggest force spiderweb of success and impact that’s you know you do something, somebody help you, it’s like when you drive you let somebody pass through, somebody else will come back and do the same thing and that’s some of the stories that I, I enjoy, you know discovering and learning about that impact but for me, I’ve taken a ten year journey and the impact is not now, these are tiny, for me I want to see what happen in ten years because I committed myself to ten books for ten years. I’m on my fifth volume right now, so halfway through.
Elliot Moss
How many in each volume?
Flavilla Fongang
51 story.
Elliot Moss
Wow.
Flavilla Fongang
51 stories, 51 stories very specific, just, just really just a matter of this is what equity is about, it’s not about 50, it’s like we need a bit more to be balanced what is missing. So yes so, in this journey I wait to meet that young girl who read her books and now I’ve made or acquitted my tech company because ten years ago I read that book, that’s what I get excited about but if people who listen to this and try to write change, long term change in, in one year, you are dreaming and sometime people have unrealistic expectation and that’s a shame because we are missing out on, on focussing on the wrong numbers and therefore, therefore not actually what we want because we are impatient. It always come back to time, right, we need to be a bit more patient with what we want in life.
Elliot Moss
More patient but go fast. Final chat coming up with my lovely guest today, Flavilla Fongang. And we’ve got some music from Kokoroko, that’s in just a moment.
Flavilla…
Flavilla Fongang
There you go.
Elliot Moss
…is my Business Shaper today, just for a few more minutes. You said something which, it stuck with me just a few minutes ago. You said that people need to believe they’re giving, selling something of value. Define your value.
Flavilla Fongang
Oh my god, in one word?
Elliot Moss
In a, in a sentence, I’ll give you a sentence. What is it when you turn up because you turn up in lots of different worlds and you create worlds…
Flavilla Fongang
I love that.
Elliot Moss
… and you enable worlds. What are they buying?
Flavilla Fongang
I think what it…
Elliot Moss
Because your energy is, as I saw you today, as I, there is for me immediately there’s, there’s something that you radiate, that’s for sure, that’s a given but there’s a lot of other things going on here. What is it, if you were saying, “well the thing that people buy from me, Elliot, is…”?
Flavilla Fongang
Yeah, the thing people buy from me, Elliot, as you say, is the enablement of a full potential. When you come, when an agency client comes to me and say we want our brand to achieve A, B, C, so I work and our job is to enable them. When people come to us I want to 19.54 in technology, our work is to enable them. When people come to learn about Black Rise and achieve whatever networking, our work is to enable them. My value is how can I help you shape your brand or who you are to achieve whatever you are meant to achieve in life and that’s what I’ve done for everything and, and if this doesn’t align with that enablement, I’m not interested. It would be, somebody would be missing out so, what people buy from me is that ability to see their full potential and give them the roadmap to that success and that’s what I’m capable of and that’s what I enjoy doing. And sometime their limitation might be small but it’s for me to again give them the full vision and possibilities on the table because the world has told us to just think small but I think everybody should think bigger and bigger, right, because what’s the point to live a life that is unfulfilling when you can just take over this kind of world and see what’s the worst that can happen, right, that’s what life is about and enjoy it.
Elliot Moss
And what’s next if that’s the story, if that’s true and you apply it to yourself, what do you think will be next for you?
Flavilla Fongang
Well, next, I already know about it. Do you want me to tell you?
Elliot Moss
Of course.
Flavilla Fongang
Yes. Media. I love the idea of movie. Movie and media have such an impact on what, how we perceive ourselves and you think about back in the days, who was dying in moves all the time? It was a black guy, right. All of these things so, I’m curious about creating stories that are relevant for the modern black women of nowadays that we probably don’t hear about or lives in Europe and how does it look like? That’s my next adventure but it’s not for now.
Elliot Moss
You heard it here first. It’s been so good talking to you, we could do it for hours but unfortunately the limits of time have come upon us and here we are, as we, as we weep, as we weep as we look at each other but just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Flavilla Fongang
My song choice is Bleake Hills, From Here On and the reason I chose this song is because this song, again in my next career, obviously not now, I always dream of being a jazz radio station host and really relaxing people and that song makes me happy, so you can listen it either with your love person, person that you love, or either in the bath or just, you know at home relaxing and living your best life.
Elliot Moss
That was Bleake Hills with From Here On, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Flavilla Fongang. She talked about so many things actually, it’s hard to capture them but I’m going to try. “The Enabler”, I think that was the big one. She enables people to realise their potential. “Always go beyond”, she said, “don’t just take the brief at A and B but go to C and D.” Do you understand the value that you bring? Make sure you do so that you can charge properly and that you understand your place in the world and I really love this one, “your first husband is your education” and of course you could insert “your first wife is your education” too. Great stuff. That’s it from Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.