Today, Echohouse CEO, Mrs. Beryl Ayaaba celebrates her birthday. In a lot of interviews, she has had to tell the story of how the fast growing youth marketing brand emerged out of a campus newsletter in KNUST in 2008. I sat down with her to find out more about her as a person and uncovered a few things a lot of people don’t know about her. Here are six of those;
She holds a Bachelor’s Degree In Civil Engineering
Although this isn’t particularly a secret, it is one of the things about Beryl that surprises anyone who knows her in the capacity of a Marketing professional. With no formal education in Marketing, it is impressive how much the KNUST alumnus has achieved in the field, practically spearheading the youth marketing revolution in Ghana.
She wanted to be a Medical Doctor
Up until her days in St. Roses Senior High School, Beryl had every intention of becoming a medical doctor. That’s what led her to do science in high school in the first place. All that changed one fateful day when she and a few school mates who were part of the STME (Science, Technology, Math Education) Clinic visited St. Dominic’s Hospital on medical rounds. One of the patients she saw happened to be bleeding from the ears and until now she doesn’t remember what happened after she saw him but she remembers her friends finding her near the hospital morgue. That was the last time she ever had any plans of becoming a doctor.
Philanthropy, is her long term passion
She believes she has a calling for philanthropy but she also knows her calling isn’t the conventional type. She loves people, which is evident in how she interacts with her employees and project members and she wants to tap into that to help as much as she can but she doesn’t want to go into the cliche kind of charity that is focused on promoting the philanthropist more than it is on actually helping. As she so aptly put it ‘It won’t be the kind where i will be putting everything i do for people on social media’.
She loves to travel
Travelling is her favourite pastime. It doesn’t even have to be out of the country. The mere process of packing up, going to another place, staying there for a while just excites her. Whether it is Accra to Takoradi or Kumasi to Abu Dhabi, she will be content with any trip she can squeeze into her schedule. It’s a great thing that she gets to travel as part of her job.
Banku & Okro and Jollof On the Same Scale
It’s extremely difficult for her to choose between the two. But she gets more of the former for one single reason; it is less difficult to find good banku than it is to find good jollof. Ask her to choose between good banku and good jollof and the woman who has very little problem managing over forty employees will be caught in a dilemma.
She wants to end unemployment
When asked what she would do to change the world, she instinctively answered, “end unemployment”. It breaks her heart seeing unemployed people in a country that has so many problems that require fixing. Even though she doesn’t expect everyone to become an entrepreneur, she still believes that every problem we face as humans is an opportunity to start a business and if she could, she will dedicate herself to making that happen. She seems to be doing a lot of that already.
Happy Birthday to Beryl Ayaaba. We wish her many more years of innovation and creativity!
