TARA FELA-DUROTOYE

Well, before I say anything I would like to start with a HAPPY NEW MONTH to all my readers out there and those yet to read. So I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of anticipation on who we are going to be looking at today. Yesterday, I was just going through my gram trying to accept requests and also follow other people. Then, I stumbled upon a name I accepted and saw other names. Long story short, I eventually came across C.E.O of House of Tara. In all honesty, before yesterday I had never come across, not to talk of knowing the brain behind it, if it was a male or female. So, I did some dig up. Going down to business…

She was born on the 6th of March 1977 and is a Nigerian make-up artiste and a lawyer. Mother of four and happily married to Fela Durotoye, a business strategist and corporate activator, chief executive officer of Visible Impact. She was brought up by her step-mother due to the separation of her dad with her real mum when she was eight months old. She graduated from the Lagos state university with a degree in law, after which she proceeded to establish The House of Tara International.

HOW DID TARA HAPPEN?

Her journey to business and entrepreneurship was sparked by an advertiser who talked to her about being business conscious whilst she was still in secondary school. She said, “As an undergraduate while I was still in school, I started with just N15,000“. She later trained as a make-up artist under Charles Fox.

WHERE DID THE PASSION COME FROM?

Her early interest in fashion and make-up was stimulated by her step mother who she said was a very fashionable woman. She worked for the Ministry of Culture and Fine arts as at that time. “She was a fashionable woman…she never missed her hair dressing appointment… so when you looked at her dressing table, she had make-up products. I grew up seeing her adorn herself and I liked looking at her through all that process. I didn’t know that a seed was being sown in my heart.”

She also said “I started at a time when it wasn’t even popular for people generally to be entrepreneurs. From bridal- make-up, the clientele began to expand and slowly it dawned on me that this was a big deal and it could go far beyond a few random weddings and become a pioneering movement. I haven’t looked back ever since“. She went into a Three-fold industry I would call it; Make-up studio, The concept of the Make-up School and Tara Product Line comprising of beauty products and professional make-up kits.

Having set the first bridal directory in 1999 and the first make-up school in 2004 , she has many awards to her name. Some of which are; Entrepreneur award in South Africa and in 2013, Forbes listed her as one of the 20 Young Power Women in Africa. House of Tara has franchises all over Nigeria and with emerging foot prints in the West African coasts, Benin, Ghana and Senegal. Her life’s work has been profiled on several international platforms including New York Forum Africa (NYFA), France24, Africa 24 by Reuters, Bloomberg and CNN’s African Voices,

Never the less, she has also faced challenges concerning the sale of non-authorized and uncertified Tara products which she held a campaign for because she felt she was definitely being cheated after all her hard work. In her words of advice, she said

“Stay true to yourself, stay true to what you are trying to achieve, otherwise you get distracted. Side comments, how people think you should do things, and I think that everyone wants to hear their own voice so you need to stay true to yourself. Before you come out of your house you have to decide, yes this is what I want to do. You still need counsel but you should be able to apply counsel to your own decision to be able to take insightful steps.”

Tara’s entrepreneurial success story has been an inspiration to many young people. To date, over 1,500 students have graduated from her make-up school. She also has 80 full-time employees and over 3000 independent sales representatives across the country.

Tara’s story only goes to show how powerful determination and creativity go hand in hand together because in it exists expansion and being a world changer. She started small and from somewhere and more than 10 years down the line, we can testify to the efforts she put in her business. Creating job opportunities and a handful of other things. This is a call for people to think beyond the box and never to have a mediocre dream or mind set. Start something, somewhere and watch your positive dream expand in God’s light.