FORWARD Spotlight: From Healthcare to Advocating for Multicultural Vendors. An Interview with Vivienne Marughu

VIVIENNE MARUGHU is a former healthcare consultant who transitioned to become a Content Marketing and Creative Strategist, bringing over five years of experience in helping businesses grow through impactful social media strategies. She specializes in creating innovative campaigns that drive engagement and boost sales, enabling brands to tell their stories in a distinctive and compelling way.

As the co-founder and Head of Brand Strategy at AfroPro—a platform that connects Black and Brown event vendors with clients—Vivienne combines her entrepreneurial spirit with a deep passion for empowering others. Balancing her roles as a wife and new mother, she draws inspiration from her personal journey to enrich her work and build meaningful connections. Vivienne Okafor MPH

Tell us a little bit about your background.

I’ve been blessed to have a rich experience over the last 3 decades of my life. From living and going to school in Buenos Aires, Argentina where I learned to speak fluent Spanish, to experiencing Nigeria during my formative years of high school, to coming to the United States for college, where I’ve lived life ever since. As a Nigerian, I was told that I had grown up with this desire to become a doctor but what I remember most is having the desire to understand people and find ways to help them. This led me to studying biology and Spanish in college, applying to medical school several times with no success and eventually getting my Masters of Public Health and desiring a career in global public health to fulfill that desire of helping people. I can’t say that my educational background has influenced the work i do today but the intangible extra curricular activities i engaged in such as research, tutoring, assisting as a T.A among others, helped grow my character, skills in project management, my ability to break down complex topics into digestible concepts has influenced the work i do today.

A few years ago, you transitioned from healthcare consulting to leading a brand strategy agency. What inspired this bold move?

Short answer: God, Failure and finally seeing myself.

Long answer: I never saw myself as creative. Growing up and being told I couldn’t become a dancer (yes I once had this desire to be the next Shakira lol) and focusing on the mundane career option of medicine, I didn’t believe that I had a creative bone in my body. That wasn’t until I failed the MCATS 4 times, realising that maybe medical school wasn’t going to happen and finally having the time and brain space to dedicate to starting the travel blog that had been pressing on my heart for a few years at that time.

In 2019 I started my travel blog/brand and quickly realised that what I enjoyed most about my travels was going on them and sharing the content rather than planning the trips for others. This led to a journey of simply creating content, inspiring others to travel far, wide and according to their own goals. In 2020 I was working in healthcare consulting while building a side hustle in content creation and coaching when I realised how much I enjoyed honing in on my creativity, coaching and creating content. By May 2021, I had transitioned from simply creating content to running a content/creative agency, making the same amount of money in my business that I was making in consulting. It wasn’t long before I decided to quit my consulting job and went all in as a FT entrepreneur – agency owner, coaching and speaking.

How did your background working in healthcare and marketing strategy influence your approach to brand strategy at AfroPro? What key lessons did you learn?

Developing a Brand Strategy for any brand/business requires an intimate understanding of the details of the brand such as its vision, values, voice, customer profile, competitors etc before using all that info to develop a sustainable content marketing strategy. Beyond the technical aspects of how to develop a brand strategy framework for a brand, it takes organisation to manage the vision of where a brand is going despite where you see it today. As a healthcare consultant, I worked as a project manager, which required me to keep the rest of the team organised to the end vision of the project while making sure we hit certain milestones. Aside from the technical brand development and marketing skills I gained while building my creative strategy agency, the key skills that I embodied while building AfroPro was how to anticipate a certain problem and how to be solution-focused despite what hurdles might come up. These skills I acquired in the role of a FT entrepreneur.

When building AfroPro, I wore many hats from brand strategist to project manager to UI designer to strategizing the functionality developer. It challenged me to bring in all of the skills and experiences i had acquired up until that point and taught me that sometimes it’s not the tangible/technical skills that will bring you success but most times the intangible/soft skills that you don’t learn in the 4 walls of a classroom but only learn through experience that brings you success.

How does your work at AfroPro serve the community, and what impact do you hope to achieve?

Legacy. At AfroPro our focus is to boost the visibility of minority owned event businesses so they can turn businesses they may have started as a side-hustle into legacy business. There’s a story my husband always tells when we talk about the impact we hope to achieve. He shares how when he was graduating from high school he had a friend whose father owned a landscaping business. As each person in his class shared where they would end up after graduation, this friend shared that he wasn’t going to college but would join the family landscaping business that his grandfather started. This brings us to the question: Can we build businesses that aren’t merely for survival or to earn a few extra dollars but grow and scale businesses that can grow from one generation to another?

While AfroPro has started as an online marketplace connecting minority owned event businesses with clients, our goal is to expand this initial idea by providing resources to vendors that will help them learn the business fundamentals necessary to help them grow as they service their client base with excellence.

What has been your proudest moment since co-founding AfroPro?

I don’t have a singular event but I’m always proud of the work we’re doing at AfroPro each time the idea is validated by a vendor or client when they hear about the platform. Working on an idea for 18 months before launching is no easy feat. Most days you’re doubting yourself, wondering if you made up the need or if it’s worth it to keep going.

However the sacrifices on our way to launch and during this growth phase becomes worth it when we receive that validation from the people that hear our story and when vendors join the platform. We recently passed 300 vendors listed on the site and have huge goals to meet for 2025.

Legacy drives us at AfroPro. Our focus is to boost the visibility of minority owned event businesses, so they can turn businesses they may have started as a side-hustle into legacy business.

How important is your positioning in the U.S. market to support multicultural vendors effectively? What strategies are you employing to ensure that your platform meets the unique needs of these vendors while fostering inclusivity and representation in such a diverse landscape?

Our positioning is everything. There are several marketplaces already thriving in the event industry that cater to vendors, so it’s important that we continue to refine and share what makes us unique and how we’re well positioned for the minority owned event vendor in the US but also around the world.

To do this, we’ve implemented an open door policy for feedback where we’re always asking our vendors for feedback as it relates to the usability of the site.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to venture out, especially those who feel they lack experience?

Focus on practising the skills you’re using to build your business as much as you can. This can look like the following:

• Bartering services with another early stage entrepreneur, where you offer your services to them for free

• Finding 3-5 people you can provide your service or product to for free in exchange for their reviews.

• Take courses or hire a coach that can help you sharpen your knowledge in the area you’re building your business in.

The key is to never stop learning, practising and constantly ask for feedback which makes you open and gives you room to grow.

What drives your sense of purpose, and how do you integrate it into your daily work at AfroPro?

2 things: God and His people. I have a deep desire to stay obedient to what the Lord has for me in the areas he’s called me to and with that comes a deep desire to see people and by extension their brands and businesses flourish. When I meet with vendors 1:1 or in groups to help them set up their profiles on AfroPro I always ensure that they leave our sessions empowered. I want them to know that it’s more than setting up a profile, I want to see them win and if I spot something during our sessions that may help their business, I point it out, share any resources I may have or even provide a quick social strategy that they can implement.

How do you envision the future of digital storytelling and brand marketing, especially related to the work you do at AfroPro?

We’ve reached a stage in storytelling where people are taught to keep their status quo, replicate what’s already out there and successful so that they can go viral but what brands and businesses do not realise is that the brands that make it and build legacy businesses, are the ones that stand of purpose, their unique positioning and tell their stories so thy can attract the customers that are for them.

Consumers are getting tired of the “same old, same old” content, everything looking the same and are craving authentic connections and value with businesses that are built for them. And that is the goal of the work we will continue to do at AfroPro, to stay authentic and market the brand with bold stories, fresh and creative ideas.

What advice would you want to share with our community members and readers to inspire and empower them?

Your story needs to be heard. Stop focusing on going viral, editing the perfect video or writing the perfect caption. Instead focus on finding, refining and sharing your story so the people that need what you have can find you. Set yourself apart from the noise because while good content gets likes and some shares, great storytelling content is what keeps people coming back for more.

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FORWARD Spotlight is a dedicated segment of the Beyond Borders Network that shines a light on the stories of changemakers, leaders, and innovators within our global community.

Through these inspiring stories, we celebrate the remarkable achievements, resilience, and impact of individuals breaking boundaries and creating positive change across industries and regions.

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