Show notes
In this episode of Konnected Minds, I sit down with Funke Bucknor Obruthe, the founder of Zapphaire Events, Africa's biggest events company, to break down the entire journey from law school graduate to building a 24 year empire that has set the standard for excellence across the continent.
We dive deep into how Funke discovered her calling while helping friends plan weddings for free during law school, why watching The Wedding Planner made everything click, and the exact moment her cousin challenged her to start charging for what she was doing naturally. She walks me through the three core stages of event planning: consultation where you distill the brief and create the vision, planning where you work on checklists, timelines, budgets, and vendor coordination, and execution where everything you've envisioned for months or years must come alive on the day through production timelines, event flow managers, and guest accreditation systems.
Funke opens up about why she thought law would be easy because she loved talking, how she forced herself through university and law school doing internships hoping she'd love it but never did, and why she chose to walk away from a legal career to pursue events full time after her national youth service. She explains why going to business school was non negotiable even though she was already doing the work, how structure, processes, SOPs, job descriptions, hiring, firing, operations, and value chain management cannot be learned by trial and error alone, and why she's continued her education at Faith Foundation, LBS, EDC, and Stanford Seed because business school teaches you frameworks while the business teaches you execution.
We also get into the reality of building budgets that are personal and unique to every client, why you can't use one size fits all even though experience helps you estimate costs quickly, and how asking the right questions about what clients want to spend on, what they don't care about, and what their vision looks like is the foundation of creating accurate proposals. Funke breaks down why her life is busy but busy good, not busy wasting, how she protects her mental and physical health by doing what makes her joyful like watching series, reading magazines, eating out with friends, and surrounding herself with positivity, and the powerful distinction between happiness which comes from external things and joy which is a continuous state of mind that only God and the Holy Spirit can sustain.
If you're building a service business, trying to turn a side hustle into a career, or wondering whether formal business education matters when you're already doing the work, this conversation will show you exactly how to structure your journey, protect your peace, and build something that lasts beyond the hustle.
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🎙️ ABOUT THE HOST
Derrick Abaitey is a Ghanaian entrepreneur, podcast host, and personal development advocate.
IG: https://www.instagram.com/derrick.abaitey