“Recognizing Your Worth” – A Conversation with Sophia Kudjordji

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Sophia Kudjordji is a Ghanaian Corporate Communications expert with a rich background that spans over two decades. In this episode, Sophia shares her journey, challenges, and the lessons learned along the way, from her dynamic childhood in Ghana to becoming one of the top ten most influential women who have risen to the top in journalism and public relations.

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I usually start this podcast by getting to know the woman behind the success stories because we can google your success, but we want to know your journey. So, tell me about growing up. Did you grow up in Accra?

No, I did not grow up in Accra. My parents were both in the police force. We were transferred from one place to the other a lot. I was born in Tamale, the Northern part of Ghana. I started school there, and then my father was transferred to the Western region. My mother was transferred to the Greater Accra region, but we were moving in between. Wherever my mother was, we would be there for a while. Then we will go to our father’s place. The good thing was that when they were together, we were always happy. But once they separate them, if we are with one person for a long time, we fall sick, then they take us to the other person. But one thing about me was that growing up, I used to be sick. In fact, at some point, my parents thought I had sickle cell. We did all manner of tests, but I did not have it. I was just a frail person, very weak all the time, and you could hardly get me to talk.

Can you tell me some of your earliest memories of that kind of family dynamic of always moving around? It sounds like you had a good tour of Ghana. But was that how it felt at the time?

Not quite. It did not feel like that at all. Because my father and my mother were separated by their work, we always found ourselves looking forward to my father coming most of the time. My father was this funny, interesting guy, always there for his children. He loves to keep things clean. Normally, we eat together as a family, but whenever he came into town, my mother would not mind us again. She just sticks to her husband. They would go to the market together and do the cooking together. It was such a beautiful thing. We grew up before we realized that there were challenges in that marriage.

I remember when my father would wake up in the morning, come out and say, guys, be on the alert, she is not in a good mood today. No, it did not feel like a tour of Ghana at all. It was kind of a punishment to us because you start school here and then you must break and go to school there, and then you must go and start all over again, and then you move on again. This largely affected our education. But eventually, after the passing of my dad, my mother settled in the Volta region. Then we had a longer period of school. But what I was saying about the family dynamics was that there was so much fun in the house. My dad always had something to joke about. He would make a joke about everything. And my mother was a hard-working woman and disciplinarian. But it taught me a lot about family philosophy.

Even in my corporate life, from when I started work till today, I treat my team as a family. I love to encourage a lot. I am a very stern person. I am firm. But then people who know me know that I am very affable, very sociable, always welcoming, and warm. And that is why I love to mentor a lot of young people. But they also know that behind that smile is a tough disciplinarian who will not let you have it your way at all if she thinks it’s not right. But it helps me to engage young people because I am quite old school. My father was the one that you never do any wrong with him. For instance, you break something, and you are crying, and he comes in and goes like “Oh do not worry. I have been trying to get a new one, but I did not know how to dispose of the old one. Since you have broken it now, you have given me the opportunity to buy a new one.” So that is the kind of encouragement that has built some confidence in us that you live your life humble, content and loving everybody around you. My mum is 86 years old now, but she will call you out of the blue. How are you doing? Have you eaten? Come for something. That is my mom for you, a very generous woman and she taught us to be like that.

It is clear to see from what you say what impact both your parents have had in terms of who you are today. I am interested to know how you found yourself in journalism because you first started your journalism career at the Ghana News Agency.

When I was in secondary school, my mother called one of the teachers to come to the house and advise me on what courses to take because I kept saying that I wanted to be a journalist, a lawyer or a bilingual secretary. It was terrible because my father had been calling me his graduate before, he passed. I felt that until I went to the university, I was not a graduate. I cried so much about not gaining admission into the university until a friend told me about an institute of journalism in Ghana and asked me to try applying there. I was reluctant at first because I wanted to fulfil my father’s dreams of going to the university.

My friend had to go and pick up the form and forced me to go and write the entrance exams. Eventually, I did journalism. And then I started working and started enjoying it. I started during my national service period when I worked with some people who said they liked my attitude. One day I was there, and somebody came to me and told me about a certain group of people coming into town for a project and in need of a journalist. I was like, oh, no, I am just a national service person. I could not do it, because I had seen people who had done 20-15 years of journalism, and I got a bit scared. But he said, no, you are the one we want. Because I have worked with you before. I became a consultant, but at the time, I had still not started journalism because there was a ban on employment. After two years of doing that, I had an opportunity to interview with the Ghana News Agency. I went there to work as a reporter but eventually resigned after six years, as a senior reporter.

Were there any pivotal moments during that period that shaped your direction?

Yes, I was in the Volta region, and I was the only lady among the guys, but the guys taught me to be tough. Something happened at a point in time. An organisation wanted to come to the Volta region and offload some chimpanzees that had been used for experiments outside the country. Some of us had to go to the grounds, do investigations and write a very strong article to fight it and we succeeded. That was one of my high moments in journalism. And then I did a story about the British High Commission at the time, and they were shocked that this tiny little girl in that community could write such a story without fear. They were looking for people to work at the High Commission, I applied, and I got in as a website editor under the Press and Public Affairs Department. Aside from the website, I was also doing stakeholder engagement for them, helping with their relationship with the police and the media. And that went very well.

I am interested to know how your experiences as a journalist influenced your transition into PR and strategic communication.

I think what helped me a lot in transitioning from journalism into communication is the stakeholder engagement, the writings, the press releases and all that because I have done stories over and over again. I know what will be attractive and what will not be attractive. When it comes to strategic communication, it’s all about how you engage with people. Communication is not about you. It’s about how you communicate for people to make meaning out of what you are saying. If I say something and it does not mean anything to you, I have not said anything. It is like talking to you and speaking in tongues. I tell people that public relations and communications should be a kind of foundational thing for everybody because it helps you to relate better with people and with your stakeholders. It all came together through what I learned in journalism and in the work that I was doing.

Over the years, you have received many awards. Today, you are described as one of the top ten most influential women leaders in PR and communication. When you reflect on that journey from starting out at the high commission to where you are today, what would you say were the biggest challenges?

Amazingly, I think I have a bit of the toughness of the police blood in me and I have that kind of dependency on God in all that I do. I must say that, yes, there have been challenges stemming from how you are treated, and what is happening at home. And a friend once told me that so far, the totality of the life you lead is what impacts everything that you do. And do not think that your life at home is different from your life in the office. No. Whatever things you are picking up in the house are going to culminate into who you are, in the office, at church, in society, and wherever. I have found myself. Whatever I go through at home, I tell people. I lost my father at the age of 16. In fact, I was going for my very first award as the best student in literature, but he was then at the hospital in a coma, so he could not be there. And for me, once my father died, I did not want to go to school again. That was my first major challenge in life.

Whenever I have issues in the office, I have had a crisis in the office where my organization was under fire and all that, what do I do? I calm down, go to God and say, I do not know how to go about this one. And sometimes I just receive some calmness, and I tell my colleagues, let us do it this way. And it works. And it has seemed to me like I have not really considered anything as a big challenge. To be honest, amid all the things that people will call challenges, you find me smiling.

That is an interesting point you make in terms of doing what you believe in because you think that is the best way and having that conflict with your boss. How do you reconcile things that conflict with what you believe in?

Let me give you a typical example. In my former place of work where I was leading, marketing, branding and everything, as I am doing here right now, one of our agencies came up with a very beautiful advert of a monkey or a chimpanzee that was smiling. I immediately stood against it. I said, no way. Because in the first place, people refer to Africans as monkeys. It is an insult. The CEO and his partner, who were the owners of the company, and the entire board came together, and we had a long chat about this. I said, no way. We are not doing this. It’s not right. Why should we use a chimpanzee? And they said, okay, Sophia, we love the chimpanzee.

I said, what do you love about it? They said almost every advert in Ghana has a man or a woman smiling or with their children smiling. But when you have a chimpanzee smiling, it’s something extraordinary. I was broken. I was like, God, how am I going to explain this to the public? We went ahead with the advert and of course, the backlash came. I was accosted twice, once at the hospital because I was wearing my organization’s customized T-shirt and somebody saw me and said “You are one of the people saying we are monkeys. What I did was to go and learn about the chimpanzee. What are the qualities of a chimpanzee? The affability of a chimpanzee. You realize that it’s a tough animal with a very funny face, but when you see it with its little ones, it brings them to itself. It protects. A chimpanzee can even take care of a human being, you know.

I picked out those qualities and then when people accosted me, I would tell them that. So that advert became a huge thing in Ghana, and I had a lot of students coming to want to learn why we are using it. And I said we think out of the box. We are a very tough company. Because I was working in the financial services sector, which was seen to be very robust because we were lending money. And when you do not pay, we chase you up. Sometimes we lock up your shops and all that. We are very robust. But during that, we are caring. We care about our people; we care about customers and all that. And so, I helped many students to get an appreciation of that advert. One day my boss heard me giving somebody this kind of explanation. She was shocked. She said, “Sophia you did not want this advert!” I said, yes. It’s not about Sophia, it’s about the company.

Once we have decided to go with it, it is my responsibility to look at the narrative around it and make it a beautiful one. She made me go to all the regions of Ghana to explain to the management team what I had learned about the chimpanzee. So now when people ask why we used a smiling chimpanzee in the advert, we have a good story to tell about that.

That is an interesting example because we learned a lot from the one in terms of you being able to confront and fight for what you believe in, but at the point where you had no choice, also thinking, well, there is another route to this in making people see the whole situation differently, even if you were anticipating such a backlash.

One thing I tell people, and it’s one of the things I do, in whatever situation, make your stance clear. It might not be taken, but they will know that this is your stance. It is very important. Standing up for what you believe in. Standing up for what you think is the value. Do not be a pushover. They might not accept it, but at least that is your stance, and it is clear.

Talking about stance, you are an advocate for women’s empowerment in the corporate sector. Tell me about that journey. What led to that?

One thing I have realized about women is that women have so much, and yet because of society, we allow ourselves not to shine. So, for instance, if there is a job opportunity somewhere, a man will have just about 60% of what it takes to do the job, He will put himself up. A woman will have, 95%, and she will l be like, oh, well, I want to get to the 99, at least a hundred before I can apply. Otherwise, they will say I am not good enough. No, it is about time women stood up and realised that the 60% is good enough to put yourself out. Men take over some big positions, not because they have it all, but just because they are ready to present themselves for it. And I think that women also have so much. And for me, the sweet thing about women is that we are not just about skills, we have something more. We work not just with our hands. We work with the heart as well. And it brings some level of sweetness, care, and love to the whole business setting. I am one of those who say that you must love your company enough to be able to sell it. If you fall in love with somebody, your language about them is different. Even the way you react when they mention the person’s name around you is different. And I think that as women, we have that thing that makes corporate space accommodating. We make it welcoming, we make it warm. Women should be ready to put themselves up. Whatever you have now is good enough. You just present it. Let them be the ones to tell you that you do not qualify for it. Do not disqualify yourself.

And it’s interesting, there are a couple of things you have talked about. One about your smile being your weapon. And then secondly, you described women in the workplace as having this kind of caring, nature. That kind of approach that is slightly different to men. So how does one make those things our superpower?

It all comes down to building your self-confidence. Over the years, the people I have worked with have built confidence in me, starting from my father. And it is important for us to have that kind of self-confidence. Self-confidence starts with self-love. How much do I love me? It starts with how much we love ourselves. It starts with how much we are ready to put ourselves out there. It gives you that confidence. It is important to have people around you who encourage you. My mother and my siblings are my cheerleaders. I once came home from receiving an award and they told me they have something for me. It was a new dress for the next award. I was in tears. Surround yourself with people who make you feel good about yourself, and who encourage you.
I have told myself that vulnerability is a key quality for a leader. A leader should be able to say, oh, guys, I think I am tired. I need help. Asking for help is not a sin. Asking for help is not a weakness. It’s a strength. If we can ask for help, we can open our vulnerability and ask for help.

Oh, thank you so much, Sophia. It’s been such a pleasure having this conversation with you. A lot of what you said, especially around leadership and self-confidence and just being kind and human, really resonates with me.

Same here. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my love with the world.