Company Profile | CEO Profile

Company Profile

Colours-at-Work is a privately owned organisation, a subsidiary of Convergence Consulting that focuses on a business model that is mainly driven by social community deficiencies whereby these deficiencies are transformed into business opportunities. This Digital Services centre's objective is to create a profitable business by reducing the “Digital Divide” in minority communities in the major cities the world. This will be achieved by providing Internet Access and other value added digital services to the less privileged in the targeted minority communities. Colours@Work was founded by Wole Awolaja, who is currently the CEO of the company.

Business Objective: Create a profitable business by reducing the digital divide in minority communities in large cities in the developed world and the greater community in the developing world. This will involve providing Internet access and other value added digital services to the less privileged in the big cities (mostly minority communities). We have started our first outlet now in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and possibly later Utrecht, Rotterdam and Den Haag. Continuous study will be carried out to validate the expansion of the model to other cities other than those mentioned above. We intend to expand our operations to all Europe's major cities, Africa and the America’s by the end of 2005.

Target Market: Minorities resident in all major cities in the developed world and communities in sub-urban cities in the developing world.

Size of Centre: The size of each centre will approximately Start-off with 150PC terminals with an expansion possibility to 300 terminals at full growth.

Business Model: Our model is mainly driven by social community deficiencies whereby the deficiencies are transformed into business opportunities. This Digital Service Centre initiative is a first step in a series of services that can and will be provided by the company. Our intention is to capitalise on private sector participation in the provision of social infrastructures in an efficient, effective and affordable way.

Social / Community Benefits: With the introduction of our model in these communities, we anticipate the following social and community benefits:

Decrease in juvenile crimes due to increased participation of youths in the centres. Various research studies show that most youths get easily hooked on the Internet either by surfing or chatting. Only youths from minority communities have been left out so far. The cost of the use of our centres for youths is relatively low compared to expense on cigarettes and alcohol when idle.

Increase in digital literacy in minority communities, which will eventually decrease the digital divide.

The Digital Service Centre can also be more effective when implemented in community houses in cities with low minority concentration.

Increase in social awareness and interaction amongst those who visit the centre.

An indirect increase in the social class of the community. Think about: a decrease in jobless people due to access to job sites via the Internet, higher interaction with others far and wide and the power of knowledge acquired and many more

Profile of CEO

Wole Awolaja is the founder and CEO of Colours-at-Work. Born in Nigeria, West Africa in 1964 with strong African and European Heritage. His commitment to the society at large and experience during his career made him decide to put his vision about improving “our world” into perspective. He is a dynamic, energetic, versatile senior executive with a track record of growing businesses across a range of industries and a strong vision and commitment in the alignment of business with ICT. Offering a powerful combination of his skills in driving market expansion and seeking move to a major development and niche market-creating role in B2B and B2C services for sustainable development. The founder has been active in the ICT sector since the past decade, where he has made use of various Internet technologies in client acquisition strategies. He is currently a crossbreed senior management consultant with the CMG Group and has been responsible for different consulting assignments with different multinational organisations like the ABN AMRO Bank, ING Bank, Postbank Group, World Bank Projects, Atos-Origin, Siemens, Inter-Access Business Solutions etc….. in cross industry sectors in the areas of:

Change programs
Business growth
Integration of take-overs
Business Recovery programs
Disposals of business units
Project Management
New Business / Start-ups
Business Process Re-engineering
Business Analysis and
Business Intelligence to name a few.

These themes were executed with major international banks like ABN AMRO Bank and the ING Bank in the Netherlands in different SBU’s and many other international banks and companies abroad.

Further more, on his extensive career, the founder, prior to his joining CMG, was the Group Head for the Private Banking division of the FSB International Bank, Lagos Nigeria - where he was heavily involved in strategy formulation, market expansion and new business development amongst others. He also played a strategic role in the ICT focus of the bank being an important liasing partner with the CEO on ICT issues.

Before working for FSB International Bank, he has also been very active as a hand's on implementation consultant in the area of Management Information Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning, Strategic Enterprise Management and the Management Cockpit® . He did all this for different organisations like BOSE, CASEMA, BIOHORMA, BRUNA, Spijker Kwasten BV, STORK BV, Carbon Black BV, and Kabel Metaal Zaandam BV. In summary, his background has ranged from Not-for-profit sectors in rural development projects for the World Bank to Banking, ICT industry and General Management.

During his career he has led campaigns in increasing market share, formulated advertising budgets & campaigns, pioneered new distribution channels, established sales force strategies and brought new and innovative products to the market. Some of the companies with which he has worked for are; CMG Group, FSB International Bank, Atos-Origin, InterAccess Business Solutions, ABN AMRO Bank and with World Bank supported projects.

The founder holds an Executive MBA from the University of Bradford in the UK and a bachelor's degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Ife, Nigeria. He also holds numerous professional certificates in Banking from the Dutch Institute of Banking and Securities (NIBE), Project Management and ICT certifications. Wole Awolaja is currently a Change Manager with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the Netherlands, responsible for the firm's Global Financial Systems.

Wole strongly feels that now is the time to move to the "next level" – to show our direct contribution to the society in our own little way. - Wole Awolaja January 2002.