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A few days ago, City People Magazine reporter, Benprince Ezeh, sat down with Jennifer Odufuwa at the Rental Professionals Society of Nigeria (RPSN) Conference. What follows is her story in her own words.
There is a version of Jennifer Odufuwa that most people never saw.
The one sitting in uncertainty after losing a business she had spent eight years building. The one unsure whether to stay in the industry she loved or walk away entirely. The one rebuilding quietly, without announcement, while figuring out what came next.
That version is where this story begins.
Today, Jennifer Odufuwa is Co-CEO of Tantacom Group, a 360° brand experience company working across strategy, communications, activations and experiences. She is Co-Founder of Culinara Group, a culinary ecosystem creating commercial pathways for emerging talent. And she is the Founder of Thrive Beyond, a movement reaching over 8,000 women navigating their own seasons of rebuilding.
But before any of that, there was collapse.
Losing Everything
“I lost the business. The business collapsed. After a year of trying to navigate and understand where my future lay, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t know if I should leave the industry or go back to a 9 to 5 job.”
The business Jennifer lost was not a small venture. It was eight years of work built piece by piece, client by client, event by event. When it collapsed, it took more than revenue with it. It took certainty.
“The business failed because of circumstances around it, but it didn’t change who I was as an executive. It didn’t change my capacity.”
That distinction between losing a business and losing yourself became the foundation of everything she would build next.
For the first six months, she struggled to face what had happened.
“I couldn’t even look myself in the eye because I felt I had failed. I had to forgive myself. Forgiveness is for yourself so that you can move forward.”
Once she did, a decision followed.
Rebuilding Differently
“I decided that I was going to go back into the event industry, but I was going to go back differently. I didn’t want to do what I had done for eight years, which was weddings and social events. I wanted to focus on corporate events and different kinds of experiences.”
She also changed how she operated.
“I didn’t have staff anymore, so I called people in. I partnered with agencies and vendors instead of trying to own everything. One of my biggest lessons was that I didn’t need a fleet of logistics personnel. I could outsource those functions.”
She worked from borrowed offices and temporary spaces, deliberately choosing capacity over appearances.
“It took me six or seven years before I got an office. The office was not the first thing on my mind. After a failed business, you don’t need to borrow money just to rent office space. Build systems first. Build processes. Grow gradually.”
Alongside her business partner and Co-CEO, Olufunke Adu, she founded Tantacom Group in 2016.
“We didn’t start out trying to build an event company. We set out to build an experiential projects company. As we developed strategies, communications and engagement frameworks for complex initiatives, we realised that events were simply one of the outputs. That evolution is what eventually shaped Tantacom into the 360° brand experience company it is today.”
Their early work with the Lagos State Office of Civic Engagement, a body that serves as the bridge between government and citizens, opened doors that would define the company’s trajectory.
“We started by working with the state government. We handled several socioeconomic impact projects and those projects gave birth to many of the things we now do.”
One of those projects became one of Tantacom’s most significant proof points. Working with the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Systems, the company developed the marketing and communication strategy for a logistics hub that needed to function like a fair.
“Working alongside the ministry, we were able to drive the sales of the hub from zero to about ₦3.5 billion within sixteen months.”
In 2025, Tantacom was named Innovative IMC Brand Consultant of the Year at the EDGE Awards.
Building an Ecosystem
The Ministry of Agriculture project did more than prove Tantacom’s capability. It exposed a gap that Jennifer could not ignore.
While working within Nigeria’s food and agriculture space, she and her team observed that many chefs possessed exceptional culinary skills but lacked the tools to turn those skills into sustainable businesses.
“We identified that the difference between a regular chef and one monetising in ten different ways was personal branding. It was storytelling. It was understanding that beyond your craft, you could build a business around yourself, create structures, know the gatekeepers in your ecosystem and identify funding opportunities.”
That observation led to the creation of Eko Flavours under Culinara Group, a platform that spotlights culinary talent, creates visibility and opens commercial pathways for emerging food entrepreneurs. Two seasons have been completed. A third is in preparation.
Turning Pain Into Purpose
By this point, Jennifer had rebuilt one business and built another. But something else was forming alongside the commercial work, a growing conviction that her experience of rebuilding was not just personal. It was instructional.
“Ten years ago, I lost everything I ever had. Last year, I felt the need to turn my pain into purpose.”
People had been asking her the same question for years.
“They would ask, ‘Jenny, how were you able to rebuild after going rock bottom?’ At first I would simply say it was the grace of God, but I realised people wanted structure. They wanted to know what I did every day and how I thought.”
The answer to that question became REBUILD™️, a framework Jennifer developed not in a workshop but through lived experience.
“I didn’t design REBUILD™️ in theory. I crawled through it first. Then I named it.”
The framework moves through seven stages: Realise, getting honest about where you actually are. Evaluate, assessing what needs to change and why. Build, beginning to construct the new with intention. Unlearn, shedding the patterns and habits that no longer serve you. Immerse, surrounding yourself with the right environments and people. Lean, allowing yourself to receive support rather than carrying everything alone. And Develop, where growth becomes sustainable and the rebuilt version of you takes root.
“Rebuilding is not linear. It is cyclical. You don’t do it once and arrive. You rebuild in seasons. And each time, you come back with more wisdom than before.”
Thrive Beyond became the primary platform through which that framework is now taught and experienced. The movement currently reaches over 8,000 women across platforms, with hundreds actively rebuilding inside the community. Today, Thrive Beyond is evolving into a structured ecosystem that combines content, community, experiences, tools and impact initiatives designed to help women rebuild intentionally.
“What we do inside Thrive Beyond is help women locate themselves honestly, release what no longer serves them, and rebuild with structure, steadiness and intention. We focus on clarity first because if you don’t deal with what’s inside, you will rebuild the same thing again with a different name.”
The Role of Visibility
For years, Jennifer operated largely behind the scenes, running government projects, building ecosystems, developing frameworks, while remaining largely invisible publicly.
That changed when her team confronted her with a hard truth.
“My team eventually told me that hard work alone was not enough. You need to be seen.”
The challenge was knowing what to say publicly when her work spanned so many different areas.
“I run a 360° brand experience company, I run a culinary platform and I’m building a movement for women. I didn’t know how to communicate all of that.”
The answer, when it came, was simple.
“I decided that my personal brand would be centred on rebuilding because that is who I am. Everything else I’ve built came after rebuilding my own life.”
That clarity unlocked what followed, speaking engagements, media features, partnerships and opportunities beyond Nigeria.
“The reason I get invited to speak is because I became visible. In today’s economy, if you’re not visible, you don’t exist.”
What She Knows Now
Looking back across ten years of rebuilding, Jennifer distils the journey into a few hard won principles.
Be honest about how you got there. Take responsibility. Ask what you could have done differently. Work on yourself as deliberately as you work on your business.
“You have to work on yourself. What are you listening to? What are you feeding your mind with? Learn to identify unhealthy patterns and unlearn them.”
And protect your environment.
“You need to remove yourself from environments that won’t move you toward your vision. There are people who can minimise your dreams with one careless statement. Identify them and cut ties.”
Even when she was living in someone else’s house with nothing certain ahead, she held on to something.
“I kept telling myself that one day I would stand on stages and share my story. One day I would build businesses that would outlive me.”
She is doing both.
“The failure people saw was never really failure. It was preparation. Everything that happened was pruning me for everything I’m meant to become.”
By Benprince Ezeh
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