Tamika Abaka-Wood
“I would tell my careers advisor I'm going to create a role for myself. You can't help me out. You have no idea what I'm talking about as I’ll create a job that probably didn't exist 20 years ago.”
Problem Solver,
Portland, Oregon Oregon
The world today is changing faster than ever before. Whether that’s in terms of how and where we work, the shift to digital communication, the ability to order food delivered to your door, or ride-sharing. The last 15 years have probably seen more change in consumer behavior than we saw for decades before that. That shift in consumer behaviour has left many larger companies scrabbling to understand how people think, and what lays around the corner. Whether that’s Blockbuster not seeing Netflix coming, or Kodak not seeing a phone replace them, it’s never been more important to understand how people think, operate and, most importantly, feel. Tamika Wood is someone who excels in this area of business. Spotting what's next is just what she does and it’s a crafted skill that is becoming one of the most important areas of business in 2020.
Jon Weaver: I was going through LinkedIn and it said you were a problem solver and now you are strategy director?
Tamika Abaka-Wood: I'm a problem solver. I had to be a strategy director for my LinkedIn profile when I was trying to get a visa to come into the USA, that’s all. I wouldn’t say I’m a strategy director. I notice, I think, I analyse just like a strategist would but I also make shit happen.
You’re essentially in the business of understanding why people do certain things so companies know how to respond through what they offer. At what point did you realize that that was a possibility as a career?
I think it was when I was 19 years old, I was studying psychology at the time and had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew that I was really interested in people and behavior. I was part of an inner circle program and they have different athletes once a month, where we get together and talk about what sport meant to us. We’d go to these sessions where they would ask us questions and there were these two women who were in the corner of the room who seemed to know everyone and were controlling everything; listening intently, asking good questions, literally looking you dead in your eye. I quickly wanted to find out as much as I could about them and then realized, I want your job.
How new is the approach of consumer insights?
Do you know what, I’ve never known marketing without doing proper consumer insights, but I've also never really worked in a traditional agency. To me it just seems nonsensical that you could start any work without knowing about who you are talking to.
You studied psychology, is that a good thing to study for people who don't know what they want to do, but enjoy understanding how people think?
One hundred percent. I feel like it's one of the best decisions that I made at 17. I was going to go to Queen Mary's University, and got on a four-year course for speech and language therapy and it was completely subsidized. I come from a family where money was sometimes an issue. So, the thought of no student debt at the end of the course was great. But one of the course teachers told me that it’s a four-year course, really, really intense and the building was super old school - just grey in the middle of London and you're not going to get campus experience. I felt there was no vibe to it so I switched last minute to psychology and yeah here I am 50K in debt but it opened up a whole new world to me that I'm so grateful for now.
So, you have always been interested in other people?
At six or seven years old I had this book I was obsessed with and it had one person from every country around the world. It showed 16 year-old’s around the world and what a typical day looks like for them. For me it just felt like, oh my god, there's a world out there that is way bigger than these three miles that I exist within. So, I think that has all helped shape my career. I was even having a conversation the other day with a mentor and I was like, maybe I need to go back to school and do a Master’s and she says, “I wholeheartedly one hundred percent disagree with what you're saying. You've been to so many different places around the world, you'd be way more knowledgeable about human values, the stuff that makes us the same and the stuff that makes people different, than most people that are lecturing.” So for now I am going to continue living, learning and experiencing the world rather than studying it.
You’re from London and living in Portland. Have you lived in other countries as well?
I finally figured this out a few weeks back - I’ve worked in 27 countries in the past decade. But funnily enough, no, I’ve never lived anywhere else before moving to Portland. I’ve lived a very transient lifestyle in my twenties. I did work for The Girl Effect when I was 21 and that was like six months in Ethiopia, come back for a couple of weeks, then go to Nigeria for a couple of months, then to Rwanda for a bit, then back to London, then back again to Ethopia…
How was it to go to those countries and work out there?
A lot of people would say it's going to be a culture shock and try to get me mentally prepared, but I was so ready to dive into the unknown - it felt like the stars were aligning for me as - I was project managing, producing and being a researcher on a project that was about empowering teenage girls in countries in Africa. Then everyone puts this layer of expectation on top like it’s going to be so different and you need a different tone when you’re researching, but I’m thinking I am going to talk to them about the same things I would with teenage girls in London. I know everyone has those same feelings at this age - they’re just manifested in different ways. Of course, culturally there are huge differences depending on where you are in the world - which as an ethnographer you have to be conscious of. But teenage DNA is teenage DNA. The girls and women I spoke with talked about not feeling as though they were spoken to with pity or in an infantilising way in our time together: we connected, we shared, it was an exchange. When landing in Ethiopia, I remember hitting the tarmac at the airport and feeling like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
You mentioned a mentor of yours, do you have specific people?
Such a good question. I feel like I've got undercover mentors that don't know they are my mentors, but in total I've got a list of about 20 women who I think the world of. It’s just someone that you connect with so deeply and it always feels mutual.
Then I guess there are people that look up to you as a mentor?
I don’t have specific people I could list, but I used to teach dance to a hundred kids aged five to like 19 and that's kind of undercover mentoring. I love teaching dance because it’s more than a sport. There's an athletic ability that you have to have, combined with layers of self-expression and creativity. There's no rule book to it, which almost makes it harder as you've got to train like an athlete, but you've got to think like an artist.
What would you tell your teenage self?
This is a really good exercise. I lived in east London and went to school in Essex, probably six miles away from each other, but they're worlds apart. I existed within these two worlds so I've always felt like an insider-outsider. My dad's Ghanaian, my mom's British, so I've lived, within two races. Within two cultures, within two languages, within two sets of values, two classes. My whole existence and identity always been a point of tension, collision and merging, but that’s where interesting things tend to happen. So yeah, I would tell myself this is going to be the thing that allows you to unlock a whole world and way of looking at the wold for you. Life is going to be so much fuller and richer for being an insider-outsider and so lean into it.
So, I suppose that has driven you on your career path.
I didn't really have a clue what career trajectory looks like outside being a teacher. I went to one of those quiet middle-class white schools and basically that’s all my careers teacher would talk to me about. She was like, so what are you going to do next? What are you going to do with Art, German, French and psychology? So looking back, I would tell my careers advisor, I'm going to create a role for myself. You can't help me out. You have no idea what I'm talking about as I’ll create a job that probably didn't exist 20 years ago.”
What’s some of the work you’re proudest of?
Whenever I'm working with communities that are marginalized, almost like others have forgotten about. That’s when I do my best work. So, working with Black, brown, Latinx communities in the beauty space over the last couple of years has felt meaningful. Working with not-for-profits. Working on my own publication, Plantain Papers. It's been incredible to think of the process, by speaking to people that don't get the spotlight so often and that becomes a very powerful experience in and of itself. I like doing work that has a clear cultural or community need. Work that has high stakes from the audience, not just a client, there’s nothing like real life pressure from real life people. The level of care, thought and time you put in is unmatched.
What’s some of the work you’re proudest of?
Whenever I'm working with communities that are marginalized, almost like others have forgotten about. That’s when I do my best work. So, working with Black, brown, Latinx communities in the beauty space over the last couple of years has felt meaningful. Working with not-for-profits. Working on my own publication, Plantain Papers. It's been incredible to think of the process, by speaking to people that don't get the spotlight so often and that becomes a very powerful experience in and of itself. I like doing work that has a clear cultural or community need. Work that has high stakes from the audience, not just a client, there’s nothing like real life pressure from real life people. The level of care, thought and time you put in is unmatched.
Thank you so much for your time. This has been one of the conversations I have enjoyed the most!
Thank you for doing this, I can’ wait to read everyone else’s stories!