Bora: From a primary school teacher to an international business consultant

Do you want to start a business? Do you want to grow your business and sustain it? If yes, the story of 50-year-old Wilhelmine Bora can set you on a path to achieve that goal. Bora’s philosophy on success in business is simple. The right attitude will take you places. The managing partner and senior training coordinator at Attitude Builders International consultancy firm has been in consultancy business for the last 15 years. She has offered consultancy services at national and global levels. Bora is a product of World Bank’s International Finance cooperation (IFC) where she perfected her skills as a training expert through the Centre for Business Development programme. After a stint at IFC, she became a certified trainer in clearing and forwarding and small and medium enterprises. “IFC would look for clients and my job was to train them and equip them with the required skills, this was good because it expanded my scope of operation,” says Bora. Bora started out as a primary school teacher back in the 1980s before joining the Ministry of Finance as a junior custom’s officer. This was before Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) came into force. After her advanced diploma in Public Finance Management from the Institute of Public Finance in 1996, Bora worked as a junior officer in customs for three years before being promoted to a senior training coordinator. “My work as a senior training officer was to train clearing agents on custom’s procedure, operations and tax payment systems, a job I did for 10 years,” Bora says. As a senior training officer, Bora was always on the move equipping entrepreneurs with the right skills. She was involved in preparing clearing curriculums for both local and regional clearing agents both on the managerial and technical parts of business. Bora’s exposure and experience eventually sharpened and enriched her skills turning her into a world class consultant. Moving on In 2006, Bora quit her job at RRA to become an independent consultant on exports and clearing. “The challenge for me was what kind of business to do, given the fact that I had been exposed to various kinds of businesses while at RRA; It took me almost six months to decide on what to do as many encouraged me to start up a clearing and forwarding company,” she explains. Despite being inspired by women who were importing goods from China and Dubai, Bora chose to venture into consultancy over importing business. “I wanted to do something that I was more passionate about, a business that would help exploit my potential and that’s why I set out to do consultancy work,” Bora says. She was instrumental in training women on export business before taking on government’s “Hanga Murimo” project back in 2011. The birth of Attitude Builders International consultancy firm After discovering that knowledge and skills were not enough for one to become successful, Bora set out to do research. We discovered from the research findings, that attitude contributed 80%, knowledge 5%, and skills 10% for one to become successful. Taking full advantage of this revelation, Bora and ALc Muhoho another senior consultant established a consultancy firm that would mainly focus on mind set change thus the birth of Attitude Builders International consultancy firm. “Today, we are focusing on aligning people’s attitude with what they aspire to achieve in life. Through self esteem, self discovery, marketing and customer care, overcoming fear, and mind set change, we have inspired women, youth and entrepreneurs,” Bora said in an interview with Business Times. Achievements Bora has not stopped at helping others to make money and be successful. But she has also made a fortune for herself. Bora has since gone back to school for her second degree in Social Sciences and is currently involved in Horticulture farming. “My satisfaction is when I see people I trained making it and most importantly contributing to our economic transformation.” Thanks to her job, the single mother of four has managed to pay school fees for her children, put up a house and has a personal car. Challenges According to Bora, she still faces several challenges because the business is seasonal. It sometimes takes long to get business which affects her earnings. She adds that focusing on attitude is still something that is still a challenge for many that needs a lot of attention and concerted efforts from all stake holders. With a positive attitude, you can turn challenges into opportunities, people like to shift blame but once you have a positive attitude then you have the confidence to deal with any kind of situations that may come your way, advises Bora. What people think about her? Irene Musayidire, the Director of Finance and Administration at ABI Kigali said she is a product of Bora’s grooming. She adds that Bora is helping people realise their potential.