Bolanle Williams-Olley has been with Mancini Duffy for nearly eight years and has served as CFO and Co-owner for more than six. A national design firm headquartered in New York City, Mancini Duffy has a 100+ year history and a tech-forward approach that has allowed them to specialize in architecture, planning, and interior design.
I recently had a great conversation with Bolanle in which she fascinated me with her life story. We talked about everything from her upbringing in Nigeria to immigrating to the US when she was 17, the road to becoming a powerhouse CFO, her nonprofit organization, her Amazon bestselling book, and her advice for the next generation of finance professionals.
Bolanle’s story is unique, dynamic and interesting. Raised by a single mother in Lagos, Nigeria, who had 44+ siblings (Williams-Olley’s grandfather was polygamous), she was always surrounded by a lot of love–and a lot of cousins. With highly educated people in her family, Williams-Olley’s mother provided her with the best education possible. It was such a priority that it was the motivation behind the decision to move to the US when Williams-Olley was 17 years old.
Scholastically her original intention was to get a degree in computer engineering, but after experiencing the challenge of her physics class the first semester (and realizing the next four years would include a lot of it if she stayed), that was all she needed to change her mind. While considering what she wanted to major in instead, she recalled a teacher in high school who encouraged her to sign up for a math competition and considered how much she already enjoyed the math classes she was taking. She investigated her school’s accelerated bachelor’s and master’s programs in mathematics and made her decision.
She secured her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s in applied mathematics from Hunter College. She eventually obtained an additional master’s degree in education and Social Policy from New York University. She has taken a unique combination of skills and talents and created a career path that is truly her own, lending them to the prestigious national design firm Mancini Duffy.
The firm services a variety of clients across a diverse set of industries, ranging from aviation and hospitality to corporate interiors, life sciences, healthcare, and more. Their differentiating factor is how they win work, taking a tech-forward approach that fast tracks and streamlines decisions.
“We have a patented – software [that dramatically impacts] how we win work, design, and how we push our architects and projects forward,” Williams-Olley says. “It’s something that we’ve developed called The Toolbelt, which is part of our legacy. It brings our clients into a 360-degree design process very early on in the project. We take the client to the location even before the project is done. They are in a VR environment, and they can see their projects. It helps key stakeholders make their decisions much faster.”
The Toolbelt helps to advance design tasks at an accelerated rate; what used to take three weeks can now be completed in three hours. The team still needs the three weeks to execute the work, but integrating tech allows them to fine-tune the decisions the client makes.
At Mancini, the finance and accounting team is composed of six professionals, including Wiliams-Olley. The smaller size not only allows her to have more personal connections with each of her direct reports, but it also allows her team to hone their individual talents.
“The way I think of the team is a well-oiled machine or a tree,” she explained. “Everyone has their strengths, and we all have to come together and work together to be able to fulfill our roles excellently and serve the firm. Personally, it’s very important for me to understand each person on my team, how they work best, and how we can make sure that they are communicating well.”
Williams-Olley is driven by relationships, so changing that approach was one of the first things she worked to improve.
“I spend time getting to know the people on my team,” she said. “As the team grew over the years, that hasn’t changed. I spend a lot of time with them when they first start and make sure that the tools, skills, and resources I’m giving them enable them to run well.”
Autonomy is critical. In addition to strong communication, Williams-Olley is constantly thinking about how she is setting up her team for success. She wants her team members to be confident in their decisions, catch themselves when they make mistakes, and not feel inhibited if they want to speak up.
Along her leadership journey, one quality that she has developed within herself is one that she calls radical candor.
“If there are issues or we make a mistake on the team, how am I making sure that my team is owning up to it?” she said. “You have to be able to give good feedback, not in a mean way, but in a way that is going to help them not be afraid to speak up. You should be able to react and be proactive about coming up with solutions. That’s something that I’ve worked on myself in the last year or two as a leader to be able to speak up and communicate better with my team rather than either helping them work through it or not addressing it head-on. It has made us better.”
That leadership approach ties into one of Williams-Olley’s favorite quotes: “Once you know, you share.” It’s something she implements pragmatically, not only at work but in all areas of her life.
Her strategy is to constantly question how we are pouring out information that can help others. Giving back and mentoring, for example, can make another person’s pathway easier. Her desire to give back was so strong that she set up a nonprofit called SheBuildsLives to improve education in low-income communities in Nigeria, where she grew up. The flagship project is called Project Tutored, an academic intervention and skills acquisition program geared towards bridging the education and skills gap for children in various vulnerable communities.
She also started an initiative called SheBuildsWaves, which empowers women in the A/E/C industry and at small design firms, and she started SheBuildsMoney, a company to help small design firms with financial solutions to empower these firms to be successful and thrive financially.
These ideas also radiate into her personal life as well, describing herself as “happy to share” with friends and others. One of her biggest priorities is pouring out into others; as she says, if you don’t, you risk getting full.
“If your cup is too full and you don’t pour it out, you’re not getting anything new,” she said.
On the subject of sharing knowledge, she has taken that concept to an even bigger level with her first book, Build Boldly. Writing a book was something she did not intend to do and something that scared her initially, which only signified one thing: She had to do it.
“I felt a lot of fear at that moment; that was my trigger to let me know that I needed to write the book,” she said. “For me, this is the uncharted path. That means there’s something for me to learn on this journey. I thought about the inflection moments where I felt like my career took off or I had major growth, what essentially happened, and the steps I took to get there.”
She realized that [there] were a lot of bold moves and bold decisions. Because she loves a good acronym, she came up with the B.O.L.D. framework.
“B” stands for Be yourself, as she realized that she always leads with her integrity and her strengths, but she also spoke about her weaknesses. “O” stands for Open your mind to new definitions and opportunities and is connected to her decision to pursue math. “L” is for Lifting others, questioning how she supports people along the way. Finally, “D” is Don’t wait, do it now. We need to quiet all the what-ifs and press forth.
The ideas behind her acronym, B.O.L.D., are packaged nicely for people at any stage of their careers, but it is easy to imagine how relevant they are to professionals at the early stages of their careers. Thinking about the next generation of up-and-coming professionals, she does have specific insight for them.
“Think about your life in seasons,” she said. “There’s a time for learning, and you might currently be in a learning season, so don’t try to run too fast. Make sure that you’re open and stay curious to learn at all different phases. Next, don’t be afraid of the opportunities in front of you. It could be an opportunity to step up, to add more to your role, to step into something new, or to do more in your firm. Don’t be afraid and trust yourself. It will all work out in some way, shape, or form.”