Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today. Please tell me about yourself?

I am Kenyan currently residing in South Africa. I have a background in business development and marketing with experience across various industries in Africa.  Currently, I am the Director of Marketing at Yellowcard, and am also an accredited executive, business, and life coach with a focus on mindfulness.

How did you get started in your career?

I started off my career in the traditional marketing space. My first job was with an advertising agency, Creative Y&R. Then I worked with two other advertising agencies. In 2012, I got an opportunity to work with MoneyGram as a marketing manager. This led to my move to Johannesburg, South Africa. I worked with MoneyGram for over 7 years.

Along the way, to increase my capacity as a leader, I decided to learn how to become an executive coach. This led me to start a leadership consultancy, Search Inside Yourself, where I coach leaders and businesses to lead through their emotional quotient (EQ) and not necessarily their intelligence quotient (IQ).

After I left MoneyGram, I joined MFS Africa as a marketing manager and thereafter joined Yellowcard as the Director of Marketing where I am in charge of using technology to make cryptocurrency available for everyday African users.

Sounds interesting! How has your coaching experience impacted on your career?

My coaching experience has taught me the importance of mindfulness. This is the ability to be aware of yourself - how you feel, who you are and how your actions impact on others. As a leader at Yellowcard, I aim to help people help themselves by being aware of themselves. I think I can attribute our recent milestone of getting to over 1 million customers at Yellowcard to having a solid team of leaders working closely together.

What has been the most challenging part of your career till date?

I can point to two major challenging experiences over the course of my career. The first is being let go from jobs. Getting fired was very challenging for me because I had attached so much of my identity to my job. This experience taught me that I am not my job and it got me on the journey to defining myself.

The second challenging experience I had was when I lost my manager. His death got me into the journey of mindfulness and leadership in a different way. It shifted my perspective on life and mortality. I learned about the importance of self care and intentionally spending time on what truly matters.

Awesome! As a busy professional, how do you manage your time?

I manage my time by creating a bubble for myself. I block out time each day for exercise, meditation, breakfast and spending time with family. There will always be a ton of work to do so it is important to carve out time around work deliverables. Recognize the activities that energize you and identify how they serve you. For example, I play rugby three times a week. This is always blocked on my calendar such that work revolves around it and not the other way around.

This was a great conversation Peter. Thank you so much for speaking to me today. How can people find you?

Thank you Lanre. You can send me a LinkedIn DM here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/petermureu/

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