Vanessa Ekeke, by Omotosho

Looking calm and soft-spoken, yet confident and strong-will, Vanessa upbringing basically prepared her for the personality she shaped herself to become today. Vanessa was born into a privileged home and grew up as an orphan after losing both her parents. She lived with her uncle in an environment that was disciplined and strict with a lot of rules.

As a young woman, Vanessa became fascinated and influenced by the life story of a famous world changer, Nelson Mandela, known as “The Madiba.”  Literally, she vowed then to be remembered as someone who contributed immensely to humanity. But Vanessa knew her friends believed she was only a deep-thinker introvert who preferred her own company rather than with others. However, Venessa won the maiden edition of the Miss Commonwealth Nigeria beauty Pageant and represented Nigeria at the Miss Earth Beauty competition in Manila, Philippines. She served as an Ambassador for the Royal Commonwealth Society in London.

Life presented Venessa with many choices, but by providence she found herself in media and entertainment. Venessa attended the University of Lagos in Nigeria and matriculated at Syracuse University in New York where she earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and Documentary Film respectively. Vanessa became a woman with great ambitions and her personal vision, she said, “is to give my life a center and drive all of my faculties to that center.” Endowed with multi-potential, she often finds expressions in writing, arts, photography, documentaries, event planning, travel, and creativity. She is a diligent worker, relentless optimist and a sworn perfectionist who believes that only 100% is good enough. Her personality is the result of a fusion of strength, resilience, determination, loyalty, and humility.

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Vanessa is currently planning and organizing the Miss Nigeria International (MNI) pageant in Minnesota to impact lives positively and create a platform for entrepreneurship and education. This is a big undertaking for Vanessa, but she is determined to exhibit a high level of tolerance and patience as she strives to attain the desired result. Venessa is described as a pen, disguised as a woman, passionately in love with real life and the words and images that capture it. She has turned the essence of real life into her career and sees the MNI as a center for social reformation presenting a platform where she can drive all her faculties to give voice to women and other people least represented in the media. Vanessa’s pride in her connections with people of power comes with the determination to balance the socio-economic inequity between women and men using education, skills, and character to uphold the dignity and integrity of women. Vanessa says she is an uncompromising non-conformist, yet liberal to the core. She sees herself as a debonaire, fascinated by words and slowly becoming a sesquipedalian.

Vanessa currently works as a Quality Assurance Software Tester, but everyone agrees she impacts others by her abilities and resolved to encourage people never to quit and to remain steadfast in the face of life’s challenges. This is a hallmark that Vanessa admitted, follows her everywhere she goes and in everything she does. But, what brings her the greatest satisfaction, is the joy she feels, “to do something for someone that can never ever repay me and to show kindness to others,” she proudly intimated. “Love always wins,” she said.

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