How I found myself in jewelry business – Top Jeweler, Sherifat Mohammed

One of Nigeria’s top jewellers and Chief Executive Officer of BOZ Jewelry, Sherifat Mohammed has explained how she found herself in the business of jewellery procurement and sale. It may be seen as a twist of fate or a subconsciously premeditated move but certainly, it wasn’t a situation all orchestrated by her.

Speaking in a recent interview, the top jeweller revealed she worked for more than three years before she went into business. According to her she never enjoyed the corporate world until her escape came in the form of dismissal which led her to do what she truly loves – doing business.

“I never felt fulfilled with 9 to 5 jobs. I guess the corporate world wasn’t just for me. I always felt like something was lacking and getting up to go to work was a struggle. I had little or no enthusiasm. I had done some business on the side while in school and working and I can say the feeling was different and I enjoyed it. Luckily for me, I got dismissed from my last corporate job and that was it for me, I was done feeling unfulfilled. You see, that dismissal was the motivation and the push I needed to go into the business fully and it’s been wonderful,” she revealed in a recent interview.

Sherifat Mohammed, who had BSc in Accounting from Bowen University, Iwo and a Masters degree in Human Resources Management from the University of Bradford in the UK worked with an engineering company called Global Ocean in 2010 and moved to British Council in 2013 till September 2015.

After she was sacked by the British Council, she started her jewellery business in 2016, albeit unofficially. But she has since become a household name among lovers of jewellery in Nigeria.

“I was home with a newborn after my dismissal and started selling fabrics which were introduced to me by my husband’s cousin. We were 3 partners and profit was shared into 3. The fabrics business introduced me to Facebook for business and marketing which I never knew existed. This knowledge gained was one thing that really helped me when I eventually ventured into jewellery. As I mentioned, the profit was shared into 3 so at the end of the day I really wasn’t getting much. It happened that my wedding rings had become too small for my fingers after childbirth, so I surfed the web to see if I could get something low priced to manage with the hopes that my finger size would return to normal later. I did find some low priced silver rings and on arrival, they were more beautiful than imagined and looked more expensive than the price I got them. I decided to put them up for sale on Facebook and to my greatest surprise, I got a buyer the next day. I was so happy after my first sale and bought a few more rings. I used the same platform to market and sell and within a few days the little stock I had was also sold out.”

“My husband noticed how excited and driven I was so he gave me some money to buy more which I did and that was how my jewellery business started,” she added.

Sherifat Mohammed who is happily married is from Okene in Kogi State. She was born on September 26 1985.