Dr. Toyin Ajayi credits her parents with her belief that she could become a “change agent,” she says.
Ajayi, who grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, is the founder and CEO of Cityblock Health, a health-care provider that serves communities with complex needs in the U.S.
Her parents’ “remarkable approach” to raising Ajayi and her two younger sisters shaped her path as a leader, she told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin on the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast.
First, Ajayi’s parents didn’t shy away from talking about difficult topics. “They treated us like equals,” Ajayi says. “We had very mature adult conversations at the dinner table.”
One major issue they discussed together was Africa’s high maternal mortality rate at the time. “My parents were very transparent with me and my sisters,” Ajayi says. “They would say things like, you know, for most women in Africa, the biggest risk to your life is getting pregnant and having a child.”
Second, learning about privilege wasn’t optional in their household.
From a “very early age,” Ajayi’s parents emphasized that she and her sisters “were fortunate by virtue of our birth, not because we earned it,” she says. “My dad would say, ‘You’re just lucky you happened to be born here to us, and to parents who are master’s educated and can send you to school, and who give you choices and can teach you about your life and your bodies.'”
Finally, Ajayi says her parents also instilled a strong sense of social responsibility.
Ajayi grew up during the height of the global AIDS crisis, she says, and “everywhere we looked, we saw the evidence of this horrible, horrible, horrible pandemic.”
Starting in her late teens, her parents took her to volunteer at an organization that served women with AIDS. The experience of caring for women dying of the disease left a profound impact on Ajayi.
She “remembers vividly” the rage she felt when she saw a news segment debating whether it was cost-effective to send antiretroviral treatments to people in Africa. “I just remember feeling so angered and indignant and determined that that was not the way that we as a society should think about the allocation of resources,” Ajayi recalls.
Rather than feeling discouraged, Ajayi was galvanized to make a difference. “I think my parents did a really good job of instilling in my sisters and I the belief that we could be change agents — and that we were sort of obligated to do so,” she says.
When you have the tools she and her sisters did, she says, “that sort of rage turns into fire in your belly, turns into motivation, turns into inspiration.”
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