Ziwa trains emcees of the future

In the entertainment and events industry, emceeing has become one of the notable lucrative professions that has seen many gain celebrity statuses.

Top companies and events usually prefer hiring radio/ television personalities and comedians to moderate their functions to entertain while engaging audiences. This leaves out those without such backgrounds to scramble to build a brand and eventually showcase their skills.

This is what led businessman, Jeff Ziwa to open up a company named Emcee Portal, the first emcee /events moderating training platform where people who are not necessarily celebrities or public figures are trained to improve their public speaking skills, run and manage various events.

The business and entrepreneurship lecturer also founder of Uganda Charity Ambulance services says the emcees are trained on personal branding, event crisis and audience management. Here, they are taught how to manage and moderate different events such as social, corporate, government or International events and talk shows among others.

The company trains people in public speaking and personality development whereby they help them discover their abilities, strength, and what they can you do with their respective talents and abilities at this point in time.

Ziwa explains that Emcee Portal is an all enabling platform where after the course, some of their trainees discover that they are not able to emcee but are exceptional at managing an event, probably do a run fundraising or be a concept developer.

Starting
Ziwa’s journey into the emcee world started from Watoto Church where he did a lot of stage presence and moderation of events from 2004 to 2010.

“We had the responsibility of moderating church services, conferences, youth events, camps and trainings. My skills and abilities grew from there more because it meant being in front of people and holding a microphone almost on a daily basis.”

Ziwa says that platform equipped and empowered him alongside other trainings in short courses from institutes such as Destiny Consultants Limited, Kampala which trained him in public speaking.

The businessman also reveals that while at Campus, he got exposure from Makerere University’s debating club where he represented the institution in national debates.

But he wanted to share these skills with other people following his passion to establish a professional brand that will outlive generations.

Ziwa says he was able to build up a client list for himself but faced a challenge where he had multiple events on the same day yet he couldn’t divide himself to meet the need for his expertise.

Ziwa who thought to himself: “How about if I equip and empower a few other people who are passionate and have a zeal for this so that my representation can be in different places at the same time? This birthed another service which was professional emcee and events moderating training,” he explains.

He adds that his passion for creating sustainable things, leaving legacies, impacting and empowering others also led him to consider training other talented people to join the emcee industry including but not limited to TV and radio personalities.

“I noticed that if one has a good skill, you will fade eventually; when you look around today the people who used to be big then are now replaced by new kids on the block,” he says. “If you leave the scene with your good skills, they die with you,” Ziwa said.

Together with some friends at church, Emcee Portal was established in June 2016 under a different brand name: ‘House of Emcees.’

Originally, the company was like club, not registered and only operated using their facebook page and whatsapp group.

He later established a registered company which pays taxes, is recognised and vetted by all people owning events.

Operations
Apart from the prime course which is professional emceeing /events moderation, the company’s training wing also runs a number of other courses like, public speaking training, customer care training, public relations training, events planning and management training, work ethics and etiquette, sales and events ushering and guest care service training.

Ziwa says they noticed these gaps in the different settings of the people and corporate companies where they carried out team building.

Emcee Portal also offers events solutions such as emcees for different events, managers, ushers and guest care, gift hamper packaging and delivery, team building facilitators and fundraising and resource mobilisation facilitators.

Ziwa’s company has taken the initiative to train their ushering and guest care team in skilled event co-ordination and communication, client handling and audience relations, first aid, crisis and time management so that their clients are entrusted to a skilled and capable team competent enough to pull off a really good event.

The company also introduced team building facilitation because they noticed that so many companies in Uganda are not aware of it.

He explains that team building is where company owners or proprietors take their staff for getaway retreats to bond with each other and break relational barriers while learning something new in a relaxing and fun-packed way.

Employment
Ziwa currently co-founds the company with his wife Chantal Akandinda Ziwa whom he asked to quit her job to join him a few months after the company was established.

The company also employs four permanent staff who assists in the sales, business development strategy, and operations.

Ziwa explains that the company so far has about 25 well-trained, experienced and competent emcees that are membership based and who double roles in other things like being team building facilitations, events management and concept development.

“Most of them are people who work out there in offices, so this is more like a side passion or skill they need to live up but it doesn’t affect their performance at work. Most of the people who enroll for our courses are people who are already active in the emcee business, active out there but they want to have a professional attachment to their co-existence,” he adds.

He says they only call upon them when there are events that require their role. Ziwa adds that for one to join the management team, you have to be an active emcee, trained by the company and registered as a member with only seven emcees from that batch who are staff members.

Emcee Portal has so far trained up to seven intakes, making a total of close to 70 emcees. Out of those, only 25 have been retrained.

The company has done some work for top companies such as the Uganda National Roads Authority, Victoria MMotors (Premium Cars LTD), Agakhan Universirty, Uganda Insurers College, Mergers & Acquisitions Summit Africa 2019, Jaquar Group (Jiya International), Luuka plastics Namanve among other numerous social events.

Earnings
On a wedding, an emcee can earn about Shs1m on a weekly basis.

If there are corporate events during the week, they can fetch, Shs700,000, Shs2.1m or Shs2.8m.
For a fundraising event, an emcee can fetch about between Shs2m and Shs5m.
Upcoming emcees can earn between Shs500,000 and Shs700,000. In a good month, it can raise between Shs2.5m and Shs3m. Each facilitator earns Shs35,000 per hour.

Successful trainees
Since the company has been in operation for one year, the successful ones were already emcees before they became facilitators for instance Shawn Kimuli, a former news anchor, Ronald Mayanja Omugalanda, the executive director of Ability Explored and Isaac Musembwa of Dfcu among others.

Dr Franklin Higenyi, a consultant/ lecturer at Uganda Management Institute, Olivia Ziwa, television host, Abel Mugisha, a corporate events manager, Julius Weluli, a business analyst at Airtel.