Join us on a captivating journey through Sierra Leone’s vibrant history and complex challenges in “Politics of Color: The Role of Color in Sierra Leonean Politics.” Esteemed experts uncover the deep-rooted influences of colonialism, challenge misunderstandings surrounding ethnic identities and political affiliations, and explore solutions for a prosperous future.
PivotPath
Elizabeth M’balu Oke Featured on Cover of Georgia Trend Magazine
Elizabeth M’Balu Oke: Leading the Way to Transformation
In the spotlight of Georgia’s business landscape, Elizabeth M’Balu Oke, the dynamic President and CEO of PivotPath, graces the cover of Georgia Trend magazine’s May 2023 issue.

Recognized as a visionary leader and trailblazer, Elizabeth’s remarkable journey has been marked by her unwavering commitment to driving transformative change in the communications industry. With an unyielding passion for innovation and a keen understanding of the evolving digital landscape, Elizabeth has positioned PivotPath as a prominent force in the global communications sector.
Elizabeth’s leadership prowess extends beyond the boardroom, as she actively champions diversity and inclusion initiatives. Her unwavering dedication to creating an inclusive workplace has earned PivotPath accolades for its commitment to empowering underrepresented communities and fostering a culture of equal opportunities. Under her visionary guidance, the company has pioneered groundbreaking solutions, revolutionizing how businesses harness the power of empowering communities worldwide.
Elizabeth M’Balu Oke brings a fresh perspective to the industry, leveraging her extensive experience and expertise to navigate complex challenges and seize emerging opportunities. Her strategic vision and exceptional leadership have elevated the company’s trajectory and inspired countless aspiring entrepreneurs to dream big and pursue their passions relentlessly. In this exclusive interview, Georgia Trend delves into Elizabeth’s extraordinary rise to success, her unwavering determination to shatter glass ceilings, and her transformative vision for behavioral change communications.
Discover how Elizabeth M’Balu Oke continues to forge new paths, leading PivotPath and the broader business community towards a future of innovation, diversity, and remarkable achievements. Grab your copy of Georgia Trend magazine’s May 2023 issue to gain valuable insights from one of Georgia’s most influential and trailblazing leaders, Elizabeth M’Balu Oke.
PivotPath voted AMONG BEST OF GWINNETT 2022
The results are in, and it’s official: For the second year in a row, PivotPath has been voted Among the Best of Gwinnett 2022 in the Marketing Firms category! Our team appreciates everyone who voted, and we look forward to another great year of providing marketing and communication services locally and internationally. It’s an honor to be recognized by the people we work for and with daily.
The Best of Gwinnett 2022 contest is run by Gwinnett Magazine and includes businesses in more than 20 broad categories. Every year, Gwinnett County residents and consumers cast thousands of votes to recognize their favorite local businesses.
Inclusive Communications to the Masses
By: Justin Roshak and Ashley Przybylski
Every organization needs flexibility, innovation, and meritocracy to keep up in a fast-paced global economy. Inclusion is a core value that supports these goals, and organizations that prioritize inclusion will find themselves open to new opportunities in staff, partnerships, and markets.
Inclusive Communications. It’s a modern buzzword for an old idea. But what does it mean, and how can organizations practice inclusion when communicating with the public?
Inclusion may not come naturally to individuals or organizations. Differences in culture, language, and perspective can be challenging to identify without prior experience. Technology makes it easy to approach the world with a one-fits-all approach, leaving out some audiences. An organization’s makeup is rarely broad as its potential clients or partners.
Focus on Commonalities
Few organizations are built from the ground up to work across every possible line of geography, culture, and language. The staff you have, and the partners you’ve worked with, will inevitably shape expectations—which don’t always fit new opportunities. Worst of all, knowing when cross-cultural communication has succeeded—or fallen flat can be challenging.
For example, PivotPath has worked on a series of communications projects in the West African nation of Sierra Leone as part of a European Union international development and democratization project.
Sierra Leone’s residents speak multiple major languages and many minor ones. As in the US, partisanship is a sharp dividing line—the country is still recovering from a vicious civil war in the 1990s. For messaging to succeed in these circumstances, it must be inclusive.
When developing outreach videos, clothing and skin color are needed to match local expectations. Images avoided signifiers of political parties or regions (still very sensitive subjects) and leaned into shared national identity symbols. Messaging focused on common goals: peace, democracy, and shared prosperity. At all content production and dissemination levels, communication sought to unite and energize.
Inclusive messaging recognize commonalities and seeks to build on them. It provides a framework for collaboration while remaining sensitive to natural divisions.
“The common emotions we all face are things I want our communications for our clients to focus on. If we can do communications that bring people together, drawing the strengths on our differences, then we are truly succeeding.” —Elizabeth M’balu Oke
Build—and Sustain—a Diverse Communication Team
The American Civil Liberties Union found that “there are higher voting rates in minority communities where radio station owners are of the same ethnicity”. Media diversity stimulates audiences’ engagement through shared backgrounds. But when there is a lack of diversity, the sense of trust is not as strong and can lead to viewers being less engaged, leading to the voting numbers going down.
And yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Hispanics make up 18% of the workforce but only 12% of the media industry. Similarly, research from Pew Research Center shows that only 7% of newsroom employees are Black, but 11% of U.S. workers.
As with media, so too with any twenty-first-century communications team.
One reason the PivotPath team can succeed in the U.S. and international projects is its diverse makeup. PivotPath’s staff is mixed with team members representing different cultural backgrounds, generations, and social lifestyles and brings diverse experiences in sales, marketing, and journalism. As a result, there is a broader pool of perspectives and ideas than if the firm had hired from only one place or field.
Organizations should strive toward inclusion in all positions relating to mass communication. But this is just a place to start. By building and supporting a diverse media and communications team, your message has a greater reach as it will resonate with a broader audience.
Companies also need to listen to what their employees have to say. Hire talented, diverse voices, and listen to them. Employees from underrepresented communities can help their organizations communicate more effectively with these communities.
Use Person-Focused Language
The words we choose can be a powerful tool for getting our message across—or they can unintentionally exclude or alienate individuals or groups. A rigorous understanding of subtext and subtleties can take many years of experience to fully grasp, let alone incorporate into an organization’s messaging DNA. But there are hard-and-fast rules to avoid common pitfalls.
A strategic rule of thumb is to emphasize language that is person-focused and as broadly inclusive as possible. In practice, this can take several forms.
Person-centered language is most obviously useful in the context of persons with disabilities, people experiencing homelessness/unemployment, or people without homes/jobs, which are much more empathetic terms than “blind”, “disabled”, “homeless”, or “unemployed”. The former are conditions, while the latter are unwelcome labels. No one wants to be personally identified with their troubles.
Instead of phrases like “Black and White”, say “all races and ethnicities”. This ensures that groups of other geographic origin are automatically included and neatly elides certain complexities. For example, Latinx persons in North America may constitute an ethnicity or a race, depending on context. This broad approach keeps communications maximally inclusive.
Referring to a title or role promotes meritocracy and inclusive communications. An equally inclusive set of terms is “everyone” or “colleagues”, in place of “ladies and gentlemen”; For terms such as, “chairman” or “policewoman”. Much preferable are “chair”, “chairperson”, or “police officer”. Reference the office, not the gender of the officeholder. Research shows that gendered professional terms have real-world implications when they come up against deeply-ingrained gender stereotypes.
Politics is another pitfall. Unless engaged in direct political activism for a cause or party, it is usually preferable to refer to “Americans”, “citizens”, or “residents” instead of “Democrats and Republicans”. An inclusive messaging strategy seeks to build commonality; politically-charged labels are often inimical to that goal.
PivotPath’s Inclusive Communications
Do you want to build inclusion into your organization’s DNA but aren’t sure how? Our communication creators at PivotPath have the tools and expertise to help. Contact us for a FREE strategy session.
PivotPath voted BEST OF GWINNETT 2021
The results are in, and it’s official: PivotPath has been voted Best of Gwinnett 2021 in the Marketing Firms category! Our team appreciates everyone who voted, and we look forward to another great year of providing marketing and communication services locally and internationally. It’s an honor to be recognized by the people we work for and with daily.
The Best of Gwinnett contest is run by Gwinnett Magazine and includes businesses in more than 20 broad categories. Every year, Gwinnett County residents and consumers cast thousands of votes to recognize their favorite local businesses.
PivotPath created and spearheaded the development of LaunchPad Africa‘s piloted Business Accelerator program.
LaunchPad Africa
PivotPath created and spearheaded the development of LaunchPad Africa‘s piloted Business Accelerator program for Freetown, Sierra Leone.
About the Client:
Launchpad Africa is a DC-based non-profit with a mission to support African Entrepreneurs (specifically in Sierra Leone) in launching and sustaining their businesses by equipping and empowering them with the tools and resources necessary to be profitable. The organization envisions a world where the African entrepreneur is successful enough to take the lead on decisions being made regarding Africa’s growth and advancement.
As a new Accelerator program, Launchpad Africa wanted to provide its participants with networking, mentorship, and resource allocation to skyrocket the success of proven business ideas.
The Challenge:
The LaunchPad Africa team had to determine how to structure and launch this program in the most beneficial and relevant manner to individuals living in Sierra Leone.
The Solution:
We developed an intensive 4-month accelerator program with a well-rounded curriculum that would give participants the proper knowledge and skills to equip and navigate the business arena.
The Results:
Using insights internal and external to LaunchPad Africa, along with our expertise in thought leadership and training, our team successfully designed and developed a 16-module highly customized program curriculum outline and strategy including selected modules and module objectives; provided Launchpad Africa with a detailed agenda of each training; developed TORs for trainers of each module; and developed post-training evaluation and impact assessment