Anthony Imafidon

Anthony Imafidon, based in New York, NY, is Founder of Motivated Express, a clothing brand that helps deaf people and members of the hard of hearing community to stay motivated and express their aspirations, and not let their disability hold them back from what they want to achieve.

Anthony is an entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and fashion designer who wants to inspire others like him to step into their own power and reclaim their narrative. Anthony wants his deaf and hard-of-hearing community members to grow their confidence and take ownership of their destiny.

“Growing up with hearing loss was a difficult journey for me. Facing challenges, different barriers, having self-doubt, disappointments and setbacks going into the hearing world. I knew that I would use that as motivation to better myself by becoming stronger and wiser. Accepting who truly I am as my identity and motivating myself who I want to become. We must keep learning about ourselves and always be looking for self-improvement in ourselves," said Anthony.

New York | NY

FOUNDER, MOTIVATED EXPRESS,

• Lauren Bates, Director, Member Experience at Sky’s the Limit
• Tuesday Hagiwara, Marketer & Content Strategist at Accenture
• Bill Rydz, Digital Solution Architecture Senior Principal at Accenture

There are so many option to chose from when it comes to fashion. How does a brand stand out? That's what Anthony was trying to determine when he reached out to his mentors: Tuesday Hagiwara and Bill Rydz, both from Accenture and Lauren Bates from Sky's the Limit. 

Building on her marketing and content strategy experience, Tuesday worked together with Anthony on social media. "Every week, Tuesday and I would do a video call to figure out ways to optimize my social media content strategy to bring my target audience to my social platforms," said Anthony.

Bill is an expert with digital marketing technologies and was able to pull from his experience to help Anthony on how to use Google Analytics, which is a critical piece in evaluating, measuring and optimizing all of the work he was doing on social media based on his mentoring sessions with Tuesday. 

Lauren brought her experience working in the fashion industry for well-known brands to support Anthony in how to best market his products. "Lauren Bates helped me understand the fashion industry by naming my products, marketing my products and understanding how to sell my products," said Anthony.

His mentors also helped him with how to create an award-winning video pitch. After working with them, he developed a two-minute video explaining who he is, what his business does, and how it solves customers' problems and entered it into the Friends & Family Fund. He succeeded at winning the grant by receiving the most votes from Sky's the Limit community!

With the support of his mentors, he was able to achieve two key milestones: funding and designing products, which made a significant impact in moving his business forward. Anthony learned from Lauren the importance of naming his products and creating a unique selling proposition in driving sells. By accomplishing his funding milestone, he had the resources to develop products and start making sales. He was able to find a good graphic designer and clothing manufacturer to help bring his ideas to life.

With his stellar team of mentors, Anthony was well-positioned to market and optimize his content to drive sales and stand out. And get more funding in the future!