“Shamim Okolloh is a banker, a naturalized U.S. citizen, the co-chairwoman of a major philanthropic event and an author — already a lot for her 43 years on this Earth.
But she had to postpone this interview because of one thing she did not see coming — a cancer diagnosis. This determined mother of two is resolved to add one more bullet point to her already lengthy list of accomplishments — breast cancer survivor.
On Oct. 2, you can find Okolloh at the Power of the Purse luncheon that she is co-chairing on behalf of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas. In the meantime, she’s considering her options as far as the cancer and urging her friends to get mammograms.
“One of my friends texted this morning and said, ‘I’m going for my mammogram.’ And one texted me yesterday and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to schedule my very first mammogram. I’m on this journey with you, and my part is I’m going to get tested for the first time,’” Okolloh says of her network of friends.
COMING TO AMERICA
Okolloh was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and moved to the United States when she was 19. Her oldest sister was at the University of Pittsburgh and Okolloh got a scholarship to attend Slippery Rock University, about 45 minutes northeast of the city.
Coming from Nairobi, where the coldest day is usually in the upper 50s, Okolloh found her first Pennsylvania winter to be especially brutal. It was also during her early years in the U.S. when a doctor found a lump in her breast. It was benign and she didn’t think much more about it for decades.
Her days at Slippery Rock were cut short when a plane crashed in Somerset County, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001, and not long after, the state government reduced her scholarship from around 90% to 10%. She faced paying roughly $16,000 a year instead of $1,600. Though she had a job on campus, she just couldn’t afford it.
She got a scholarship and transferred to Spelman College, a historically Black university for women in Atlanta — a city she found more diverse and more urban like her native hometown. But before she graduated, she failed to re-register in time and had to return to Kenya for a semester where she worked for the United Nations. When she returned to Spelmen, she cobbled together enough scholarships to finish her degree.
During her senior year, she earned an internship to study air pollution control. She found herself in a lab with older white men and says she didn’t feel like she fit in. The experience ultimately pushed her away from a career in the sciences to a career more focused on public service.
“I was like, ‘Is this the real world?’ Because if this is it, I cannot do this for life. I can’t work like this. So I made a switch to and I started off with CARE International in Atlanta,” she says.
At that time, most people weren’t emphasizing careers for women in STEM — the acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. After graduation, she learned about the Clinton School of Public Service from a fellow Kenyan and classmate at Spelman.
On March 31, 2010, she received two things that changed her life — her “green card” that allowed her to stay in the U.S. and a full scholarship to the Clinton School that included housing.
She bought a one-way bus ticket from Atlanta to Memphis with only $200 to her name. A classmate picked her up, but what Okolloh failed to factor in was the cab fare she needed to meet the classmate. The cost almost wiped her out financially.
But it was worth it. At the Clinton School, Okolloh found a whole new world.
“Nobody knew me and I could just start out fresh,” she says. “Essentially overnight, I had this whole new family of 30-plus students.”
Skip Rutherford was dean of the Clinton School of Public Service from 2006 to 2020. He uses three adjectives to describe Okolloh — smart, kind and inclusive.
“When Shamim walked into the Clinton School in 2010, she lit up the room,” Rutherford says. “And that light has continued throughout her educational and professional career. She came to the Clinton School from Spelman and was a strong voice for the disadvantaged, the underprivileged and she was just a joy to be around.”
The school’s Master of Public Service degree program — the first of its kind in the country — requires students to learn hands-on through field service projects. Okolloh worked with youth and farmers in Uganda through Heifer International.
After completing her master’s degree, Okolloh returned to Little Rock and worked with Heifer’s division devoted to Africa. But the job was part time and did not include benefits like health care. Okolloh and her son got by with government assistance including Medicaid and the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC. And she was pregnant with her second child. (Her son, Liam, was born in 2013 and Ella came along a year later.)
OKOLLOH THE BANKER
She took a job in community outreach at the nonprofit Arkansas Foodbank. During her time there, she went to a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank that included representatives of most of the major banks and credit unions in the area. Learning about people who are “unbanked” or “underbanked” piqued her interest.
The bankers were looking for partners in the nonprofit world who could help them find people who lived in areas that are not close to banks or people who did not trust banks.
“The Foodbank was in 30-plus counties and I thought, ‘Maybe I can incorporate financial literacy so that I can bring in the banks and make a bridge and the connection,’” she says. “I was a medium between the clients we serve who might be in the unbanked, underbanked world.”
The covid-19 pandemic sent Okolloh home. She enjoyed the slower pace of working from home and taking care of her two children. When she was required to return to the office, she decided to look for a job that offered a more hybrid schedule.
At the advice of a friend, she applied for a position at Encore Bank where she now is a vice president and community outreach officer.
“I was able to seamlessly transition from a nonprofit world serving food insecurity to a role at a bank where I’m now serving underserved communities, either on the mortgage side, the business side or financial literacy in the community,” she says.
“I have the flexibility to be home with my babies, so I pick them up at 3 p.m. I have that flexibility I was seeking, but I believe I’m more impactful. … I strongly believe my role now as a banker at 43 is more aligned with who I am. I finally figured it out.”
CREDIT SCORE
In her job, Okolloh helps people obtain home loans — and she can relate. When she wanted to buy a house, her credit score was only around 500, which is considered very poor. Generally credit scores between 670-739 are considered good, 740-799 are very good and 800 and above are exceptional, according to Experian.
“I’m a single mom, right?” Okolloh asks. “So I’m on one income. I have children. I had the American dream, but then I also understand bills, and I know how hard it is to save for a down payment.”
She scrimped and saved and by 2017, she was able to raise her score to 640 and buy a house in Otter Creek.
Now she meets with potential homebuyers on their own terms — she offers to meet them for coffee, at the bank or talk to them over the phone.
“I want them to know and feel that they are human,” she says. “I’m on salary. I could talk to somebody all day and it doesn’t matter. I am not trying to make a sale. … I work with them to make them feel comfortable. I try to just be there for them and to relate to them where they are.”
ELLA THE BANKER
When Liam was in third grade, his class read the first “Harry Potter” novel and he told her that he would have written a different ending. After he read the second “Harry Potter” book, Liam wanted to write his own stories. His sister sparked the idea for his first book.
“Hey, Mom, I want to be a banker like you,” Okolloh recalls her daughter announcing one day. “I said, ‘I think that’s great, but you need to be a commercial banker.’”
Okolloh says during her three years in banking, she has not met a Black woman who is a commercial lender at a traditional bank in Little Rock. As far as women in general, she says the number of banking officers is small.
At Ella’s request, Okolloh participated in career day at her school. She says most of the children think of a banker as someone who counts money.
“I said, ‘OK. I don’t do that. But even if I did, our branch has over 100 people assigned to it. What do you think the other 99 people do?’ They had no idea,” she says.
She talked to the first-grade class about credit, mortgages, human resources, accounting and finance. One student wanted to know more about bank robbers.
“I love a good heist movie, so I indulged. But then they kept asking and they kept asking and they kept asking, and I realized that we as an industry have failed to give a narrative and the truth and the story about what we do as banks, because it was either we count money or we’re getting robbed.”
She and Liam sat down to start writing a children’s book, “Ella The Banker.” The story, illustrated by Nils Britwum of Ghana, is about a second-grade field trip to a bank. The book ends with:
“I am loved.
I am worthy.
I am beautiful.
I am a banker.
I am an amazing commercial banker.
I am Ella, The Banker.”
A second book is in the works by Liam and Okolloh.
THE DIAGNOSIS
One morning last month Okolloh was making breakfast for her kids when her world turned upside down.
Earlier that month, she had gone in for a routine doctor’s visit when she was asked about the lump in her breast. She explained she had looked into it years ago and it was benign. The doctor reminded her she was three years overdue for her first mammogram. Generally, women are advised to start getting annual mammograms at age 40.
She had a mammogram and then was sent for a biopsy. She learned that morning that she has invasive ductal carcinoma, the most common type of breast cancer with a high survival rate.
Her treatment plan — subject to change — is a double mastectomy with reconstructive surgery.
Just a few days after this interview, she flew to Nairobi for both a vacation and to get some love and support from her large, close-knit group of family and friends. Travel is easier now for Okolloh — she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2022 and still retains her Kenyan citizenship.
But she uses the word “immigrant” often when describing herself. Her children were born U.S. citizens and she studied American history with them before she took the citizenship test in Memphis.
She says the fear of losing her green card and facing deportation has ended with citizenship. But before, “If I go to Kenya as a green-card holder and chaos takes off, they will come get Americans and fly out but as a green-card holder, you cannot get on that plane. My babies would but not me.”
During her recent vacation in Kenya, she emailed a photo of herself with two of her aunts holding dinner plates of some of her favorite foods. She said she had a “fantastic” time catching up with family and friends.
She returned to Little Rock to be greeted by her “Arkansas family” — four women she met when she participated in a Women’s Foundation of Arkansas panel discussion. Those women — all Black bankers — have become her “sisterhood.”
“We try to show solidarity within the women in banking because the inequity and the lack of economic stability covers across the state. Some races have a bit more of an advantage than others, but it is still a women’s economic issue,” she says. “So having that camaraderie within us internally and when we show up in the community and we are all on stage together, people can see an authentic friendship.”
One of those friends — Cassandra Kidd, business access adviser at US Bank — says the one word to describe Okolloh is “determined.”
“The way she walks into a room, it’s as if she belongs, sometimes in spaces where you may feel as if you are not seen. But you see her. And it’s not because she is the loudest person in the room.
“It’s because of the aura and the presence that she brings and the confidence in everything she does. Just as with the launching of the book, ‘Ella The Banker’ with her children, everything she does is intentional. The book doesn’t leave any room for questions because all of those little details are going to be captured.
“That book kind of just sums up, to me, everything about her. You can say ‘I have a dream and this is what I want to do.’ For her, that dream is already coming to fruition. It’s already happening.”
Kidd says she and the other “sisters” will be with Okolloh during her cancer journey.
“If anyone could face this and come out even better, it is definitely going to be her.”
SELF PORTRAIT
Shamim Okolloh
PLACE OF BIRTH: Nairobi, Kenya
I AM COMMITTED TO THE WOMEN’S FOUNDATION OF ARKANSAS BECAUSE: Upward economic mobility, financial security, health and wellness are values I hold close but it’s work WFA does every day.
MY KIDS LOVE IT WHEN I COOK: Ugali (cornmeal), spinach and chicken stew — a staple Kenyan meal.
THE ONE BIT OF ADVICE I WOULD TELL MY TEENAGE SELF: Your path and plans will always evolve — enjoy each phase and live in purpose.
WHEN I GO BACK TO KENYA, I MUST: Have black forest cake from an Italian restaurant called Trattoria; it is the BEST in the world.
MY FAVORITE PART OF LITTLE ROCK IS: Two Rivers Park.
MY HERO IS: Nelson Mandela.
THE ONE THING YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND IN MY REFRIGERATOR IS: Cilantro.
MY DREAM VACATION IS TO GO TO: Mauritius Island.
THE BEST PART OF HOME OWNERSHIP IS: Having an asset that can be passed down through generations
I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE: A banker.
MY FAVORITE CHILDHOOD MEMORY IS: Outdoor games we played in the neighborhood and elementary school.
THE ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Loved.”
From: HIGH PROFILE in Arkansas Democrat Gazette
September 15, 2024 at 2:03 a.m. by Rachel O’Neal