When Omotade “Tadé” Makinwa resigned from Air Peace last October, she left with her boss’s blessing. Almost a year later, that same boss stood inside her factory and told her something she will not forget.
Allen Onyema, founder and CEO of Air Peace, visited the TADÉ Collective workshop on Thursday evening, arriving around 7 PM after what Makinwa described as an incredibly long and stressful day of meetings.
She had doubted he would make it. His schedule, she said, had been relentless. But he came. And he did not just glance around and leave.
The entire house came alive.
He spoke with the staff. He interacted with Makinwa’s friend, Mr Jire, and his wife about their business. Then he sat with her in her office, and for a while, it was just her former boss being her boss.
They talked about entrepreneurship, people management, business management, governance, leadership and the challenges of growing a business, including the ones she cannot yet see.
And then he said it.
“You are now an employer of labour yourself, Tadé.”
Those words landed hard.
“I don’t think he knows what those words meant to me,” Makinwa wrote in a post reflecting on the visit. “October will make it a year since I resigned from Air Peace and left with his blessing. And here I was yesterday, almost a year later, standing in my own factory, surrounded by people who now work for the fashion company I am building, while the man I once reported to was standing there looking at what has grown from that decision.”
Makinwa met Onyema in 2023. She said working with him was never a coincidence.
“It was a necessary chapter in my life. A needed season. A significant part of the journey that brought me here. And I will always cherish it,” she said.
She thanked him for his leadership, the opportunities, the lessons, the corrections and the wisdom. Most of all, she thanked him for his consistent belief in her.
“Thank you for showing up. And thank you for coming to see what that little girl who once worked with you is building today. It meant more to me than I can properly put into words,” she added.
She also acknowledged a generous gift he gave to the TADÉ house, expressing gratitude on behalf of her team.
“Some moments are bigger than the moment itself. Yesterday was one of them,” she wrote.
Makinwa is the founder and CEO of TADÉ Collective Ltd., which houses the bespoke fashion lines Tademen and Tadewoman. She has built a reputation as a strategic communicator and a no-nonsense “voice of value,” creating viral content on business mechanics, personal positioning and wealth building.
The visit has drawn warm reactions online, with many praising Onyema for supporting a former employee’s entrepreneurial journey.
