LEONARD SEKYONDA

About me

Hi, I’m Leonard Sekyonda. Also known as the CEO and founder of MYCOMEUP a youth-lead news & media platform reporting the latest stories on diverse Influencers & Entrepreneurs. As a millennial thought leader, serial entrepreneur, author, and vlogger, I’ve got a clear purpose: to give back and inspire fellow entrepreneurs to create the successful lifestyles they dream of. At first I was one of those dreamers, but now I’ve turned my aspirations into reality.
I came up from a background that didn’t seem destined for global success. I grew up on a low-income housing estate in South London. I lost my father early. As a kid, I struggled at school. I dropped out of university. I was told I was going to fail. But on the inside, I had a grit, vision and work ethic that nobody could knock.

By the time I turned 20 I had started my first multi-million pound business, ‘IC Graduate’ (International Connect). At 18 years old, I left university to set up my first business, an estate agency called ‘Key Move Relocations’. I knew that it was a bold and risky move - especially when I compared myself to my peers. But I’ve never been one to live life inside the ordinary. I scaled up fast. One day, during a spontaneous lunch conversation with an intern, I learned of an exciting new business opportunity: recruiting Filipino nurses to the UK. Two years later, I founded IC Graduate, flying back and forth from the Philippines, establishing partnerships with academic sponsors and holding student seminars to help them enrol into university.
In 2009, I began documenting my business journey on YouTube. Before long, I grew a solid following of aspiring entrepreneurs. Inspired by the hustle and focus of my vlogging community, I co-founded a passion project blog, ‘MYCOMEUP', with Deji Okunde, as a way to give back and inspire fellow entrepreneurs. We published motivational articles and released our YouTube series, ‘MYCOMEUP WORDS OF WISDOM’. Soon, our channel gained the support of iconic business minds and thought leaders like P. Diddy, 50 Cent, Sir Alan Sugar and more. To date, our channel has had more than 33 million views.
Riding the blog’s success, I secured £50,000 investment to develop the blog into a subscription-based online community for start-up entrepreneurs and creatives. In 2014 I launched MYCOMEUP WORLD which rapidly grew to serve more than 128,000 users and over 32,000 premium users. Now we’re ready to grow even more. Exciting times. Although I’m only 31, I’ve hit milestones that many could only dream of: I’ve built up and backed multiple successful companies, I wrote and released my debut book, ‘Become Your Own Hero Again’, which became an instant bestseller, and I recently launched MYCOMEUP MEDIA, a strategic creative video marketing agency, which offers in-house video production, video editing, Content & event led Influencer. I’m also about to launch my new program, ‘The Agency Creator’, an advanced course on how to kickstart a successful digital agency using the exact same business model I used to develop a multi-million pound business.

I’d say things are going pretty well for me. But as much as I enjoy the material benefits of my hard work, what I love the most is sharing my knowledge, advice and passion for business with others who are ready to put it all into action. I’ll sign off now with one last word of advice, which is: we never really, truly know what we are capable of until we actually start. So turn your frustration into fuel, and get started.
Here’s to you and your game-changing future.

LEONARD SEKYONDA

THE Story

Leonard Sekyonda is an entrepreneur, CEO, best-selling author, philanthropist, and business strategist. For almost 2 decades, millions of people around the world have benefitted from the transformational power of his motivational business content, personal development advice, and online platforms that provide advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

The early years having experienced the death of his father at the age of 8, Leonard Sekyonda and his younger sister were raised by their mother on a low-income housing estate in South London. Despite having very little, her positive influence and commitment to always seeing the possibilities had a lasting impact on Leonard.
Leonard struggled academically at school, in a system which causes young people to believe the false limitations that are placed on them if they fail to achieve top grades. The portraits of success Leonard was exposed to consisted entirely of football, drugs or music. Whilst working in a part-time job, a colleague encouraged Leonard to read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ and it totally transformed his life. For the first time, Leonard realised he had the option to be successful — and that his future path was a choice. Driven by his desire to progress, Leonard set up an exciting new business in South Asia, IC Connect, recruiting nurses to the UK. But despite his determination and clear aptitude, he almost jeopardised his future success by failing to accept and value himself for who he was, assuming that others would choose not to work with him if they saw his true identity. This moment was pivotal in Leonard realising the sheer power of his own thoughts and how they were preventing him from achieving what he was already capable of.

Once Leonard began to trust in his vision of success, things began to take off for the entrepreneur. One of those things was MYCOMEUP — a passion project he decided to set up in 2009 after the business videos he started posting on YouTube began attracting more attention from fellow entrepreneurs. MYCOMEUP, which started as a blog before diversifying into video content, glorified material lifestyles and promoted successful entrepreneurs who shared unfiltered advice. The site skyrocketed in popularity after its video series, ‘MYCOMEUP WORDS OF WISDOM’, was released. Showcasing archive interview advice from iconic entrepreneurs such as P.Diddy, Jay Z and more, the channel went on to gain support of business minds including 50 Cent, Sir Alan Sugar and more. To date, their video channel has 33 million worldwide views and counting.
In true Leonard fashion, the go-getting millennial entrepreneur secured investment for the platform and in 2014, scaled the blog up into a full-scale membership platform that served more than 128,000 aspiring entrepreneurs around the globe. Six years later, in 2020, he’s ready to reach more than a billion. Since scaling his recruitment service, IC Connect, into a multi-million pound business, and since expanding the MYCOMEUP blog into a subscription platform and a film production studio, Leonard’s business expertise and personal development advice - especially as a millennial entrepreneur - have been sought by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. In response, he has launched his 5-week program, ‘The Sales Agency Accelerator’, an advanced course on how to kickstart a successful sales agency using the exact same business model he used to scale, earn, and grow.

Through his best-selling debut book, Leonard encourages his readers to aim high, then go higher, to break through the barriers to success, wealth and happiness that are imposed by society, social media, and the relentless pursuit of perfection. Written primarily for a millennial audience, but equally applicable to readers of all ages, ‘Become Your Own Hero Again’ is an insightful guide to breaking through the self-imposed limitations that so often hold people back from achieving their true potential. Through the lens of Leonard’s own experiences, successes and failures, the reader is encouraged to
question how their own thoughts create barriers which prevent them from reaching for their dreams, no matter how big they may be.
Leonard says: “People often have trouble thinking big when it comes to their lives and careers. The more limitations we have in our mind, the less we will be able to manifest in real life. This book is designed to help you get started, because taking those first few steps is all you need to do. You are already complete and have everything you need for happiness; it’s just a matter of perspective.”