Toyosi Badejo-Okusanya on beauty, deafness and building Adaptive Atelier

Toyosi Badejo-Okusanya, who is deaf, shared her experiences with adaptive accessibility during a conversation about her work at Adaptive Atelier. She recounted her journey from growing up in Nigeria, where she was exposed to language like "deaf and dumb," to finding her own words for her condition in London. After studying law and entering the tech industry, she founded Adaptive Atelier, which helps businesses identify and rectify digital accessibility barriers.

The cinema serves as a prime location to discuss accessibility, as Badejo-Okusanya recounted her disappointment at a screening of Barbie when there were no captions. Her career in marketing, where she worked at Jo Malone London, taught her the importance of attention to detail. She noticed how product placement and sales data dictate consumer behavior, an aspect she now applies to her work with Adaptive Atelier.

Badejo-Okusanya emphasized that beauty and luxury brands like Jo Malone London offer a unique perspective on design and aesthetics, encouraging her to examine the placement of products and the influence of regional preferences on consumer choices. While she hasn't encountered a campaign specific to her experience, she noted the gap in accessibility during high-profile film events, such as Barbie's or The Devil Wears Prada 2, which relied on visual cues that were inaccessible to the deaf community.

In her professional life, Badejo-Okusanya highlighted the complexities of securing funding for accessibility initiatives within large organizations, often requiring decisions from the highest levels of management. She shared how she navigates these layers, tailoring her approach to meet the specific needs and concerns of each decision-maker. Her experiences reflect a deep understanding of both the challenges and opportunities in creating genuinely accessible environments, both digitally and physically.