A restructuring exercise has taken place at the foremost marketing communication company, Insight, which analysts believe portends sustainable growth for the company and the industry in general. Crusoe Osagie reports
Once the task is to involve outside-the-box thinking and extreme creativity, then it is best suited for the so called generation Z.
While the older generation may be finicky about process and procedure, the new generation have eyes on the goal and want to get to it at an unprecedented pace.
Perhaps, this is what has led to the recent move by the foremost and arguably most successful creative consultancy and marketing communication company in West Africa, Insight, to embark on a reorganisation that has seen a non-founding managing director and chief executive take over the helm of affairs in the company.
The founder and Chairman of the Board of Insight Publicis, Biodun Shobanjo, recently announced Feyi Olubodun as the new leader of the organisation.
“This is the lap for the millennials and the Generation Z. It is an era of connecting mobile digital communication to the socket of complex business needs. Feyi will now lead a successful team that continues to deliver unrivalled communication solutions that assist our customers to have profitable interactions with their audience”, he added.
Feyi now becomes one of the youngest Managing Directors / Chief Executive Officers among the A-rated marketing communication firms in Nigeria.
Prior to his new role, he led the business to rapid growth, first as its Strategy and Planning Director and latterly as General Manager/Chief Operating Officer.
“The vision of our Board of Directors is clear. We shall allow others to follow us as we continue to lead at interpreting what today’s customer’s chat about. It is an honour to lead Nigeria’s most talented marketing communications company at this time in the history of our organisation,” enthused Olubodun.
Also given elevation in the company were Mr. Wole Ogundare who is now the client services director and Mrs. Simisola Huges-Obiesesan, the brain behind the Pepsi Long throat campaign, who was elevated to creative director.
Insight Publicis (formerly Insight Communications), is West Africa’s largest creative consultancy and integrated marketing communications company. The ability to identify and share rare insights with its customers is what makes Insight Publicis outcompete its peers.
The organisation had earlier announced that its previous Managing Director, Jimi Awosika, is now the Group Managing Director of Insight Redefini; a group of six integrated marketing communication companies that Insight Publicis is a part of.
Olubodun has been a member of Insight since 2009. He is a graduate of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and an alumnus of both the Pan-Atlantic University and the Duke University – The Fuqua School of Business. He has over a decade’s experience in leading business negotiations and profitably managing projects. He also advocates on business ethics and corporate governance standards in Nigeria.
In his reaction, the Group CEO, Insight Redefini, Dr. Ken Ikpe, said finding a successor for Awosika was a huge challenge and the project was taken very seriously.
According to him, all those who were considered had the intellect, integrity, charisma required for the job.
However, one stood apart as a leader with an extraordinary ability to connect vision; people who have ideas to drive strategy and execution.
“Why we needed to emphasise the process that gave birth to this candidate is because at Insight Redefini, we like to eat our food as if it was our medicine so that we don’t end up eating our medicine as if it was our food.
Also speaking, Awosika said the board of directors of Insight Publicis recently came to a conclusion on the most critical activity in the life of the company which is leadership.
According to him, the dynamics that have trailed the business are quite familiar.
“We started business in 1980, a years that followed the decade in which science and technology especially influenced the interest of the mass media to facilitate the framing and spread. Much as the dynamics of that time created a shift from the foreign ownership and management of advertising businesses in Nigeria, we are now witnessing a new shift with the libearlisation of the industry to accommodate some degree of foreign ownership, which now offers Nigerian ad agencies the opportunities to expand beyond our shores, thereby encouraging global competitiveness and play.
“We are also witnessing a situation whereby more than ever before, the economic outcomes of businesses are being powered by the exponential growth in the formation competition technology, thereby creating a new economy- the digital economy that will be a major determinant of business performance now and in the future. We see this developments as significant as the birthing of a new epoch and as epoch comes only disruptive change and shift will suffice to make businesses and even individuals still relevant in this whole new world.
“We are committed to meeting the disruptions with more than equal force not only to maintain our many decades of industry leadership, but determine the future. This is why we have invited to witness the passing on of the baton as MD/CEO of Insight to Mr. Feyi Olubodun.
“Such was passed on to me in 2005 by our founding Managing Director, Mr. Biodun Shobanjo. It’s interesting to note that this is the first time in the 36-year history of the company that a non-founder will be MD of the company.
“Mr. Olubodun has become not just the first non-founder but the third managing director of the business. It is important that we state that this is not only symbolic but it is something that we believe will lead us into the future.”
The board of directors have appraised Olubodun is confident that he is fit and ready to execute a determined path to even greater leadership as a very challenging future demands.
This path will see him exhibiting the charge to, along with others in the group, direct a renaissance of creativity, innovation, artistic excellence and enterprise through outstanding application of the best talents who are easily the most regarded, most desired and who are outstandingly managed and rewarded. Olubodun’s talent speaks for itself.
He joined Insight communications in 2009 and quickly rose to become the strategic planning director from where he became the general manager chief operating officer in 2014.
Extoling his quality Awosika noted: “Even if I have to say so myself, I consider this gentleman a consummate business thinker and he has an incredibly articulated perspectives of the African consumer.”
Olubodun who also spoke about his appointment said: “I remember chatting with some of my alumni colleagues at the Duke University sokua school of business and we were talking about this opportunity and one of them ask me what was attractive about the opportunity to me and I said to them that the opportunity to be MD/CEO is quite common there are lot of MD/CEO out there, but the opportunity to be the first non-founder CEO of Insight, a which is the number one in its industry is an incredibly rare opportunity.
“Moreso, if you look at the Nigerian business landscape, we are not known for transiting well from owners to none-owners, thereby guaranteeing sustainability and continuity of business institutions.
That is both the mandate and opportunity that the board has given me, I find it very exciting, symbolic and powerful as well. You know that insight is the leader in the industry in many ramifications, what we do sought of gives compass and direction to the rest of the industry. If you look at the industry today, its populated largely by entrepreneurs that are running their own business. And it is important that the industry has confidence that at some point those businesses can be transferred to non-owners that can take it to a higher level.
