First Bank’s Quiet Achiever, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Bags ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Award in Ghana

First Bank’s Quiet Achiever, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Bags ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Award in Ghana

The English language is not perfect. It is one of the few languages that continually attempts to make use of every part of the human face, lips, tongue, teeth, nostrils, including your ears. But it redeems itself sometimes in the meanings of its words. Take one: collage.

Folake Ani-Mumuney, FAM for short, is a collage of spine-bending, spine-binding achievements. It is one thing to be excellent at your craft, but it is another thing entirely to be frighteningly impressive. Impressive enough to earn an invite from the richest man in Africa? You are one of two people: Folake Ani-Mumuney, or FAM.

To start at the beginning will see hungry mouths open in awe, oblivious to everything else but the praise-raking journey of this genius until rigor mortis sets in. So we shall not start at the beginning, but someplace in the middle. Not how her father is the late Dr. Francis Owosina who is reputed to have developed modernized general and specialized orthopaedic and emergency services department of National Orthopaedic Hospital, but how her actions have thrown even more light on his achievement.

Folake is someone whom honour never regards as a strange bedfellow, as her foxtrot with British Airways shows. Folake Ani-Mumuney was the first black woman in a top management position in British Airways, and she was charged with marketing functions in Europe and Africa. She’s to thank for online ticketing and online checking. She was even brought to Nigeria as an expatriate in charge of British Airways’ West African market.

Here’s a lady who practically ran 59 countries when she began her illustrious career with British Airways. No wonder she attracted the attention of a business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. No wonder she became its chief marketing and communication officer, from which she went on to First Bank where she holds multiple top positions and is still wreaking havoc on the maxim of what men can do, women can do less.

Not long ago, she emerged the 10th president of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria in a very contested election. Did we mention that she was the first female president of the association? But she has come again, and this isn’t her first or second or tenth coming!

The Marketing World Awards has recognized her outstanding performances in a 2019 Lifetime Achievement award. The event held in Ghana marked her out for marketing superior product values to the market and displaying uniqueness across product offerings. Collage.

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