How I Have Evolved In The Corporate World In The Last 30 Yrs

• Marketing Practitioner, Yinka Akande

After deliberately keeping under the radar for several years, Citypeople Jamiu Abubakar (080851886) was privileged to meet top Nigerian marketing practitioner, Mr. Yinka Akande, respectfully referred to as “Don Yinxie” by colleagues in the industry, at an annual leadership summit organised by Rotalum, a leadership association of Rotaractors in the 1980s.

Mr. Akande, an erudite and multidisciplinary professional is the MD, DIFZDC. He is the former Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).

His credentials and over 30 years in the marketing industry say a lot about him and how far has fared as a professional. He is former Brands and Communications Director at Etisalat Nigeria (now, 9mobile), he was the first Director (Events, Sponsorship & Promotions) and former Director (Communications) of Globacom. These are a few among other top positions he has occupied in time past.

In the highly inspiring interview I had him, Mr. Akande explained how he has continually rediscovered himself and remained relevant, fitting into his many roles in the corporate business world for over 3 decade. Below are excerpts: Read and enjoy!

How did you find your present job as MD, Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company?

It’s a wonderful experience. All of my previous jobs probably prepared me for today. Every career trajectory I have gone through was preparing me for this role. The Free Zone concept is relatively new in Nigeria- being just three decades old. A free zone is a special economic zone in which municipal laws that are applicable in the customs area are relaxed, suspended or even abolished. For example, there are no expatriate quotas, you don’t pay custom duties on goods and services and quite a number of such incentives. It’s all basically to trigger the growth of the larger economy and ensure export earnings and FOREX conservation within the Free Zones. It is made to build the economy. That’s what I’m working on now. It’s so very exciting.

It’s obvious you have settled down into your new role. How easy was it for you?

Well, I have been around. I operate at the confluence of the humanities, the social sciences, marketing management, general management and commercial law. I have managed all of these together. I have degrees in the humanities, I have in social sciences, I have in marketing, I have in general management and I have a law degree. So, all of these became very influential in forging the profession that I am in today.

People refer to you as a media guru, what would you say are the things that keep you going in the business world?

But incidentally Media and PR are what some people ascribe to me, probably because of high-visibility jobs that I’ve held on the industry. The media is only one leg of the things I did. But incidentally Media and PR are what people identify me with the most because of the jobs I have held in the industry.  I had the privilege of commercially launching Etisalat when it came into the market so many years ago. I had the privilege of working with Globacom and I had the privilege of working with Coca-Cola. When I worked with Coca-Cola, we had a number of programmes: we had the Olympics Torch Relay, we had the sponsorship of the Super Eagles, we had the World Cup. I covered quite a number of activations in the World Cup in Korea-Japan. I covered the Olympics Torch Relay in Egypt, the 2002 African Cup of Nations. I, on behalf of Coca-Cola Chartered a plan and we took dealers and some of our staff to watch the African Cup of Nations final in Bamako, Mali. So, it’s been a very interesting career. I have been in the industry for a while. I graduated in 1985 and I have been in the industry ever since. God has been kind. We give all the glory to Him.

How easy was it for you to switch from one career line to another?

It wasn’t planned. It was ordained by God. I did my first degree, I graduated at the age of 20. I got into human resources, HR. I got tired of human resources but before I got tired, I did a Master’s programme in Human Resources at the University of Lagos. I graduated in 1990. I got into UAC which was the Unilever in those days as a graduate management trainee. UAC discovered that I was more of a marketing guy than I was a human resource manager. Kudos to UAC and I heard the Managing Director believed so much in me. And he said; no, you are not going to do HR for us anymore. You will come into Marketing and that was it. I did marketing, I got tired of Marketing at the time. So, I read Law. I did so many programmes. Unilever was so very kind. They enrolled me on the Unilever African Marketing Programme. We have the brightest young marketers in Unilever companies all over Africa coming together for courses. Unilever also took me several times to Kenya and the UK. We had courses in Egypt, we had in Zimbabwe, we had in South Africa and all over. So, I had such wonderful exposure. God has been very kind. So it wasn’t that I sat down and planned that from human resources, I would do this, I would do that. And it’s because I have a quest for knowledge. I have an undying spirit to do better. You won’t believe that as seemingly old as I am now, I’m thinking of another programme. It’s going to be the capstone programme that I’m going to do. Do I need it? Even my children are like ‘Dad, what do you need all these for?'”. I tell them “Every day, you have to be better than the day before. Every day you have to make a forward movement and that’s the only way to stay competitive. When you have exposure in different fields, on different platforms, you are able to connect all the dots together. You are able to see things that people don’t see. Because when a problem comes in the business world, it’s not only restricted to logistics, it’s not only restricted to marketing, restricted to finance or restricted to HR or restricted to anything. It’s a blend of each and every one of these. With multiple exposure, you are able to understand holistically what the problem is and you are able to formulate remedial programmes more effectively and efficiently than people who don’t even see other nuances. You are able to tease out issues with better understanding because you have multiple disciplines. And that’s what it has done for me. I’m able to see so many things that the ordinary guy who is strictly credentialed in one area will not see. So, I did HR, I did Marketing, I did Logistics. I was the first Demand Manager in Nigeria. I was a Demand Manager in Smithkline-Becham. I was the very first one, to the glory of God. Demand Management is an interface job between Marketing, Sales, and Logistics. In every job I did, I put my best into it. I did the best I could at every point in time. God always took me to the next level and I still have more grounds to cover.

What impact did your background and upbringing have on whom you have become today?

I come from a middle level family. My father was one of the first set of IT professionals in Africa. And when I say Africa, I’m talking about the English-Speaking Africa; East Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa. Minus North Africa. He was in the very first set that IBM trained in the University of Ibadan. So I come from a very educated family. My mother was a teacher, a guidance counsellor and a graduate of the University College, Wales. I come from a pretty privileged family and a family of 4 children and our parents. We grew up in Surulere before our father built his own house and moved on. Our parents instilled endearing and long-lasting values into us; the value of hard work, the value of respect, the value of humility, the value of trust, the value of the dignity of labour… Such enabling values moulded us into who we are. Today our parents are no more but we thank God that the values that they installed in us keep us going.