LAGOS — MR. Biodun Shobanjo, Chief Executive Officer of Insight Communications, Nigeria’s foremost advertising agency, will be standing down at the end of December 2004 as Chief Executive Officer of the company he helped establish about 25 years ago.
Taking over from him is Mr. Jimi Awosika, currently managing director of the company who has worked closely with Shobanjo in various capacities in the last 27 years.
Awosika, a Mass Communications graduate of the University of Lagos, first worked at the news department of the then Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, (now FRCN) and left as an editor before commencing his career in advertising in 1977, where he was recruited as trainee account executive at Grant Advertising by Mr. Shobanjo, the then Deputy Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer of the agency.
He left Grant Advertising at the end of 1979 to team up with Shobanjo in setting up Insight Communications in 1980, and has had various professional and management trainings in Nigeria, Europe, and the United States. He has at various times headed the Client Service, Account Planning and Creative departments of Insight. He is a major facilitator at various training programmes of the communications industry and is currently the Chairman of The Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria’s Education Committee. A widely travelled man, Jimi Awosika is married with children.
Of Awosika, Shobanjo said in the statement: "I don’t know of too many companies where continuity seems to have come as naturally as it has happened here. Jimi and I were the principal architects of this company. He has, as it were, been my understudy from the day I hired him at Grant Advertising some 27 years ago. Having taken Insight to where it is today, I believe the right thing to do is leave the day to day management of the company in the hands of younger, more dynamic, more knowledgeable and extraordinary team of people, ably led by Jimi, to create a better company.
"Jimi Awosika is perhaps the most knowledgeable and intellectual powerhouse I have ever met in this business. An unassuming workaholic and communications expert, I in particular and our Board are lucky to have him, and are confident of his capability of commencing an exciting new chapter in Insight’s on-going business evolution."
Shobanjo added that he "will continue to serve as Vice-Chairman of our board, giving those vital support required for entrenching our premium position in the market place.
"I also intend to devote my time in strategically partnering with all our clients as well as guiding and counseling those who drive our marketing communications and other service businesses. In this regard, I am fascinated by what the likes of Sir Martin Sorrel of WPP and Maurice Levy of Publicis Groupe are doing respectively. I intend to fashion my next moves after these two giants."
