One of Nigeria’s young and celebrated entrepreneur, Victor ‘Gbenga Afolabi, will be joining several high profile Nigerians at the annual Women In Marketing and Communications Conference/Awards (WIMCA) scheduled to hold on Wednesday, October 27, 2021, at the prestigious Shell Hall, Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos at 9 am prompt. The theme for this year’s event is “Women in Leadership: Building a strong Professional PIE (Performance, Image, Exposure)”.
WIMCA is a mentorship platform for young and prospective female professionals to ignite their potential towards attaining enviable heights in marketing and management. Also, it is to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit in women towards creating and sustaining enduring marketing and communications industry businesses.
Afolabi, who is the Group CEO of GDM Group, would be joining the likes of Dawn Rowlands, the CEO of Dentsu, Sub-Sahara Africa and the keynote speaker at the event; Ayodele Otujinrin, Marketing Manager, Godrej; Bunmi Adeniba, Marketing Director, Unilever; Iquo Ukoh, Managing Director, Entod Marketing; Ilyas Kazeem, Group Marketing Director, Eat ‘N’ Go Africa; and Charity Ilevbare, Category Lead (Life Care), Seven Up.
Other speakers are Steve Babaeko, CEO, X3M Ideas; Debola William, GM Marketing, UAC FOODS; Mr. Adebola William, Group CEO, Red Media; Funmilayo Falola, Head, Brand & Marketing Comms, Wema Bank Plc, and Tokunboh George Taylor, Managing Director, Hills+Knowlton Strategies.
The event, WIMCA, is divided into two segments that hold on the same day; the conference and the awards. The conference has two sections that include- a career development session, and a Marketing to women session. The Awards segment comes at the end of the conference presentations. It is a free event and interested participants, men, and women, can register at http://wimca.ng/register/
V’GA, as he’s fondly called, began his career with Evans Medical Plc in 2003 as a medical sales representatives.
Ofcourse, one would think he’s got his career well cut out coming from his pharmacy background. But like most radical social entrepreneurs, his journey detoured into disassociated sectors, mounting one success on another in a fruitful chase after deep value creation across marketing and communications, technology and investment.
For those in integrated marketing communication sector, V’GA is a famed brand, owing to his exploits with GDM Group that have disrupted the traditional approaches to brand and marketing communications. Afolabi’s first business foray after exiting 9-5, Generating Demand Management (GDM) Direct and its overwhelming successes quickly shot him into national and international prominence. For a Serial Value Creator, the rewards that accrued only became inputs for yet another mission, Hazon Holdings, a diversified business holding company now reputedly worth about $500million.
Victor Afolabi, backed by Hazon Holding, initiated the Eko Innovation Centre in 2018, working with the high performing Lagos State Government to drive innovation across 60 industries and achieve the digital transformation objectives of Lagos State. Like GDM, Hazon and other things V’GA has been involved with, this initiative is fast getting traction, the scale of which is projected to be worth several billions of dollars in societal impact.
Expected attendees the history making event include chief executives of marketing communications businesses and brands, marketing directors of corporate organisations, senior advertising practitioners and professionals, senior and middle-level female executives in creative, public relations, media planning, digital, and experiential marketing agencies. Participants are also expected from the public sector.
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