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Africa’s leading women in PR and marketing – Part 2

By Omawumi Ogbe
19 September 2020   |   4:13 am
Following an increase from fashion companies, Diana Opoti rebranded her media consultancy Artemis Media into Diana Opoti PR, recognised as Kenya’s first PR consultancy focusing exclusively on services for the fashion industry.

Opoti

DIANA OPOTI (KENYA)
Founder, Diana Opoti PR
Following an increase from fashion companies, Diana Opoti rebranded her media consultancy Artemis Media into Diana Opoti PR, recognised as Kenya’s first PR consultancy focusing exclusively on services for the fashion industry.

Over the years, Opoti has proven to be a champion of the Kenya’s fashion design market and one of Africa’s most formidable fashion connectors. Based in Nairobi Kenya, her company focuses on brand strategy, publicity and campaign development and management for emerging fashion brands in Kenya, as well as for fashion brands looking to enter the country. From product reviews to driving fashion campaigns and recruiting on behalf of fashion brands, Opoti’s work goes beyond traditional PR.

TOKUNBO GEORGE TAYLOR (NIGERIA)
MD, Hill+Knowlton Strategies Nigeria
Referred to in some spaces as the amazon of PR in Nigeria, Tokunbo George Taylor is presently the Managing Director of Hill+Knowlton Strategies Nigeria, a global public relations company headquartered in New York. George Taylor started her impressive PR journey after her NYSC in 1994 working as the PR Manager at Multichoice and MNET.

Prior to her lead role at Hill + Knowlton Nigeria, George Taylor had spent some time at OANDO, where she handled the formidable job of being the head of the Corporate Services, Corporate Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility divisions.

NELISA NGQULANA (SOUTH AFRICA)
Director, PR Trends ZA
Nelisa is a PR & Communications Strategist with over 15 years’ experience through opportunities in the financial services (with companies such as Old Mutual and Metropolitan Health Group), NGO sector (UNICEF Children’s Radio Foundation), publishing and PR & Media consulting sectors.

She is currently the managing director and founder of PR and communications consultancy, PR Trends ZA. Focusing on reputation and crisis management, PR and social media/tech trends Ngqulana is a regular contributor to some of South Africa’s biggest TV shows and is often interviewed on her social justice campaigns against Gender Based violence. Her latest venture is Coding Mamas, a tech startup teaching mothers and children to code.
In 2017, her innovation project as part of JAMLAB was one of the 9 winners of the SA Media Investment Programme’s Innovation Challenge.

MUHAMMIDA EL MUHAJIR (GHANA)
Director of Strategy, WaxPrint Media
Muhammida El Muhajir leads the business development, strategy and oversees client management at WaxPrint Media, a digital marketing and public relations agency based in Accra. With roles at the renowned William Morris Talent Agency and as the Music Marketing Manager at Nike, El Muhajir spearheaded pioneering campaigns and programs with industry heavyweights including Eminem, Outkast, Alicia Keys, Pharrell Williams, and Mos Def using entertainment as a platform to connect brands with influential consumers worldwide.

According to El Muhajir, her experience working with Fortune 500 companies in the US such as Pepsico and Volkswagen as well as her understanding of the local market gives her agency the advantage to create a niche out of working with both international and luxury brands operating in Ghana/Africa. Her agency has companies like Alliance Motors – Jaguar and Land Rover, Remy Martin, Air France, KLM Pernod Ricard, Versace Collection as clients.

CHIZOR MALIZE (NIGERIA)
CEO, Brandzone Consulting LLC
With over 20 years of experience in Branding and Communication, Chizor is Malize is the CEO and Managing Partner of Brandzone; a brand consultancy firm which aids organizations in matching their brand strategy with their business goals. Her clients have included Fidelity Bank, Land Rover, Total, Qatar Airways and among many other prestigious brands.

An alumna of the London Business School, Malize has garnered deep and extensive experience in branding and marketing that cuts across diverse areas. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). In 2016, she won Marketing and Brand Personality of the year and Best Female Brand Personality in 2018. Malize offers Marketing and Branding courses at local and international levels.

NKECHI ALI-BALOGUN (NIGERIA)
CEO, Necci Consulting
Nkechi Ali-Balogun is a hands-on Public Relations Practitioner, author and public speaker. Ali-Balogun, is the CEO & Principal Consultant at Necci Consulting. She is described as a multi-talented industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in both client and services aspects of Public Relations and Training consultancy.

She has served as the Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Lagos State Chapter, and is the first female to win the Most Outstanding Public Relations Practitioner (Female) from The Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Lagos. Ali-Balogun coordinates Public Relations roundtable – providing a forum for PR and brand communications executives to interact and discuss latest trends in the PR Industry.

ADEBOLA OLOMO (NIGERIA)
MD, Deefrent Nigeria Ltd & Deefrent Media Agency, Dublin
Adebola Olomo leads Deefrent, an agency that provides marketing and PR solutions for organizations and events in Nigeria and Ireland. Before setting up Deefrent in Nigeria about a decade ago, Olomo made her mark as a communications professional in several organizations including MTN Group South Africa and MTN Nigeria where she won the coveted Star Performance Award in the African region. Some of the organizations who have felt her company’s impact include United Bank for Africa, National Bureau of Statistics, Flour Mills Nigeria, Suttonian Rugby Club Dublin and many more. She is also PR Director, African Professionals Network Ireland (APNI), which has allowed her to work with global brands like Facebook, Citi, Google, Twitter etc. on advancing diversity in the workplace.

JULIETTE MUTHEU (KENYA)
Head of Communications & PR, African Academy of Sciences
Juliette Mutheu is a science communicator who currently leads communications and PR at the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in Nairobi Kenya. She provides strategic leadership in science communication, branding, media engagement and digital engagement. A trained scientist, Mutheu’s niche is science communication and she’s always looking out for African science stories that she can tell so that people understand the important role science plays in development, particularly socio-economic development.

She works with African and global policy makers including the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), global partners such as Wellcome, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, DFID, SIDA, Royal Society just to mention a few.

ELIZABETH OSHO (NIGERIA)
Head Strategist, So.Me Solutions
Elizabeth Osho leads a team at So. Me Solutions, a lifestyle communications agency based in Lagos. Osho began her journey in Nigeria as the online manager of Genevieve Magazine where she worked for four years before starting So.Me Solutions in 2016. With an impressive clientele that includes South African Tourism, Unilever, Filmhouse/Filmone and more, Osho says her communications success recipe is networking. She believes that lack of pay transparency, discrimination and bias are some of the challenges women in PR & Marketing face.

BIDEMI ZAKARIYAU (NIGERIA)
Lead PR Consultant, LSF|PR
Since moving back to Nigeria in 2011, Bidemi Zakariyau resolved to make it and she didn’t relent till she did. The 2018 Future Awards Africa Prize Winner for Media Enterprise kicked off her journey in PR while at Law School and stamped it with the establishment of LSF|PR – a full service PR agency with core competencies in corporate communications, consumer and lifestyle brands.

From starting out with a few minor clients to representing some of Nigeria’s most popular brands including Remy Martin, Darling, Philips and more, Zakariyau’s company has become one of the fastest growing PR agencies in Nigeria. In 2019, the Holmes Report Global Creative Index listed LSF|PR in its list of top 16 most creative PR agencies in the world.

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