Meet MARKETING EDGE 2020 Summit & Awards panelist – Bolaji Okusaga
Bolaji Okusaga attended Obafemi Awolowo University where he graduated in Dramatic Arts as the best graduating student of the 1994 class winning the prestigious Wole Soyinka Prize for the best graduating student in the department as well as the Professor Michael Crowder Award for the best graduating student in the three creative arts departments in the school.
He had a short stint in Arts Management and Consultancy at the International Centre for the Arts under the tutelage of Ambassador Segun Olusola before proceeding to do his National Youth Service at the Marketing unit of the Broad Street branch of the then Lion Bank of Nigeria. At the end of the service, he was awarded a commendation certificate in recognition of his leadership qualities.
He proceeded to the University of Ibadan where he bagged a Masters degree in Communication and Language Arts in 1998 before joining Minaj Broadcast International as a Producer/Researcher. He later joined Presentations Plus, a Branding and Reputation Managers firm. While with Presentations Plus, working closely with the Director of Media and Publicity as well as other Campaign Directors, he handled as Head Strategy, the Media Strategy as well as the brand perception of the principal characters in the Obasanjo/Atiku 2003 Presidential Campaign.
Bolaji joined Marina International Bank and was part of the team responsible for delivering a compelling brand proposition which helped drive the bank’s business strategy. With the wave of the Nigerian banking industry consolidation in 2004 and its imperative for mergers and acquisition, he was part of a nine-man integration project management team that drove the merger between Access Bank, Capital Bank and Marina Bank. At end of the merger which led to a bigger Access Bank in September 2005, he was appointed Head, Investor Relations in October 2005. He was the Managing Director of the Quadrant Company, Nigeria’s leading Public Relations Consultancy, from April 2007 to December 2017, before founding Precise, a Reputation Design Company.
While at The Quadrant Company, the Company the Award of the African PR Consultancy of the year 2012, the most prestigious international award in Public Relations by the Holmes Report / Sabre Awards – the first by a Nigerian PR Consultancy.
Since differentiation is key to the market success of any business, Bolaji stresses the need for the alignment of the work-place with the challenges of the market-place.
He is a strategy and brand devotee with wide experience in the Mass-Media, Marketing, Public Relations and Banking. Aside from this, he is also interested in politics, policy and corporate governance. Bolaji has attended several courses on Branding, Corporate Strategy, Product Development, Leadership and Change Management as well as Mergers and Acquisition in institutions such as the Lagos Business School and Duke University in the United States of America. He is a member of the United Kingdom Chartered Institute of Public Relations and was also the 2nd Vice President of the Association of Corporate Affairs Managers of Banks.
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