ADVAN Gets First Female President, Inaugurates New Excos

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Folake Ani-Mumuney, new ADVAN President.
Folake Ani-Mumuney, new ADVAN President.

By Abutu Agada

The Advertisers Association of Nigeria, ADVAN, has elected Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications and General Manager of First Bank, as its first female president at the ADVAN Annual General Meeting held at the Muson Centre in Lagos, recently.

 

Folake who takes over from David Okeme, Chief Marketing Officer of RemitaNet, was inaugurated the same evening alongside other newly elected members of the ADVAN executives. Nkiru Olumide-Ojo Executive Head Corporate Communications Stanbic IBTC also won election into the post of Vice President of the association, while Wasiu Abiola who heads the Media & Digital unit at Nigerian Breweries Plc snapped up the other Vice Presidency position.

 

Speaking exclusively to Brand Communicator after her inauguration, an excited Folake expressed her appreciations over the honour accorded her by members of the association.

 

“It is extremely rewarding to be deemed fit to run this office by an association I have been part of for a long time. To that end, I am humbled. I will ensure that the period I have to serve as the ADVAN President will see positive change, collaboration and partnership. We will build capacity in the industry and create more value for members.

 

She said she will work together with her team, combining their unique and diverse wealth of experience to take the association to take it to the desired height in her tenure.

 

According to her, the new excos will head for a retreat where the course for the association will charted.

 

She however stressed that the new excos will provide more platforms for advertisers to discuss issues of common interest and influencing developmental changes. “What we will be doing that will be different is to create an opportunity where we will have platform for interaction to serve as training for people in this field. Secondly, it is to have a forum where everyone’s voices could be heard. I believe that it is not about ADVAN saying we are ADVAN, it is about saying this is what we are and here is what we do,” she said.

 

In line with ADVAN’s  founding  objective of advancing the interest of the marketing industry in Nigeria, by spearheading and ensuring global best practices as well as facilitating collaborative partnership, with relevant stakeholders, Onome Osagbara, Product Manager for the Indomie brand who was elected as the association’s Publicity secretary said collaboration will be a focal point for them.

 

“Collaboration for us is very important. As advertisers, we need to come together and start wielding our influence across all spheres. That is one of the things we will be focusing on. In the coming years, you will see a much more vocal, formidable more coherent in terms of membership in ADVAN,” he said.

 

On his role in the association specifically, Onome has this to say: “The first thing we will set out to do is to market ADVAN as a brand and market it successfully. I will be bringing in my experience to do a much better job in terms of marketing the ADVAN brand to the point where it should have the kind of influence with the industry; to a point we will create a positive change.”

 

In her new position, Folake is expected to bring in her wealth of experience and rich repertoire of knowledge garnered over the years having worked before now as Manager, African Operations at British Airways, Group Head, Corporate Affairs and Marketing Communications at Dangote Group before her present engagement with First Bank of Nigeria.

 

ADVAN is a strong voice of 70 of the biggest marketers in Nigeria representing over 200 brands with an annual marketing spend of over of over N100 billion. ADVAN is a member and on the executive council of the World Federation of Advertisers, a body of marketing associations in over 55 countries of the world.

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