Ayodele Otujinrin Elevated To Regional Category Lead For Africa, US & Middle East For Godrej

Frontline Marketing Amazon, Ayodele Otujinrin has been elevated to the position of Regional Category Lead for Africa, the United States and the Middle East for Godrej Consumer Products Limited.

In her new position, Ayodele is expected to direct the overall strategic planning and innovation management of the business. She is also expected to drive the strategic direction for Darling-the Haircare portfolio, driving decision-making to balance short and long-term goals for unlocking its growth potential across the US, Africa and the Middle East.

She is further expected to be at the helm of delivering the brand’s regional P&L for topline and bottom-line delivery of the $300M+ Haircare business, ensuring set targets like GP, Underlying sales growth targets are achieved, among other functions.

Prior to her elevation, Ayodele was the Head of Marketing, West Africa for Godrej. In that position, she successfully turned around the fortunes of the declining business in two major markets to current index growth of 135% and 143% respectively, based on developing a Relaunch Toolkit with medium to a long-term strategy which the local team adapted and deployed. This initiative was successfully replicated across key markets.

She also pioneered a culture shift from commodity-led strategy to high-fashion hair business modeling leading global fashion brands. This championed deeper consumer focus and understanding in line with business performance monitoring and drove a culture shift from production volumes to value creation among other notable achievements.

Today, she stands as one of those women who have challenged the status quo and achieved great career feats in IMC industry. Her skill set, experience and vast knowledge of brand building, digital marketing, business strategy and operations has been of tremendous contribution to the growth of the Darling hair business.

Ayodele is an outcome-focused, strategic thinker, pragmatic and passionate individual with a record of challenging the status quo, getting things done, outperforming competitors, and delivering sustained growth in fast-paced businesses.

With almost 15 years of experience in the marketing communications industry managing brands, interactive digital and non-digital marketing projects for global brands, Ayodele excels at category strategic planning, financial management, product development and productivity, ROI Analyses, digital strategies, setting and executing against marketing communication and research objectives.

She possesses an MBA from the University of South Wales United Kingdom, a PGD in Digital Marketing from the Digital Marketing Institute Dublin Ireland and a Bachelor of Art in English Language & Literature. She has also completed high-level executive programs in marketing, innovation and creativity from the Harvard Manage Mentor Programs, Chartered Institute of Marketing London and the Lagos Business School.