Exclusive: New ACAMB President Unveils Agenda, To Reposition Banking Communications Professionals As Economic Influencers

Newly elected ACAMB President, Babajide Sipe has outlined an ambitious programme anchored on mentorship, career development, stakeholder advocacy, and cross-sector collaboration, with a clear goal of making banking’s marketing and communications professionals indispensable voices in Nigeria’s economic conversation.

One of Nigeria’s finest communications professionals and newly elected President of the Association of Corporate Communication and Marketing Professionals in Banks (ACAMB), Babajide Sipe, has set out a far-reaching agenda for his 2026–2028 tenure, one that seeks to fundamentally redefine how the association serves its members and how banking communications professionals are perceived within the wider Nigerian economy.

In his first in-depth interview since assuming office exclusively with Brand Communicator, Sipe spoke with characteristic clarity and ambition, laying out the priorities that will shape his administration.  Central to his agenda is the conviction that marketing and corporate communications professionals in banks are far more than support functions. They are, he argues, the architects of institutional identity, public trust, and commercial relevance, and it is long past time they were treated as such.

“Without us, a lot of organisations would be obscure,” Sipe said. “People would not know them, would not know their abilities, and nobody would connect with them. If we are not there to communicate, to promote, and to position for profitability, the marketing and corporate communications department is very critical.”

Sipe’s agenda is structured around four core pillars, and the first two which are mentorship and career development, are where he speaks with the most personal investment. Having himself benefited from the kind of institutional learning that comes from working across multiple financial services organisations, he is committed to building structured pathways that give younger ACAMB members the guidance he had to seek out for himself.

Central to this is an expanded mentorship programme that will connect junior professionals with experienced veterans, including those who have moved on from the banking sector entirely. Under Sipe’s vision, ACAMB membership does not expire when a professional leaves a bank. Former members who have moved into FMCG, oil and gas, consulting, or other industries will be actively retained as mentors and resource persons, bringing cross-sector perspectives back into the banking communications community.

“Even if you leave the banking industry, you are still a member of the association by default,” he explained. “Your expertise, your knowledge, is so useful for those that are still in the banking industry. So even when you move to FMCG or oil and gas, as long as you’ve been a member of ACAMB, we will still call you to mentor younger people or to come and be a part of sessions where you can share your experiences.”

Career development, in Sipe’s framing, goes well beyond functional skills. He wants ACAMB members to be rounded professionals capable of moving into leadership positions across their organisations, not just within marketing and communications, but into broader executive and strategic roles. To that end, he plans to bring speakers from outside the marketing function to expose members to adjacent disciplines: finance, operations, technology, and business strategy. “Your course can be marketing and corporate comms, but we also want you to have other expertise in other areas so that you are relevant within the banking industry,” he said. “We want our members to be all-rounded.”

 

Professional Body Partnerships and Capacity Building

To support this developmental agenda, Sipe has signalled ACAMB’s intention to deepen its partnerships with professional bodies and industry associations outside the banking sector. He cited the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) and the National Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) as organisations with which ACAMB is actively engaging, encouraging members to pursue affiliations that strengthen their professional credentials and expand their industry networks.

Partnerships with marketing and communications communities including platforms and networks within the broader advertising and public relations ecosystem are also on the table, with Sipe emphasising that ACAMB intends to be a connector of ecosystems, not an island within one.

On capacity building, Sipe intends to design training interventions that keep pace with an industry being reshaped at speed. He specifically highlighted digital skills, content creation, film and video production, and data management as priority areas.

A Seat at the Table of National Economic Discourse

Perhaps the most ambitious dimension of Sipe’s agenda is his vision for ACAMB’s role in national economic and regulatory conversations. He wants the association to be so credible and well-organised that when policymakers, regulators, and industry stakeholders convene to discuss the banking sector, ACAMB is the body they call to represent the communications and marketing perspective.

“I want to be able to promote reform in the banking sector so that we are integral to what is happening,” he said. “Even integral to what is happening in the Nigerian economy. Our members should be beyond the sector within the Nigerian economy, well-rounded in projecting the values of the banking sector and ensuring that the banking sector remains relevant and trusted.”

The Association as Family

One of the more striking themes in Sipe’s vision is his insistence on ACAMB as a space of genuine collaboration, an association where the competitive rivalries between banks are left at the door, and members come together as a professional family. He invokes the word ‘family’ deliberately and frequently, and what he means by it is substantive: an environment where members share opportunities, flag vacancies at their institutions for fellow members, and build the kind of trust-based networks that accelerate careers.

“In our association, there is no competition, there is collaboration,” he said. “We are not thinking about one bank being bigger or better than another bank. We work together as a team. We share knowledge. The more experienced ones are there to teach, to make the association a very interesting place to be…a family.”

He also wants to ensure that members are aware of and positioned for the remarkable breadth of career opportunities that exist within banking communications today: from digital marketing and content creation to crisis management, internal communications, sustainability communications, brand management, and product activation. In some Nigerian banks, he noted, the marketing and corporate communications team now numbers close to fifty people,  a scale that demands both specialisation and versatility.

A Presidency with Purpose

Sipe is clear that he does not intend to run a ceremonial presidency. The combination of roles he now occupies which is a senior brand leadership at the Bank of Industry and the ACAMB presidency, is demanding by any measure. But he sees the two as mutually reinforcing: the credibility and experience of his BOI role strengthening his authority as an association leader, and the ACAMB platform amplifying the causes he believes in.

“We have the mindset that we will do better than previous administrations,” he said, with the measured confidence of a man who has spent years preparing for exactly this moment. “We want to make ACAMB more relevant. We want to project our values. We want to connect with stakeholders within and outside the financial services sector. We are not going to give up. We are not going to stop.”