What The Expansion Of NWPR To Public Relations Women Foundation Means For The Global PR Industry

What began in 2019 as a Twitter and Instagram community of Nigerian women sharing the frustrations of PR practice has evolved into a global social enterprise with reach across three continents, a membership of over 12,000 professionals, and an agenda that places the economic relevance of public relations at the centre of its mission.

The Public Relations Women Foundation formerly known as Nigerian Women in PR has formally announced its evolution from a Nigeria-focused women’s professional community into a structured, globally oriented social enterprise with programmes operating across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The transition, described by founder Tolulope Olorundero as an expansion of scope rather than a rebrand, marks what is perhaps, one of the most significant institutional developments in Nigeria’s PR and communications sector, in recent years.

“It is not a transition from Nigerian Women in PR to Public Relations Women Foundation,” Olorundero said in an interview with Brand Communicator. “It is an evolution, an expansion of our scope. The people we want to provide this service to have expanded. Nigerian Women in PR remains an active organisation, but it is now exclusively for Nigerians. All initiatives that Nigerian Women in PR delivered are now captured within the Foundation, only at a much bigger scale.”

A Six-Year Journey to Global Reach

Nigerian Women in PR was founded in 2019 with a modest intent to create a digital community where female PR professionals in Nigeria could find solidarity, share experiences, and build professional networks in a sector where such a platform did not exist. Olorundero had noticed that women’s PR organisations existed in other African countries but that Nigeria — home to one of the continent’s largest and most active PR industries — was conspicuously absent from the map.

Within two years, the organisation had grown beyond a social media page. It developed formal membership categories that include registered members for professionals with up to five years’ experience and a paid senior membership tier for those with more, and launched a calendar of initiatives including the PR Students on Campus Summit, the Experiencing PR Conference, and a pioneering Reverse Mentorship Workshop. The last of these, delivered for the first time in 2021, was at that point the only initiative of its kind in the global PR industry. It has since been replicated by Taylor Bennett Foundation in the United Kingdom and institutionalised as a recurring programme.

Structure, Mission, and Global Focus

The Public Relations Women Foundation is formally constituted as a global social enterprise, a deliberate departure from the NGO model, which Olorundero found unsustainable in the Nigerian context. Its mission is to strengthen the practice, leadership, and institutional relevance of communications through elite networks, talent mobility, and high-impact programmes, with a particular focus on emerging markets.

The Foundation’s vision is to advance professional leadership, capability, and economic impact in public relations, with inclusive global participation. That last phrase, inclusive global participation, is pointed. Olorundero has spoken critically about the claim to global representation made by some international PR bodies whose boards, panels, and programmes reflect almost exclusively North American and European perspectives. The Foundation positions itself as the institutional corrective: a global body that actually means global, and that treats the PR practices evolved in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as innovations worthy of study, not adaptations requiring improvement.

The Foundation’s programmes are organised across three pillars. The first is the Premium Members’ Club, an application-only community for very senior female PR professionals worldwide, including founders, heads of communications departments, and heads of government and development-sector communications. With 20 premium members and over 1,500 registered members, the Club functions as a peer learning network, a professional reference community, and a platform for amplifying the achievements of women whose contributions have historically been credited to the organisations or the men above them.

The second pillar is TalentIntel, the Foundation’s specialised talent mobility platform. TalentIntel connects organisations, companies, institutions, and government agencies, with communications professionals across markets and career stages. Having already facilitated over 100 job opportunities and engaged 12 corporate and institutional partners, it addresses a gap that became apparent as Nigerian Women in PR grew: organisations and HR professionals were reaching out to the community specifically because it held the country’s largest database of qualified female PR professionals. TalentIntel formalises that function and scales it globally.

The third pillar covers trainings and convenings. Its flagship event, now called the Experiencing PR Summit, is modelled after the World Economic Forum and positioned as a high-level business convening for senior executives, government officials, and institutional leaders, not a mass industry conference. Since its first edition as the Experiencing PR Conference, it has reached over 4,000 delegates and attracted participants who have flown in from outside Nigeria to attend. Also under this pillar are the PR Students’ Summit, which has reached over 3,000 students virtually across tertiary institutions, and bespoke training programmes delivered to organisations. The Foundation has so far delivered 20 events and produced seven publications.

The Emerging Markets Mandate

The Foundation is clear about where its priorities lie geographically. While global in outlook and aspiration, it is hyper-focused on Africa, Asia, and Latin America…all regions that Olorundero argues have been doubly marginalised in the global PR conversation, their professionals unrecognised, and the economic value of their industries unmeasured. In the Foundation’s own research, the public relations industry in North America is valued at $18.87 billion as of 2025; $15.44 billion value of PR in Europe (2025). There is no comparable figure for Africa, Asia, or Latin America, a data gap that the Foundation treats as both a problem to solve and a mandate to address.

“If the global industry refuses to actively recognise the contributions of PR professionals from Africa, from Asia, from Latin America, we are creating our own global platform,” Olorundero has said. “They would be the ones to join.”

That confidence earned, not assumed, is perhaps the most notable thing about the Foundation’s launch into its new chapter. In 2026, the organisation signed global partnerships with leading non-industry organisations and unveiled its first cohort of global ambassadors. Progress that took Nigerian Women in PR years of careful relationship-building to achieve is happening, under the Foundation banner, in months. The Foundation has now touched over 12,000 PR professionals across its programmes.