Olu Akanmu, consummate marketing professional and Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Nigeria until last Tuesday, has left the services of the telecoms company in a rather curious and hazy circumstance.
Akanmu who joined the services of Airtel less than a year ago, actually got appointed to the position 1st of June, 2012. Prior to his brief stay at Airtel, the trained Pharmacist turned a distinguished marketing professional was the Managing Director/ Chief Executive, Retail & Consumer Banking, Bank PHB.
While Akanmu was well applauded professionally in-house and industry wide, feelers reveal that Akanmu’s exit which is coming as a surprise might not be unconnected with the tsunami which the battle among the Advertising Practitioner Council of Nigeria (APCON), Airtel, Prima Garnet, Ogilvy Africa and Scanad group, has become. The protracted battle which has resulted into legal tussles might have consumed the consummate marketer as the sitting final authourity on all marketing issues and under whose nose the matter festered and degenerated.
In the process, some agencies lost the Airtel business, Airtel Nigeria incurred the ire of the advertising regulatory body – APCON, while there is deep seated animosity between the parties. These are just a few of the fall-outs of the debacle which sources rationalized might have compelled the Airtel management to sacrifice its CMO.
Akanmu, an accomplished marketing professional, motivational speaker and seasoned manager will recalled was one of the first of Marketing egg-heads that made MTN Nigeria tick before he left the telecoms sector for a stint in the banking sector. He left MTN as General Manager, Consumer Marketing.
Akanmu has over 23 years of experience spanning marketing, banking, telecommunications, consulting, manufacturing, advertising, pharmaceutical and health care sectors.
Prior to his appointment, he was the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, Retail and Consumer Banking in Bank PHB, where he was responsible for the delivery of the retail business annual profit across 97 dedicated retail branches and additional 90 business co-location branches nationwide.
Other organizations where he worked include Insight-Gray Nigeria, Oxford Center for Innovation, UK, Population Service International/Society for Family Health, South Africa and Glaxo Nigeria Limited.
Akanmu, a 1985 Pharmacy graduate of University of Ife, Nigeria, has attended several management and leadership programmes in reputable institutions such as INSEAD, London Business School and Lagos Business School.In 1998, he scored a distinction to emerge the overall best student among 87 managers in the management advancement programme 37 of the Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
