BusinessDay appoints Phillip Isakpa Executive Director

The Executive Management of BusinessDay Media Limited has announced the elevation of Phillip Isakpa, the Editor of its flagship newspaper, BusinessDay, to the position of Executive Director, effective July 1, 2014.

The appointment is in line with a comprehensive review and restructuring of the business of the media company, which moved into its own ultra-modern premises in Apapa GRA, Lagos at the end of 2013.

Isakpa will retain his position as Editor of the paper’s flagship, BusinessDay, and as Executive Director, Phillip now takes charge of all the publications of the company, including BusinessDay, BD Sunday, BusinessDay Ghana and all its other special and occasional publications.

Phillip joined BusinessDay in 2001 from the United Kingdom, where he served as Europe Correspondent for six years before being recalled to Nigeria and appointed Deputy Editor in March 2007. He was appointed Editor in February 2008, a position in which he has played a key role in the repositioning and growth the newspaper.

Phillip Isakpa, an old boy of King’s College, Lagos, studied mass communication at the Jackson School of Journalism of the University of Nigeria. He graduated with a Second Class Upper honours degree in 1995 winning the departmental prize for best graduating student.

 In 1999 he became a British Council Scholar through the prestigious British Government Chevening Scholarship programme and went to the United Kingdom, where he studied Media, Communication and Technology at the University of Manchester, graduating in 2000 with a Master’s degree.

He had a stint doing research in Media and Democracy in the department of Journalism of the School of Media and Cultural Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK. His research was focused on looking at the role of the media in democratic transition in developing countries, with special focus on Nigeria.

In 2011, he was at the Manchester Business School, UK, for an Executive Education Programme in Corporate Strategy.

He also undertook an Executive Education Programme at Aston Business School in the UK in 2012. This year, he was at Oxford University in Oxford, United Kingdom for an Executive Development Programme on Transformation in Governance, at the university’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

At the University of Nigeria, he served as the editor of The Record, the university’s newspaper produced by the department of mass communication, between 1993 and 1995

A dedicated journalist and communicator, he brings to his role a perspective and understanding of journalism of both the developed and developing worlds, having worked for six years in the UK as Europe Correspondent for BusinessDay Media Limited. Before leaving for the UK, he worked in various business journalism roles at Vanguard Media Limited, including Energy Correspondent, Industry Correspondent, Capital Market Correspondent, Insurance and Finance Correspondent. He was also a research, information and publication assistant between 1995 and 1996 at the University of Lagos. 

In the UK, he also worked with the non-governmental organisation, Southern Voices, based in Manchester, where he was media analyst with responsibility for research, monitoring, projection and promotion of Southern issues in the UK.

He has attended a number of courses on media news and management both in Nigeria and in the UK, including those organised by the Lagos Business School, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Central Bank of Nigeria, Manchester City College, and the UK Press Association, where he took a media management course called the ‘Editor’s Chair’.

Said Frank Aigbogun, Chief Executive Officer of BusinessDay Media Limited and Publisher of BusinessDay, on the appointment: “As we begin a new era at BusinessDay, we have found it desirable to elevate the position of the Editor to a board role and I am confident that Phillip will play that role diligently. He has demonstrated an uncanny knowledge of both the business and the markets in which it plays and as we diversify the business, we have no better pair of hands to help lead that new push.”

 Said Phillip Isakpa:“I welcome the opportunity which this elevation offers me to continue to contribute to the growth of this company. There is a lot of work still ahead as we pursue our expansion drive in our quest to broaden the business. I will work to strengthen our publications, making sure that we firmly occupy the business and financial information and intelligence space, not only in Nigeria but across West Africa.”