The board of BusinessDay Media Limited, publishers of Nigeria’s leading business and financial daily, has appointed Dr Ogho Okiti as its new managing director.
Okiti took a PhD in Development Economics from the University of Manchester and worked as an economic researcher and analyst at the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS), where he helped to develop a robust monthly and quarterly statistics of government output on social security, adult and children social services. He also served in the office of Nigeria’s chief economic adviser to the president.
In a statement, Richard Ikiebe, chairman of the board of BusinessDay, said Okiti would resume on his new job on Monday, January 6, 2020 and take up a role which has been held since 2001 by founder, Frank Aigbogun, who will stay on as publisher.
“This appointment marks a remarkable milestone in the history of the business and perhaps, more importantly, it is
the start of a well-planned succession process which is seeing a new and younger leadership enthroned,” Ikiebe said.
“Ogho is coming at a time of very interesting developments in the media and especially at BusinessDay. Frank and his
team have done a good work of keeping the ship afloat in the face of severe headwinds.
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Stabilising the media unit of the business via its now established digital offerings and growing it into conferences
and events as well as research are some of the key strengths of the company today. Now it will be the lot of Ogho and
his younger team to grow the business faster and sustainably,” he said.
Aigbogun, who was inspired to launch BusinessDay during his work on the Vision 2010 committee which was
charged with drawing up a long-term economic vision for Nigeria, said it has been a rollercoaster ride for him these past 19 years.
“When we walked into an empty space in Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos that early morning in 2000, we could not have
imagined that we will be here today,” Aigbogun said.
“I am delighted to be handing over this role to Ogho at this time and I now hope to give some attention to supporting the practice and quality of our journalism along with the urgent task of pushing our digital migration and making it a sustainable business,” he said.
Aigbogun worked at the Guardian where he began his journalism career in 1982, and Vanguard where he rose to become editor of all the newspaper’s titles. He also spent years as the Lagos correspondent of the Associated
Press (AP).
“Whatever we have done, we did simply because God helped us. Nothing more fulfilling for a business owner than to look into the future with hope and satisfaction. It is our duty while we can, to help Ogho and his team to succeed,” he said.
Okiti, who says he stumbled into the media in 2007 when he first joined BusinessDay as its pioneer chief economist and chairman of the Editorial Board, is delighted to be back at BusinessDay where he first developed his passion for journalism and media business.
“I am excited about the opportunity to be part of the future of this great company and look forward to working with all the journalists and supporting staff that make BusinessDay a great place,” Okiti said.
“The industry is more dynamic than ever and my immediate focus will largely be on leveraging the disruption emerging from digital and technological innovations to make BusinessDay even more competitive in the domestic and global market,” he said
