BusinessDay names Tayo Fagbule as Editor

Tayo Fagbule, an economist and former MBA director at the Lagos Business School is to become the Editor of BusinessDay, Nigeria’s premier business and financial newspaper.

BusinessDay, the 20-year-old media company has grown under the stewardship of publisher and founder Frank Aigbogun but is now making good strides on a new but exciting paid digital subscription journey for which managing director Ogho Okiti was recruited earlier this year to lead the charge.

The new Editor will be leaving his job at Danne Institute for Research where he has been on a leave of absence overseeing Projects: Transformation of Lagos; Protests in Nigeria; Connectivity & Productivity in Lagos.

Fagbule has over a decade of experience working in the media and was Nigeria correspondent for The Africa Report and Africa Confidential for two years where he wrote regularly on business, economy and politics in Nigeria and West Africa. During this period, he was a member of the editorial board of Financial Derivatives Company, Nigeria’s leading investment research firm.

An enthusiast of art from Africa, Tayo, together with Jess Castellote, Director Yemi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, compiled a database of all artworks by Nigerian artists sold at auctions in Nigeria and abroad since 2008 and also co-wrote the first ever report on the art market in Nigeria: Nigeria Art Market Report (2015, 2016 & 2017).

According to the chairman of BusinessDay’s board of directors, Richard Ikiebe, himself a star in his days at the then Daily Times, “BusinessDay has clearly raised journalism play bars very high, by this appointment of a calm, even tempered quiet achiever to lead the paper in these unsettling and uncertain times. Tayo is a highly knowledgeable and affable BusinessDay insider who will hit the ground and run from day one. His returning to the paper as editor is a significant plus for journalism, the business community and the paper.”

Prior to his career in journalism, he was the MBA director at Lagos Business School, a role he combined with teaching anthropology and analysis of business problems on the fulltime MBA programme.

Read also: Can good journalism save Nigeria?  

Fagbule is a graduate of economics from the University of Lagos and took an MBA from Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University and says he was attracted to African art by the exhibitions held in the foyer of the Pan Atlantic University which piqued his interest.

According to him, “I’m honoured to be taking on the role of Editor of BusinessDay in its 20th anniversary. I believe firmly that journalism can be a force for good, more especially in these extraordinary times. While the media may have changed as technology upends how, when and where news is consumed, the demand for insight and solutions remains undiminished. And BusinessDay remains a foremost provider of business intelligence. I look forward to working with everyone at BusinessDay to execute our digital first strategy, to create quality journalism for a paying audience.”

BusinessDay’s search for a new editor was led by its chairman who is a journalism teacher at Pan Atlantic University after it became clear that the newspaper and its former editor will be parting ways. The search involved extensive consultations and interviews which culminated in a shortlist of two candidates.

Fagbule, who is scheduled to start as editor in January, will have full charge over the editorial operations of the company and will work closely with the newspaper’s outstanding editorial advisory board, a collection of top business luminaries chaired by Imo Itsueli, Cambridge university-trained founder and chairman of Dubri Oil.

BusinessDay began charging readers for its content more than a year ago and believes that persuading readers to pay for articles was good for journalism, as well as helping the growth of the company.

The toughest test of BusinessDay’s resilience has come during the covid-19 pandemic and it is inspiring the company to make the required changes to emerge stronger at the end of the crisis.

Apart from naming a new Editor, BusinessDay recently appointed to the position of deputy editor, Lolade Akinmulere, a young, energetic financial journalist who has, in a short spell, distinguished himself. BusinessDay is also appointing a full complement of managers and executives in its digital services department to broaden its market facing roles.

Nigeria is in the throes of an unprecedented economic crisis made worse by rising insecurity and by a second economic recession in four years and BusinessDay is making the investment required to build and curate the relevant content that ensures that its readers can find some light while in the dark, long tunnel ahead.