•MD, YINKA AKANDE Tells City People
Erudite and multidisciplinary professional of repute, Olayinka Akande is the Managing Director of Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company, a top company making waves within the highbrow Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos. He oversees the running and activities within the zone.
The Free Trade Zone is a region where a group of countries has agreed to reduce or eliminate trade barriers. Its basic objective is to enhance foreign exchange earnings, develop export-oriented industries and generate employment opportunities for the host country.
In Nigeria, the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) in Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State is making waves. It has become home to over 150 companies from various sectors trying to make an impact in their respective endeavours.
Prominent among these companies is the Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company (DIFZDC). The company was set up to oversee the administration and running of the Dangote Industries Free Zone which was designated and approved as a Free Zone by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the 25th July, 2018, with respect to the designated area currently measuring 2,735 hectares of land and located at the South-East Quadrant of the Lekki Free Trade Zone area of Lagos State.
Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company stands out in the way it operates and what it offers. No wonder, the zone has achieved a lot within the few years of its establishment. Prominent and worthy of mention among them is the construction of Africa’s largest petroleum refinery, petrochemical and fertilizer complex which is already contributing immensely to the Nigerian economy by providing gainful employment for Nigerians as well as promoting the development of the Nigerian downstream oil and gas industry.
Yinka Akande, a Nigerian marketing specialist. He is the former Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). Akande is a prolific and highly experienced business leader with a unique Midas touch in all his ventures. Under him, Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company is hitting the right chord and fulfilling its objectives. The zone is no doubt witnessing great transformation. The successful completion of the refinery is set to revolutionise the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
Akande’s credentials are quite intimidating. A quick look through it says a lot about his personality. It revealed that the marketing savvy Yinka Akande is formerly a Brand Director with Etisalat Nigeria and former Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).
A highly cerebral marketing strategist and educator, he was the first Director (Events, Sponsorship & Promotions) and former Director (Communications) of Globacom, one of the leading players in the highly competitive Nigeria’s telecoms market.
An SMP 18 alumnus of the Lagos Business School, Mr. Akande is a 1985 graduate of the then University of Ife (now OAU) who was in September 2007 honoured as an Officer of Great Ife (OGI), a distinguished alumnus award of the University’s National Alumni Association.
He also earned post-graduate degrees from the University of Lagos and the Institute of Marketing (South Africa).
Mr. Akande is a Fellow of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) and a second-generation Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation. He is widely travelled, principled but personable professional who has worked meritoriously over the past 25 years across business functions as diverse as industrial relations, plant production, demand management, and in streams of marketing, sales and brands PR in blue chip companies such as UAC, Unilever, Glaxo-Smithkline and Coca-Cola International.
City People JAMIU ABUBAKAR (08085185886), had an exclusive interview with Mr. Akande some weeks back. There he revealed how he finds his roles as the MD, Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company and how his long-time experience in the business world has been helpful to him. Below are excerpts: Read and enjoy!
How did you find your present job and what’s your role as MD, Dangote Industries Free Zone Development Company?
It’s a wonderful experience. I was made for this job. Every career trajectory I have gone through was preparing me for this role of Managing Director, Dangote Free Zone Development Company. The free zone enterprise is a new concept in Nigeria. A free zone is a special economic zone in which municipal laws that are applicable in the customs area are relaxed, suspended or even abolished. For example, there are no expatriate quotas, you don’t pay custom duties on goods and services and quite a number of such incentives. It’s all basically to trigger the growth of the larger economy and ensure export earnings and export conservation within the free zone. It is made to build the economy. That’s what I’m working on now. It’s so very exciting and I’m the one for this job.
Which of your academic and career background would you say prepared you for your role at Dangote?
Well, I have been around. I operate at the confluence of the humanities, the social sciences, marketing management, general management and commercial law. I have managed all of these together. I have, simile, work credentials. I have degrees in the humanities, I have in social sciences, I have in marketing, I have in general management and I have a law degree. So, all of these become very influential in forging the profession that I am today.
You are a renowned media guru, what would you say are the things that keep you going in your profession?
Interestingly I never saw myself as a media guru because I worked in Marketing, I learnt business and I have a holistic appreciation. The media is only one leg of the things I did. But incidentally Media and PR are what people identify me with the most because of the jobs I have held in the industry. I had the privilege of commercially launching Etisalat when it came into the market so many years ago. I had the privilege of working with Globacom and I had the privilege of working with Coca-Cola. When I worked with Coca-Cola, we had a number of programmes: we had the Olympics Torch Relay, we had the sponsorship of the Super Eagles, we had the World Cup. I covered quite a number of activations in the World Cup in Korea-Japan. I covered the Olympics Torch Relay in Egypt, the 2002 African Cup of Nations. I, on behalf of Coca-Cola Chartered a plan and we took dealers and some of our staff to watch the African Cup of Nations final in Bamako, Mali. So, it’s been a very interesting career. I have been in the industry for a while. I graduated in 1985 and I have been in the industry ever since. God has been kind; we give all the glory to him.
How easy was it for you to switch from one career line to another?
It wasn’t planned. It was ordained by God. I did my first degree, I graduated at the age of 20. I got into human resources, HR. I got tired of human resources but before I got tired, I did a Master’s programme in Human Resources at the University of Lagos. I graduated in 1990. I got into UAC which was the Unilever in those days as a graduate management trainee. UAC discovered that I was more of a marketing guy than I was a human resource manager. Kudos to UAC and I heard the Managing Director believed so much in me. And he said; no, you are not going to do HR for us anymore. You will come into Marketing and that was it. I did marketing, I got tired of Marketing at a time. So, I read Law. I did so many programmes. Unilever was so very kind. They enrolled on the Unilever African Marketing Programme. We have the brightest young marketers in Unilever companies all over Africa coming together for courses. We had courses in Egypt, we had in Zimbabwe, we had in South Africa and all over ... So, I had such wonderful exposure. God has been very kind. So it wasn’t that I sat down and planned that from human resources, I would do this, I would do that. And it’s because I have a quest for knowledge. I have an undying spirit to do better. You won’t believe; as simile old as I am now, I’m thinking of another programme that I want to do. I won’t tell you but it’s going to be the capstone programme that I’m going to do. Do I need it? Even my children are like Dad, what do you need all these for and I told them; you see, every day you have to be better than the last day. Every day you have to make a forward movement and that’s the only way to stay competitive. When you have exposure in different fields, on different platforms, you are able to connect all the dots together. You are able to see things that people don’t see. Because when a problem comes in the business world, it’s not only restricted to logistics, it’s not only restricted to marketing, restricted to finance or restricted to HR or restricted to anything. It’s a blend of each and every one of these. With multiple exposure, you are able to understand holistically what the problem is and you are able to formulate remedial programmes more effectively and efficiently than people who don’t even see other nuances. You are able to tease out issues with better understanding because you have multiple disciplines. And that’s what it has done for me. I’m able to see so many things that the ordinary guy who is strictly credentialed in one area will not see. If I were just an HR guy and done HR for about 35 years, I would have been dead professionally. So, I did HR, I did Marketing, I did Logistics. I was the first Demand Manager in Nigeria. I was a Demand Manager in Smithkline-Becham. I was the very first one, to the glory of God. Demand Manager is an interface job between marketing and logistics. In every job I did, I put my best into it. I did the best I could at every point in time. God always took me to the next level and we are still far for me to go.
What impact did your background and upbringing have on whom you have become today?
I come from a middle level family. My father was one of the first set of IT professionals in Africa. And when I say Africa, I’m talking about the English-Speaking Africa; East Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa. Minus North Africa. He was in the very first set that IBM trained in the University of Ibadan. So I come from a very educated family. My mother was a teacher, a guidance counsellor and a graduate of the University College in Whales. I come from a pretty privileged family and a family of 4 children and our parents. We grew up in Surulere before our father built his own house and moved on. Our parents instilled endearing and long-lasting values into us; the value of hard work, the value of respect, the value of humility, the value of trust, the value of the dignity of labour... Such enabling values moulded us into who we are. Today our parents are no more but we thank God that the values that they installed in us keep us going.
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