Give to Gain.
Those three words are the heartbeat of International Women’s Day 2026. And in no industry do they land more powerfully than in media and advertising.
Because this industry has always understood exchange. You give a brand presence on a billboard; you gain consumer attention. You give consistent, strategic outdoor visibility; you gain top-of-mind awareness. You give the right message at the right location at the right time; you gain market share.
So this International Women’s Day, the question we are turning inward is this: what happens when organisations apply that same logic to the women working within the industry? When we give women access, authority, mentorship, and real decision-making power what do we gain?
The answer, as Nigeria’s marketing communications industry is beginning to show very clearly, is everything.
The Rooms Where Decisions Are Made
There’s something powerful about visibility. In out-of-home advertising, visibility is the product. The billboard that commands a highway. The LED screen that stops you mid-stride at the mall. The strategically placed structure that a brand’s audience passes every single day.
But what is less visible and just as powerful are the rooms where those placements are decided. The strategy sessions. The site acquisition negotiations. The client briefings. The campaign performance reviews. And increasingly, the women running them.
For a long time, advertising was seen as a male domain. The AAAN was founded in 1973 and it would take nearly three decades before a woman, Mrs. Bola Thomas, became its first female president, from 2001 to 2003. Only one woman has held that position since. But the story does not end there. In fact, that is where it gets interesting.
History Is Being Made-Right Now, Right Here
Nigeria’s marcom industry has been quietly, steadily, powerfully transformed by women who refused to wait for permission. Here are some of the names worth knowing:
Dr. Bolajoko Bayo-Ajayi: First Female President, NIMN
In June 2025, Dr. Bolajoko Bayo-Ajayi made history as the first woman ever elected President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) with over 95% of the vote. Her investiture followed in December at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, under the theme “Leadership, Trust, and Brand Sustainability.”
Principal Consultant at Purple Pearl Consulting Ltd and a certified Personal Performance Coach, Dr. Bayo-Ajayi’s presidency is built on five pillars: engagement, advocacy, excellence, visibility, and inclusion. She inherited challenges from day one including a quit notice on NIMN’s Ikeja GRA office and navigated them with decisive leadership, relocating the institute to a new prestigious Lagos address.
This is Give to Gain in action. The industry gave her the chair. The industry is already gaining a more structured, visible, and forward-facing professional body.
Bunmi Oke: Past President, AAAN & CEO, Ladybird Ltd
With 30 years of brand-building experience spanning West Africa and EMEA, Bunmi Oke is one of the most significant figures in Nigeria’s advertising history. As only the second woman to serve as AAAN President (2012–2014), she led the association through a critical period of industry transformation.
Today, as CEO and Lead Consultant at Ladybird Ltd, she continues building brands, training the next generation of advertising professionals, and serving on boards across Nigeria’s private and public sectors. At the 20th LAIF Awards in 2025, she was honoured as an industry icon recognition not just of a career, but of a legacy.
Esosa Osagiede: Creative Director, Insight Publicis
When Esosa Osagiede was named a juror at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2025, she became a symbol of what Nigerian creative talent looks like on the world stage. Under her creative leadership, Insight Publicis was named Agency of the Year at the LAIF Awards 2024. Her campaign for TERRA Seasoning, “Unwrap Joy, Unleash Taste,” won the Grand Prix at LAIF 2023 the highest honour at Nigeria’s most prestigious advertising festival.
She was the only West African creative selected for the Cannes Lions “See It Be It” programme in 2023, standing out from over 800 global applicants. In 2025, she was featured on the DARE! List celebrating Black creative leaders shaping the future of global advertising. And beyond the awards, she mentors young creatives especially women. She is giving so that the next generation can gain
Marian Ogaziechi: ARPA Managing Director, Dentsu Agyle Nigeria
Fortune 500 clients across SSA Media investment is where strategy meets serious money and Marian Ogaziechi has been operating at that intersection for nearly a decade at Dentsu. As Managing Director of Dentsu Agyle Nigeria, the innovation and investment management arm of Dentsu in Nigeria, she oversees the company’s full P&L, leads a team of specialists across four media lines of business, and manages an advertising portfolio worth approximately $30 million for over 30 active brands including multinationals and national clients across every media touchpoint.
Her career is a masterclass in earned authority. Starting as a Media Sales Executive in 2007, she has held every significant role in the media value chain buying, trading, investment management, business development, and now the corner office. She has won over 15 transnational commercial pitches for Fortune 500 companies with operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, consistently delivering year-on-year savings and bonus achievement for clients. In OOH terms, she understands what it takes to place the right brand in the right physical space efficiently, strategically, and at scale.
Give investment management to women who have done the work from the ground up. Gain a business that outperforms.
Dupe Olusola: Former MD/CEO, Transcorp Hotels Plc ·
Dupe Olusola built a legacy in one. Appointed MD and CEO of Transcorp Hotels Plc in March 2020 as the world shut down she did not just keep the lights on. She led a full organisational turnaround: returning the company to sustained profitability, growing share price by over 600%, and entering the Nigerian Exchange’s SWOOT category. In the first half of 2024 alone, Transcorp Hotels recorded a 61% revenue increase under her leadership. She became the first female CEO of a publicly quoted Nigerian company to cross the ₦1 trillion market capitalisation milestone, a record that will stand long after the headlines move on. Before Transcorp, she shaped pan-African brand and marketing strategy at UBA across 20 countries, led Teragro Commodities Limited, and built a career grounded in governance, inclusive growth, and institution-building.
Today, she is a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow, a board member across financial services, technology, and development sectors, and Founder of DOVA Capital mobilising investment for Africa’s infrastructure and energy future. She also actively mentors women entrepreneurs and young leaders, backing them not just with words but with access, capital, and visibility. She was named Seven Stars Woman of the Year 2024 and recognised among Ventures Africa’s 10 Most Influential Nigerian CEOs. Give visionary women the corner office. Gain a company and a country that exceeds every expectation.
These women are not footnotes in Nigeria’s advertising and business story. They are the headlines. And they are proof of what the industry gains when it gives women the authority to lead.
OOH Is Where Presence Becomes Power
Out-of-home advertising is one of the oldest and most enduring forms of brand communication. It is also one of the most human. A great billboard does not interrupt your experience, it becomes part of it. The screen at the junction you pass every morning. The wrap on the bridge you cross before school runs. The structure outside the market your customers shop at every weekend.
OOH is presence. And presence, maintained consistently and strategically, becomes trust.
Women in OOH and broader media strategy understand this deeply. They are the account managers negotiating prime site placements. The planners mapping audience movement data across Lagos corridors. The operations ensure that a campaign goes up on time, in perfect condition, exactly where it was promised. The business development executives closing deals and building the long-term client relationships that keep agencies running.
This is not soft work. This is the backbone of the industry. And women are carrying a significant share of it.
Give to Gain: The Commercial Case
The International Women’s Day 2026 theme is not just an inspiring phrase. It is a business argument.
When organisations give women access to leadership, they gain sharper strategy. When they give female creatives room to own campaigns, they gain ideas that resonate with the consumers those brands are actually trying to reach. When they give women in operations the resources they need, they gain campaigns that run on time and on brief.
And in OOH specifically, where campaigns are placed in the shared physical spaces of everyday Nigerian life the roads, the malls, the markets, the bus stops the ability to understand that everyday life in all its diversity is a strategic advantage. Women bring that understanding. They live it.
The Path Still Has Distance
Celebrating progress does not mean pretending the journey is complete.The Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) has yet to see a female president since Mrs. Bola Thomas in 2001. In many agencies, women remain concentrated in middle management while the boardroom stays predominantly male.
But the trajectory is shifting. First-ever female presidents at NIMN and EXMAN. Women leading strategy at top agencies. Young women entering the industry with more visibility into what is possible than any previous generation had.
The billboard may be what the public sees. But the boardroom determines its purpose. And as more Nigerian women occupy those boardrooms shaping media investment, driving creative excellence, leading operational precision, and building strategic partnerships the industry becomes more balanced, more intelligent, and more commercially resilient.
A Call to Action: Give Intentionally. Gain Collectively.
This International Women’s Day, let’s move beyond symbolic celebration and into structural commitment.
Give visibility. Gain inspiration. Tag a woman in marcom who is doing the work. Share her story. Let the next generation see that there is a seat at this table with her name on it.
Give access. Gain innovation. Put women in the rooms where OOH strategy is set, where media plans are built, where client relationships are formed. Give them the accounts. Give them the briefs. Give them the credit.
Give mentorship. Gain pipelines. The women leading Nigeria’s marcom industry today did not arrive there alone. Now it is time to give that same investment to the women rising behind them.
Give recognition. Gain culture. Acknowledge the women managing your operations, leading your client services, building your brand portfolios. A culture that recognises contribution is a culture that retains talent and attracts more.
To the women in this industry right now: your work is seen. Your strategy is sharp. Your presence is reshaping this industry in real time, whether the headlines always say so or not. Keep going.
And to anyone watching from the outside, deciding whether this industry has a place for her: it does. It always has. We just need to say it louder.
From the billboard to the boardroom, the path is yours to take.
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Written by
Oluwatokemi Fagade