Ayobola Adedayo Bags Honorary Doctorate Award for Contributions to IT, Marketing Industry

Hamid Ayodeji

Ayobola Adedayo has been conferred an honorary doctorate award in recognition of her notable impact and contributions to leadership and strategy in the area of product management, marketing, and growth.

This Award is screened by the Board of M-Gibes College of Business & Management, UK in partnership with Maverick Business Academy, London.

The award is a Doctor of Business Administration in Leadership and Strategic Management (honoris causa) by the Governing Council of the Board of M-Gibes College of Business & Management, UK in partnership with Maverick Business Academy, London was awarded to her at a Global Excellence Leader’s awards conferment ceremony held at the Marriott Hotel, Accra-Ghana on Saturday, December 17th, 2022.

This honorary degree comes in recognition of her track record of venturing into uncharted territories and her exemplary track record in leadership and strategy. She has shown versatility in her work through her work in various industries.

 She has lived a life of inspiration and has been involved in delivering digital transformation and setting up new channels and departments in reputable companies for over a decade. Her diligence and excellence in the IT Technology & Marketing space in Nigeria have impacted the Nigerian economy and society positively. Honorary degrees are academic awards given by universities to individuals to recognise their exceptional contribution to society or lifetime achievement in their field.

This award scheme was developed as a wake up call for individuals globally that they are being watched and monitored as individuals who have done exceptionally well are rewarded for their selfless contribution to society.

Adedayo is an Innovator whose superpower is empathy. She is a full-stack marketing and product development/UX design professional with over 14 years of work experience spanning Integrated Marketing Communications, Product development, and Project Management for Telecommunications, Technology, Fast Moving Consumer Goods. For over ten years of her fourteen years career, she has been a corporate intrapreneur going into companies and starting up new digital businesses, channels, or departments from scratch. While at Airtel, she launched the eCommerce channel and led development plans and activities from concept to launch for Digital products and also emerged as the winner of the Airtel Gaming Guru challenge in Africa for gaming revenues and penetration increase as the highest revenue increase across Airtel Africa Operating countries.

She also previously pioneered the eCommerce channel at Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company where she was responsible for digital strategy, product development, and supervision of all digital sales channels and digital properties for all company products nationwide.

Ayobola is a recipient of the WIT Network Tech track training in Artificial Intelligence scholarship and passed through the WPP Next Gen leadership Programme, she was additionally selected as one of the 60 women for the 2022 cohort of the UK Nigeria Tech Hub Future Females Business School Tech-focused Programme, in partnership with Future Females, fully funded by the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub and UKaid. Ayobola has a passion and commitment to lifelong learning, and she holds an MBA degree from INSEAD France and is a certified E-Commerce professional from eMarketing Institute, Denmark.

She holds other certifications such as Microsoft Azure AI fundamentals, Scrum Fundamentals, Google Digital Sales, SEO Marketing, Google AdWords Mobile, Google Analytics, HubSpot Email Marketing, Google UX Design Certified, Kaufman fellow Venture deals, and others. She has been invited to speak at both international and local events such as the MISK GLOBAL Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where I hosted the Masterclass – Making Innovation part of your culture.
She was also selected as a jury member for the Women in Seafood 2020 competition. She was a speaker at the International Labour Organization’s Global Youth Employment Forum for the session titled – reflection on emerging recommendations. She recently got nominated for the Digital leader category for the Globant women that build awards and is the President of France Old Students Association in Nigeria.
Some of the excerpts from the speech by Acting Secretary of the HDDA Alumni ((Honorary Doctorate Degree Award) Dr. Sally Acquaye – CEO of different World Group while addressing awardees on the rationale and significance of the Global Excellence Award.
The setting up of these awards has given hope to global business operators and owners to put up their best in the individual areas of operations and to help nations and communities thrive. This has been their extended quota for making this chaotic world a little better for us to have some level of enjoyment.
This awards scheme is a wake-up call to all business owners and operators globally that they are being watched and monitored in a positive way, to appreciate their selfless contribution to the business, community, and society.
The impact of their dedication to hard work causes a ripple effect, especially on the youth, who think they have little or nothing to offer in the business world because of the negative impression that you can only succeed in the business community with huge investments and start-up capital. But this has been debunked by the heroes we are celebrating tonight. They have left no stone unturned and have taken the bull by the horn, including taking higher risks by establishing their various businesses,
Some ventured into business areas where no one dared because of the fear of losing investment or that it was too competitive to operate and make a profit or break even.

Some had to deny themselves profit for decades until the day they took recognition of the germinated seeds they have planted which had been stagnant for years growing to produce yields.
Some accepted the responsibility of running other people’s businesses as though it was theirs and grew them to success for the benefit of many.
They never gave up when the odds were against them
They stayed focused and kept editing their dreams and woke up to only find their dreams and aspirations come through at God’s appointed time.

These are heroes worth celebrating today. They are the source of inspiration. They have earned our respect, and that is why we are all gathered here this evening to celebrate them. We admire their resilience, dedication, and resourcefulness.
This award is to urge them to continue the good work done so far in their various fields of endeavor.

On his part, Chairman of the ceremony, David Dontoh said “Your outstanding achievements and well-deserved pride are recognized and it is not merely limited to the awarding of certificates and medals which will find their way to hanging on your wall just to be admired by people, nor keeping as souvenirs.
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Tonight’s highlight is not just about great applause for such awards and rewards received, but it rather focuses on accentuating the individuality of each business leader, and how far you have set your limits.

“Nevertheless, adversities are no exception to the rule of having success, so please remember to hold on to an exceptional character that will help you reflect on building a stronger foundation in your family, amongst your peers, in the community, and even as an individual.

“Continue to use your God-given leadership and management talents and skills which has over the years been your springboard for achieving success in the business world.

“The event is to honour African Leaders in Africa & Asia who have excelled and distinguished themselves in their chosen fields for them to be acknowledged, recognized, and celebrated worldwide.”