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After over three decades as a communications professional and expert in leadership/management, Adedayo Ojo, Founder /CEO of Caritas Communications Limited and Chairman City FM 105.1 (Lagos), is arguably most qualified to reassess the place of communication in modern corporate business.In this interview with Modestus Anaesoronye, Adedayo shares his thoughts on the industry, his professional career and business environment in Lagos. Excerpts:
Can we meet Adedayo.Where are you today and where are you coming from?
I am wont to describe myself as, a thorough-bred communications professional fueled by the quest to make an impact. I have been in the communications business for over 30 years, beginning as teacher of journalists at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) Lagos. I became a journalist at Concord Thereafter, I went into public relations practice, first in the banking industry and then in the oil and gas industry at Mobil Producing Nigeria, now ExxonMobil. After ExxonMobil, I moved on to support the dream of what we thought will be Nigeria’s first truly global conglomerate Transcorp and thereafter, started Caritas Communications.
In all of these, what has become clear is that for me, focusing on what makes communication an interaction between people and organizations workable, practicable and effective has become a way of life. Part of that is reflected in the organization where we work today, Caritas Communications.
Caritas was founded at the time, if you like, there was really no need for it. It started as a long-term dream of a young man who wanted to do something different. The whole idea of Caritas started with my experience while I worked in the oil and gas industry, seeing that most of the professionals we needed to work with didn’t quite understand the communication needs and the peculiarity of that industry. I thought that this was a gap that somebody should fill. The idea crystallized into registering a company in 1999 and we never opened shop until 2009.
The hypothesis remains valid nine years down the lane that communication is serious business and it is at the core of successful enterprise. No matter the enterprise, whether it is consumer goods, consulting, manufacturing or managing stakeholder relations or community engagement. Communication is at the heart of successful enterprise. It is both a science and an art. The Cumulative experience that one has had as a teacher, as a practitioner of journalism, as a banker and as an all industry practitioner, come together to provide insight into how to dissect opportunities, business challenges and proffer solutions that will help the organization achieve its goals
Why communication is so central to all of these is that whether it is personal, organizational, community or international levels, the whole strategy of understanding what you want to achieve is key. That is why opportunities continue to exist for communications professionals to influence society. Just understanding that there is an opportunity to think through in a methodical way, how communications can support the organization’s goals.
So, doing all of these over the past 35years, has become a way of life for me. Waking up, trying to see how I can improve on how I relate and communicate with my colleagues in the office, my family members at home, as well as my esteemed clients. That is the business side of me.
The other side of me is that I am somebody who is aggressively on the quest to be closer to my creator. I have found out over the last few years that nothing happens to man by accident and there is a method to doing everything that we do, either in your personal life, the professional life, or the organizational life.
How important is communication in an organization and where should they be in terms of organogram?
The respect and relevance of everyone who handles communications in an organization will get has to be earned because at the heart of achieving organizational goals, is strategy and communications. The entire organizational success story starts with identifying a need, providing that need profitably and satisfactorily to all the stakeholders. All of that can only happen when there is a thorough understanding that goes beyond assuming or waiting for people to say you have to communicate to this organization, you have to provide information. It goes to the point where the professional has to proactively think about what will happen and what should be done before it happens.
If we have a communicationsprofessional who is able to do that, just the way the planning and strategy person does the scenario analysis, and they both put it before the chief executive, it will not be too long before the chief executive will begin to see the relevance of the advice he gets from the communications professional and say no, I no longer want this sealing in between us, he is going to then want to relate directly with that individual.
Caritas will be then 10 next year and you will also be 59 next year, what is the direction of the business?
In readiness for our 10th year anniversary, we are already reinventing the business and we are doing this in several ways. First of all, we are bringing in new talents coming with new skills, diverse experience, who will bolster our competence and propel the organization to the next level. As you know, most organizations that have survived the first five years have higher chances of success. So, our reinvention is to first of all understand that we have overcome the teething problems that normally bedevil young organizations, which is to validate business hypothesis by getting clients etc.
So, we are at the point where we need to bring new talent who can offer new thinking and help us to make new breakthroughs. In addition to that, we are looking at strengthening our organization in other areas of marketing communications where we haven’t been strong. For example, we started out as a specialist oil and gas company and by the grace of God today, we are arguably leaders in that sector, not only in terms of the company we keep, but the kind of projects that we have handled and the successes we have achieved together with our clients. There are other areas where we can play and we need to do a little more and that is where the new talents we are bringing in will focus.
There are issues about land use charge today. Individual and businesses are reacting. How will you react to doing business in Lagos, how has it been?
I think there is no question about the opportunities that Lagos offers. In my opinion, there is no city or state that offers the opportunity that Lagos offers in terms of developing a business, whether its professional services, manufacturing, or some of those other areas of business. This is because Lagos has the infrastructures that most cities do not have, such as airports, seaports, access to rail, among others. When we started Caritas, the initial thinking was that we could actually start with public sector and we did start with public sector. Our very first brief was actually in the public sector, but when we finished, I remembered that some guys in that sector actually came up and said ‘Where is our share of the money?’ they wanted some of the profit. So, I thought they wanted us to say “thank you” to them. Little did I know that they wanted 80 percent of the profit and they actually gave me a schedule of how it was going to be shared!? I was just coming out of the corporate world. I didn’t take bribe from anyone and I didn’t give, so it was shocking! If you made profit on your own and you wanted to say take this and it is a decent and moderate gift, you would take it. It was only then I realized that this is what they do in the public sector. I counselled myself to return to Lagos where you can deal with private companies who would discuss business as business”.
So, I had to return to Lagos to hustle and that is how Caritas blossomed. There are several businesses and sectors and we choose where we are we going to start? And we started with Energy, Oil and Gas sector. Lagos offered that because headquarters of either upstream or downstream were in Lagos. Telecommunications, the big ones are in Lagos, banking is in Lagos. Lagos will be number one in terms of opportunities.
But we also must realize that there is pressure on Lagos. The population is high; the government has a lot of responsibilities to provide so many things. It is a delicate balancing that has to happen between what taxes, what levies people pay and the quality of service that government can offer. Government must provide services that are good quality, flawless but in most cases where the world is going, government should get out of providing all of those things, so that people can do it in a profitable way. the telecoms industry is a great example.
