Meet Adedoja Allen
CEO, City Media Academy
Background
Adedoja Allen is the Founder of City Media Academy. City Media Academy was set up because of the influx of interns seeking to become celebrity media personality. The academy is a vocational training and capacity development program that trains youths interested in broadcasting. The City Media Academy offers a wide range of courses for aspiring students. The training would also enable students to spend three weeks in class and one week on the radio (on air).
Family
Adedoja Allen is married to her lovely husband, Akinsola Allen; a realtor. They met while in the U.K and in 2004, they got married. They both relocated to Nigeria and are blessed with three boys. Adedoja Allen is perceived as an embodiment of humility and she has tried to pass these qualities on to her kids.
Education
Adedoja Allen studied Mathematics at the University of Ibadan, and bagged Second Class Upper Division after which she proceeded to the United Kingdom for her Masters in Business and Information Technology at Aston University, Birmingham. Adedoja Allen also holds an MBA from Lagos Business School.
Work Experience
Adedoja Allen’s career began in 2002 at the BBC in the United Kingdom where she worked in the Accounts department in what seemed at that time to be preparation for a career in finance. After two years as an accounts officer, she moved to Telecom Express, where she was given her first taste of management responsibility, where she was made Head of the Finance team. She returned to Nigeria in 2007 and joined ARM Investment Managers as a Portfolio Manager. She had a stint as Assistant Head, Client Portfolio Measurement & Reporting Unit, which saw the creation of new specialized units and decentralization of the responsibilities and tasks.
Her success as a team leader in leading these groups saw her promoted to the position of Head, Client Portfolio Measurement Reporting Unit. After a brief hiatus to start and manage her young family, her services were engaged to breathe new life into a station which was having trouble paying its own bills. Her experience in a media organization became relevant almost 11 years later.
In 2012, Adedoja Allen became the Chief Executive Officer of City 105.1FM dubbed the number 1 lifestyle station. She holds an admirable record as the first female Chief Executive of an electronic media company in Nigeria. She is also the first person with a background in Finance and very little media experience to head a radio station. In 7 years, she has steered the station to profitability and moved it from 24th position to the top 10 most preferred by listeners in Lagos.
Today, many legacy media are trying to adopt her 360-degree modern approach to the business of journalism which includes leveraging on every asset and exploiting the power of digital media. For one without a journalism background, Adedoja’s deep financial insight has made a difference in an extremely competitive industry. Adedoja Allen has also proven to be one of Nigeria’s distinguish entrepreneurs who has shown doggedness and female brilliance in subduing latest broadcasting challenges in Nigeria.
