APCON CHAIRMAN, UDEME UFOT UNMASKED

The Group Managing Director of SO&U Group in Nigeria, Udeme Ufot

APCON CHAIRMAN, UDEME UFOT UNMASKED

The Group Managing Director of SO&U Group and a leading marketing communications agency in Nigeria Udeme Ufot is one of Nigeria’s most respected figures.

He didn’t just stumble into the creative world of advertising, he had dreamed of it as a teenager.  Being the son of the Registrar of the University of Calabar at that time, he had access to the university library where he read voraciously.

Udeme had wanted to be a political scientist, but while studying a journal on advertising and marketing one day, he came across an illustration of an impressive looking fellow, and the caption under that illustration read: “A Trendy Art Director”. Immediately, Udeme fell in love with the art director and his work and began dreaming and working towards becoming one someday.

After this discovery, he studied to obtain a BA in Industrial Design specializing in graphic design from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria 1981, and started his career at Desmark Advertising, Calabar in 1982. He then relocated to Lagos to join Insight Communications in April 1984 and rose rapidly within five years to the position of the Deputy Creative Director (Art).

After a brief six-month stint as Creative Director of CASERS (now DDB) where he benefited immensely from close association with a number of mentors who helped shape his approach to business and attitude to life, Ufot left to co-find SO&U in 1990.

For Udeme, getting started was not easy. He had what industry observers described as ‘a bunch of very green, naive young people’ to work with when he started SO&U with Gbemi Sajay and Julia Oko in 1990. In the first instance, setting out to establish such business was an anomaly in the industry and so, for the first six months, the agency couldn’t afford some basic office facilities.

Unlike what many thought that these lacks will make them fail but with passion and the drive to succeed, the sky became the beginning for them. They resolved to work well and do things differently, thereby rendering outstanding services above what clients paid for turning the agency gradually into an environment for continuous improvement and learning.

Ufot’s thirst for knowledge would not let him be until it led him to study an agency attachment course with German Saatchi and Saatchi affiliate – Scholz and friends, he returned home with a burning desire to redefine existing templates.

As the Chief Executive Officer, work life covers three areas: holding meetings and strategy sessions with clients and prospective clients, brainstorming, reviews and presentation to clients. He also attends to management meetings, board meetings, mentoring and counselling sessions with staff; supervision of teams and performance reviews.

Also as the agency head, he is expected to squeeze water out of rock. Little wonder, he produced one of the few television commercials; the popular Guinness greatness commercial fondly referred to as, ‘Udeme my friend is a great man.

He built SO&U to be one of Nigeria’s most respected and leading marketing communications group which has continued to maintain its leadership position over the last 24 years. The agency has a strong reputation for creativity and professionalism.

To Udeme, the relevance of passion to success was invaluable. Having been in business for 24 years, and with a clientele comprising conglomerates and the banking sector, you cannot but wonder how he became one of the few doyens of the industry.

One of the highpoints of his career life came when he became the youngest ever President of the Advertising Agencies Association of Nigeria (AAAN) and the youngest fellow of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON). Another was being past President of the Lagos Business School Alumni Association (LBSAA), where he was opportuned to rejuvenate the interest of the alumni, returning the LBSAA Annual President’s Dinner to its pre-eminent position as the premier business social event in the alumni’s social calendar.

He also became a Member of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (MNIMN) and a board member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), a board of Director of LEAP Africa as well as special Olympics Nigeria.

Udeme Ufot was awarded the FATE Model Entrepreneur 2012 for “Epitomizing a True Nigerian Entrepreneur” by FATE Foundation and was also honoured by the industrial design Department of ABU with the distinguished Alumni Award in 2011.

He was one of the three industry key figures recently honoured with the title of Member of the Order Of Niger (MON) by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Married to a legal icon, Dorothy (SAN), and blessed with children, Ufot does not joke with spending quality time with his family because of his belief that family is precious. He will be inaugurated as APCON chairman next week.

CULLED FROM MARKETING EDGE MAGAZINE