The People Behind the Platform: Why the NDPRS Advisory Board Appointment Is the Most Significant Move the Summit Has Made in Years
After a decade of convening the country’s sharpest digital PR minds, the Nigeria Digital PR Summit has done something it has never done before. It has installed a formal board of guardians. Six names. Six distinct legacies. One unmistakable signal.
There is a particular inflexion point in the life of every serious professional platform. It is the moment when the founding vision stops being enough on its own and the institution must reach beyond its original architecture. For the Nigeria Digital PR Summit, that moment has arrived and the response says a great deal about where the Summit is headed.
The announcement of a six-member Advisory Board, with Yomi Badejo Okusanya as Chairman, is not administrative housekeeping. It is a structural statement. Summits that stay relevant over decades do not do so through momentum alone. They build governance frameworks that give them institutional credibility, strategic direction, and the capacity to serve their industry at a level beyond the annual calendar event. The NDPRS is now doing precisely that.
The Board, Member by Member
Yomi Badejo Okusanya, Lead Partner, CMC Connect LLP and former President of the African Public Relations Association, serves as Chairman. Emeka Oparah, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Airtel Africa, brings the corporate voice. Yushau A. Shuaib, Founder and CEO of Image Merchants Promotion Limited, publishers of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential, anchors the media intelligence dimension. Tolulope Olorundero, Founder of both Mosron Communications and Nigerian Women in Public Relations, brings advocacy and inclusion into the governance structure. Omawumi Ogbe, CEO of GLG Communications and Founder of the PR Power List, represents agency leadership. Dr Celestine Achi, CEO of Cihan Media Group, closes the board with digital media and innovation leadership.
Why This Composition Is Intentional
Read the board not as a list of names but as a strategic architecture. Yomi Badejo Okusanya anchors it with continental authority. His tenure as President of the African Public Relations Association and decades at CMC Connect give the Summit a chairman who commands respect well beyond Nigeria’s borders. His presence signals that the NDPRS is not merely a Nigerian event with continental ambitions. It is credibly African.
Emeka Oparah brings the corporate perspective. As Vice President of Corporate Communications at one of the continent’s largest telecommunications operators, he represents the senior professional navigating communications inside scale organisations. His presence signals to the corporate community that the Summit understands their pressures and deserves space in their planning calendar.
Yushau Shuaib adds the media infrastructure dimension. His dual role as communications practitioner and publisher means he understands both the practice and the ecosystem through which that practice is reported and debated. That dual lens is invaluable for a summit trying to shape professional discourse rather than merely observe it.
Tolulope Olorundero’s appointment may be the most directionally significant of all. As founder of Nigerian Women in Public Relations, she brings an advocacy dimension that the Summit has not formally institutionalised before. It signals an intentional commitment to inclusion as a strategic priority, not a programme footnote.
Omawumi Ogbe’s presence via the PR Power List connects the board directly to emerging talent. Her ability to identify and recognise the next generation of practitioners gives the advisory structure a direct line into the professionals the Summit must cultivate and retain over the next decade.
Dr. Celestine Achi closes the circle with digital media and innovation leadership. In a summit themed around digital influence, having a media CEO on the advisory structure ensures the programme stays anchored in operational reality rather than drifting toward the theoretical.
What the Chairman Said and What It Means
“The Nigeria Digital PR Summit has built a credible platform for advancing conversations around digital public relations, reputation management, and strategic communications in Africa. The future belongs to practitioners who can think critically, adapt continuously, and collaborate across boundaries. The Summit has a role to play in producing that generation of communicators.” — Yomi Badejo Okusanya
That statement is worth reading twice. He is not simply endorsing a conference. He is framing the Summit as a professional development engine. The word “producing” is doing significant work in that sentence. It positions the NDPRS not as an observer of the communications profession but as an active shaper of it.
Convener Segun McMedal’s description of the formation as “an important landmark in the evolution of the Summit” reflects a genuine recognition that the platform is entering a new phase. Ten editions represent accumulated institutional capital. The question for year eleven is always the same: how do you convert that capital into lasting structural impact? The Advisory Board is the answer.
The Larger Industry Context
Nigeria’s digital communications sector is at a genuinely interesting crossroads. Creator economy dynamics are reshaping influence. Artificial intelligence is rewriting content workflows. Platform algorithms are fragmenting attention in ways that test even the most sophisticated communications strategies. The summit’s theme, “The Rise of Digital Influence: Culture, Creators and the New PR Playbook,” is not a conference marketing headline. It is a diagnosis.
Against that backdrop, having a board spanning agency leadership, corporate communications, media publishing, advocacy, and innovation gives the Summit a genuinely multidimensional perspective. It can now draw on that depth when deciding what conversations to host, what voices to platform, and what professional development the industry actually needs versus what it typically asks for. Those are different things. With this board behind it, the NDPRS now has the institutional capacity to pursue the former. That, more than any single programming decision, is the real story of this announcement.
The 11th Nigeria Digital PR Summit will be held on October 15 and 16, 2026, at The Zone, Gbagada, Lagos.
