From a 15-year-old writer discovering his approach into Nigeria’s media trade to an entrepreneur with ambitions of constructing Africa’s reply to Berkshire Hathaway, Chude Jideonwo has spent a lot of his life enthusiastic about the facility of media and the establishments behind it.
In this interview with Nairametrics, the founding father of RED and HBC Holdings displays on the experiences that formed him, the enterprise of storytelling, and his audacious ambition to construct one in all Africa’s most diversified media conglomerates
At 15, whereas his contemporaries have been figuring life out after West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations, Chude Jideonwo had one other preoccupation, getting Nigerians to learn his first novel.
He had written the e book two years earlier, at 13, and managed to get it revealed whereas nonetheless in secondary faculty. But publication offered a brand new downside. His writer, he recollects, was not notably good at publicity, leaving {the teenager} to determine the best way to market the e book himself.
Jideonwo started finding out Nigeria’s media panorama, figuring out tv programmes, newspaper columns and the audiences most probably to be keen on his work.
- “I was something of a media expert by the time I was in my teens,” he advised Nairametrics.
One title on his publicity checklist was Dr. Livy Ajuonuma, the late broadcaster and host of a preferred Sunday programme on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).
Jideonwo encountered him at church, the place his mom was a pastor and Ajuonuma a member. He launched the broadcaster to his novel, and Ajuonuma agreed to learn it.
What adopted was an invite to seem on tv. A couple of minutes into the interview, nevertheless, the dialog took an surprising flip: Ajuonuma provided him a job presenting the youth phase of his programme, stay on nationwide tv.
That encounter would open the door to a profession spanning journalism, tv, promoting, public relations and political communications.
Today, greater than 20 years later, Jideonwo is pursuing an ambition that stretches past his early success as a media entrepreneur. Through HBC Holdings, he needs to construct a conglomerate able to proudly owning, investing in and working a number of impartial media companies throughout Africa.
- “HBC Holdings is built around the Berkshire Hathaway model, an approach I have followed since at least 2016,” he stated.
A childhood spent finding out the media
Jideonwo’s fascination with media started lengthy earlier than his first tv look. An solely youngster raised by mother and father he describes as enthusiastic readers and lecturers, he grew up surrounded by newspapers, books and tv.
His father frequently learn The Punch and Vanguard. Jideonwo devoured the African Writers Series, together with works by Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, a lot of it earlier than his twelfth birthday.
He additionally watched tv obsessively, familiarising himself with broadcasters and programmes throughout Nigeria’s rising personal tv panorama.
But it was not merely leisure that him. He wished to know how tales influenced society.
Even as a teen, he adopted the political disagreements between then-Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu and his deputy, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, paying specific consideration to how newspapers framed the dispute.
He was much less keen on official statements than within the contest to affect public opinion.That curiosity grew to become helpful when he started working with a few of the nation’s main broadcasters.
He met Funmi Iyanda whereas ready backstage for Ajuonuma’s programme. She subsequently invited him onto New Dawn and later recruited him as a researcher.
He would additionally work with Agatha Amata, gaining publicity to tv manufacturing and editorial decision-making.
As a younger producer, Jideonwo listened to conversations involving senior editors, columnists and political commentators, absorbing the workings of an trade he had beforehand noticed from his lounge.
By 17, he had secured a column at ThisDay. He additionally wrote for Tempo journal underneath journalist and former senator Babafemi Ojudu.
Looking again, he attributes his early alternatives to a mixture of preparation and audacity: figuring out sufficient concerning the trade to impress established professionals and having the boldness to method them.
- “First, there was the confidence, because I understood the media quite deeply,” he stated, earlier than figuring out one other essential high quality: “the audacity of being able to reach out to them.”
The partnership that constructed RED
As Jideonwo’s profession developed, so did his ambition to construct a media firm moderately than spend his skilled life working inside different folks’s establishments.
That ambition finally discovered expression in RED, the communications enterprise he constructed together with his longtime good friend and enterprise accomplice, Adebola Williams.
Their partnership has endured for almost three a long time, though Jideonwo acknowledges that their personalities {and professional} strengths have been markedly completely different.
In the early years, he was impatient and intensely targeted on execution. Williams, whom he describes as infinitely affected person, possessed a unprecedented potential to construct relationships, negotiate and promote.
Rather than compete for management, they divided tasks. Jideonwo grew to become chief govt and artistic director, whereas Williams took on the roles of deputy managing director and chief advertising officer.
- The association developed by means of mutual recognition of their limitations. “I’m going to let him be a genius in his own right,” Jideonwo stated, “while I focus on the things that I’m a genius at.”
Their working relationship, he defined, was sustained by a willingness to acknowledge one another’s strengths and belief their intentions.
- “What we built was a relationship of trust, where we fundamentally trusted each other,” he recalled.
He believes that neither may have constructed the enterprise to the identical scale independently.
- “Partnership really is a test of humility,” he stated.
That philosophy would finally form his method to working a complete portfolio of companies.
From RED to a Berkshire Hathaway ambition
For a lot of his profession, Jideonwo envisioned making a media group comparable in scale and affect to what Aliko Dangote had inbuilt manufacturing.
In 2012, RED articulated a imaginative and prescient of changing into a media group able to reaching and galvanizing the largest variety of Africans. By 2015, Jideonwo was publicly discussing the ambition to construct a media firm that would do all the pieces.
But the organisational construction he initially imagined started to alter.
Rather than centralising operations underneath one administration workforce, completely different companies emerged with impartial executives, distinct working fashions and separate business priorities.
Some have been established internally; others got here by means of investments.
The evolution led him in the direction of the Berkshire Hathaway mannequin, which he says has influenced his company pondering since at the very least 2016.
He admires Dangote’s disciplined enlargement into companies the industrialist understands, however sees a distinction between the Nigerian billionaire’s extra centralised method and Berkshire Hathaway’s decentralised operations.
- “Berkshire Hathaway is much more decentralized, not just in vision, but in operations,” Jideonwo defined.
Through HBC Holdings, he needs to mix content material manufacturing, promoting, public relations, consulting, journalism, tv and creator-led companies inside one funding construction.
It is an bold proposition in a market the place media corporations ceaselessly rely on their founders’ reputations, relationships and continued involvement.
But Jideonwo acknowledges that decentralisation creates its personal difficulties, notably in what he describes as a low-trust financial system.
His enterprise has made errors in govt choice, succession planning and operations. He expects additional setbacks as the businesses increase.
Still, he believes the choice — conserving each essential resolution concentrated within the founder’s fingers — makes it tougher to construct enduring establishments.
Betting on folks moderately than concepts
Jideonwo’s funding philosophy is much less involved with the brilliance of a enterprise concept than with the competence of the particular person answerable for executing it.
- “I invest more in operators than ideas,” he stated.
His reasoning is that a superb operator can enhance a weak enterprise proposition or abandon it for a greater alternative, whereas poor administration can destroy worth even in a gorgeous trade.
- “A bad idea in the hands of a good operator might lead to iterations,” he defined.
He is especially keen on figuring out industries with vital business alternatives and pairing them with succesful executives.
- “But the magic is a good sector and a good operator,” he stated.
He cited an funding in a digital creator recognized within the transcript as Kenzie, pointing to the increasing marketplace for movies distributed by means of YouTube, TikTok and different digital platforms.
Another instance is StateCraft, the political communications enterprise inside the RED ecosystem.
When the corporate entered the sector, Jideonwo believed political communications remained closely dependent on private relationships and casual consulting preparations.
He noticed a chance to professionalise the enterprise and set up an establishment able to serving purchasers past the private networks of its founders.
- “It shouldn’t depend on … just your connections in political office,” he stated.
According to him, StateCraft subsequently labored throughout 5 presidential elections and with governments, multilateral establishments and public-sector organisations.
He considers its growth one of many group’s most consequential business selections, producing company and model worth whereas demonstrating that political communications may function as an institutional enterprise.
Why African media corporations battle to generate income
Despite his expansive ambitions, Jideonwo is unsentimental concerning the economics of the media trade.
He argues that many African media corporations have failed as a result of their value buildings don’t mirror the monetary realities of the sector.
- “Fundamentally, many parts of the media are low margin, at least compared to many other industries,” he stated.
He believes media companies ought to function extra like fast-moving shopper items corporations, the place profitability relies upon on quantity, operational effectivity and disciplined spending, moderately than assuming they will maintain the margins of oil corporations.
He factors to the struggles of promoting businesses following financial downturns, forex depreciation and the withdrawal of multinational purchasers from Nigeria.
For him, the query is why media corporations have struggled to construct establishments able to surviving financial cycles when companies in banking and different industries have managed to take action.
Yet he sees a probably transformative alternative within the digital creator financial system.
A Nigerian content material creator, he explains, can incur manufacturing and operational bills in naira whereas producing income from worldwide audiences in {dollars}, kilos or euros.
- “The cost of sales, the operational costs are localized,” he stated. “But the income is at source, dollar-based.”
That alternative partly explains his curiosity within the Fourth Mainland Fund and Fourth Mainland Academy, which focus on the increasing digital financial system.
He believes the mannequin may allow African media companies to generate substantial income with out relying on political patronage or unrelated business actions.
But he’s equally involved concerning the fragility of that benefit.
Poor financial insurance policies, restrictions on web entry and the withdrawal of worldwide expertise platforms may undermine the sector’s profitability.
For Jideonwo, the chance is critical, nevertheless it can’t be taken without any consideration.
Building a enterprise on belief
If there’s one precept that repeatedly emerges from Jideonwo’s account of entrepreneurship, it’s belief.
He acknowledges the dangers of permitting impartial executives to handle companies with out fixed supervision.
- “Every time you trust somebody with your business,” he stated, describing the unavoidable uncertainty of delegation.
Yet he considers that danger important to constructing a conglomerate.
His recruitment method consequently locations appreciable emphasis on private observe data, judgement, worker retention and the way potential executives have dealt with troublesome selections.
He is especially keen on achieved operators who’ve spent extra time constructing corporations than selling themselves.
Jideonwo additionally takes an unconventional method to worker loyalty.
He says he has by no means required staff to signal coaching bonds, even when the corporate invested considerably of their skilled growth.
The resolution, he believes, has created enduring relationships with former staff who proceed to collaborate together with his companies.
He argues that no matter an organization would possibly lose by not binding staff contractually, it might get better by means of relationships that endure past employment.
His perception is that loyalty can’t be manufactured totally by means of authorized obligations.
- “People can be trusted,” he stated.
He applies comparable pondering to fairness compensation, preferring to reward staff with possession after they’ve demonstrated dedication moderately than routinely utilizing inventory to draw new hires.
The consequence, he argues, is a community of pros with institutional information who can return to initiatives years after leaving the corporate.
Oprah on the entrance, Buffett on the again
Jideonwo’s influences supply one other clarification for his uncommon mixture of storytelling, company ambition and administration philosophy.
On a private stage, he identifies Oprah Winfrey as the person who has most profoundly influenced his worldview.
He says he has studied just about each interview and profile he may discover concerning the American media entrepreneur, together with archival materials retrieved by means of web repositories.
- He even describes himself as “Oprah’s first son.”
As his enterprise pursuits matured, nevertheless, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger grew to become more and more essential influences.
He started finding out Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder letters, annual conferences, company governance practices and capital allocation philosophy.
He additionally cites The Outsiders, a e book inspecting executives who created substantial shareholder worth by means of unconventional administration selections, and the writings of Jeff Bezos.
His admiration extends to Naspers, the South African firm that developed from a media enterprise into a worldwide expertise funding group.
The frequent thread is his fascination with companies that evolve past their unique merchandise and personalities.
For Jideonwo, the final word ambition isn’t merely to personal extra media corporations. It is to create an African establishment able to figuring out alternatives, allocating capital and permitting succesful executives to construct independently.
