Adedayo Ojo

Early life

Adedayo hails from Modakeke in Osun State. He had his early education at St. Bernard’s Primary School, Ile-Ife and St. Murumba’s Primary School Ile-Ife. Although he grew up in rural Modakeke, he passed his entrance exam in Primary 5, skipping Primary 6. At the age of 10, he gained entrance into secondary school, well ahead of his peers. He attended St. John’s Grammar School, Ile-Ife where he was the President of the Xaverian Movement – a student charity organisation. He also attended Modakeke High School, where he was a school debater and sat for his O-Levels in 1977.

Education

Adedayo graduated from the University of Ife, Ile-Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English Language and Literature in 1981. While at the University, he was the pioneer secretary of the Catholic Youth Organisation (CYO) in the old Oyo diocese, comprising today’s Oyo and Osun dioceses.

Adedayo also attended the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos where he obtained a Certificate in News Reporting in 1983. Thereafter, he enrolled at the University of Ibadan where he bagged a Master of Arts Degree in Communication Arts in 1984.

Adedayo earned a Diploma in Public Relations from Public Relations Business School, London in 1997. He has also attended the Senior Management Program of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Detroit, USA. To further solidify his foothold in Executive Management, he attended the Senior Management Training at Lagos Business School, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria in 2004.

Career

Adedayo started his career as a University Lecturer, teaching Use of English to undergraduates at the University of Ife, immediately after graduation. Upon completing his Masters, he moved to the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Lagos as a Lecturer in Public Relations and News English. After the stint at the NIJ, he then moved on to Concord Newspapers Group Lagos as a Senior Correspondent. From Journalism, he moved to the corporate sector by joining the Financial Merchant Bank (FMB), Lagos as the Public Relations Officer of the bank. Adedayo secured a job in 1992 as a Public Affairs Coordinator / Advisor for Mobil Producing Nigeria, a subsidiary of the then Mobil Oil Corporation.

Adedayo’s career took a significant turn when he was appointed the Manager of ExxonMobil’s Abuja Liaison Office in 1996. He is credited with pioneering the Government Relations department of Mobil Producing Nigeria in 1996 – the first full-fledged government relations office by an International Oil Company (IOC) in Africa and held his position as Manager for about 4 years.

Adedayo was the Coordinator and Lead Responder for Emergency and Crisis Communications for the Africa upstream operations of ExxonMobil covering Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria from 2000 - 2006. In that same year 2000, following coordinating the merger of Exxon and Mobil Corporations in Nigeria, he was appointed Upstream Public Affairs Advisor at the headquarters of ExxonMobil Corporation in Houston, Texas for two years. He was the first African Public Relations professional in that position. From 2002 to 2004, Adedayo was the Manager of Public Affairs for Mobil Producing Nigeria, Lagos; and from 2004 to 2006, he was Manager, Government & Business Relations for all ExxonMobil affiliates in Nigeria. Adedayo opted for an early retirement from ExxonMobil in early 2006.

In July 2006, he joined the Founders of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc as the pioneer Vice President in charge of Corporate Relations. He worked in this position for two years and half before leaving to run Caritas on a full-time basis.

Businesses

Adedayo is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Caritas, Africa’s leading reputation management consultancy with specialist services for all sectors of the Nigerian economy, including the power and energy sector.

Caritas operates as a full service innovative reputation and marketing communication solutions provider. Registered in 1999, Caritas commenced operations in 2009 as a reputation solutions provider. Within 7 years, Caritas has consulted for leading industry associations; Africa based multinationals and indigenous companies such as Total, ExxonMobil, Seven Energy, MainOne, Schneider Electric, Honeywell Group and Tuns Farm.

Caritas is affiliated to Regester Larkin, a reputation strategy and management consultancy with offices in London, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Washington DC and Houston. Caritas is also partnered with Investis, the world’s largest privately held software-as-a-service provider for corporate communications and investor relations.

In less than 10 years, Adedayo established a corporate communications and public relations business group which consists of the following business units:

Caritas Communications

Caritas Energy and the Reputation Solutions Faculty make up the Caritas Communications business unit. This business unit provides services for the energy/oil & gas/power sector, armed with expertise and experience in developing crisis preparedness.

Caritas Communication offers analysis, consultancy and training to help with all aspects of companies’ stakeholder communication, management and outreach.

As a result of its contributions to the development of reputation management in Africa, Caritas bagged two prestigious awards in December 2016 - Best Reputation Management Company in Africa at the 2016 African Corporate Excellence Awards (ACE) organised by Corporate Vision Magazine in the United Kingdom and Knowledge Management Leadership Excellence Award organised by African Institute for Leadership.

Adedayo Ojo is the Chairman, Board of Directors of a Lagos radio, City FM 105.1