Born in 1944 in Jebba, Kwara State to a peripatetic civil servant, the Shobanjo family's peregrinations imbued the young man with a cosmopolitan worldview and his early experience as a broadcaster prepared him for life as an advertiser.
Business career
Biodun Shobanjo commenced his communication career with the former Nigerian Broadcasting corporation, now Federal Radio Corporation, in 1964 as a studio manager. After leaving in 1971, he joined the American-Nigerian agency Grant Adverting. He rose to the post of Deputy Managing Director of Grant Advertising before his 30th birthday. He co-founded Insight Communications in 1979 and has today grown the company from the initial 18 man strong team into an advertising behemoth. The Troyka Group which is the holding company for InsightCommunications, Azzagai, Optimum Exposure, Media Perspective, MediaCom, The Quadrant Company and Halogen Security amongst others employs over seven thousand Nigerian men and women. Biodun Shobanjo attributes his success to his a determination and can-do attitude. “I was young when I left Grant advertising and young people are very daring, so it didn’t cross my mind that I wouldn’t make it. Again, without meaning to be immodest, I really have never failed in my life. If you’re not used to failing you don’t even contemplate failure." According to Shobanjo there are four essential elements for success and he lists them as “Professionalism. The other is honour. The third is integrity. The fourth is passion. They come in any order but if you have these four things, chances are that you’re going to succeed." A consummate advertising and marketing communications practitioner, Biodun Shobanjo is a perfect choice for the CEO of The Apprentice Africa because as a believer in people, his business style has favoured a mentoring ambience which has spawned protégés who are leading lights of the advertising and marketing communications industry in Nigeria. Biodun Shobanjo is a chartered member of the British Institute of Public relations and the British Institute of Marketing. He brings almost forty years of corporate experience, entrepreneurial savvy, multi-disciplinary industry experience. In January 2018, Shobanjo shared the stage alongside politicians and thought leaders at the inaugural Nigerian American Business Forum in Tampa, Florida, figures such as; senator Mohammed Shaaba Lafiagi, senator Ben Murray-Bruce, chairman Abimbola Ogunbanjo, motivational speakerFela Durotoye, former governor Peter Obi and Award-winning technologist Ade Olufeko.
