Founder, chairman and CEO of Ebony Life TV, Mosunmola "Mo" Abudu, has been selected as one of the Top 100 innovative leaders. The only African on the list, according to Business Insider, she makes the 56th list.
Business Insider has compiled a list of companies, large and
small, that embodies this commitment to a bigger picture of
leadership and innovation. These companies transcend the
boundaries of capitalism and generate creative worth that
challenges the idea of traditional business success.
Here are some of the names that made the list:
1. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
2.
Howard Schultz of Starbucks3. Michael Joseph of Vodafone
4. Marc Benioff of Salesforce
5. Bill and Melinda Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
6. Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google
7. Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX
8. Salman Khan of Khan Academy
9. Paul Tudor Jones of Tudor Investment Corporation, The Robin Hood Foundation, and Just Capital
10. Paul Polman of Unilever
Mosunmola “Mo” Abudu is chairman and CEO of one of Africa’s most successful new media ventures — the Nigeria-based television network EbonyLife TV, which endeavors to tell real African stories and change the conversation around the continent.
Growing up in the UK raised by Nigerian parents, Abudu was subjected to slews of ignorant, 'mind-boggling' comments and questions about African life and culture ('Do you guys live in trees?), which triggered a desire to dispel the world’s inaccurate perceptions.
“Somewhere deeply buried in my subconscious was a need to tell Africa's story. My burning desire is just to tell everybody: Listen, we're not a bunch of savages. We really are gifted," she told the Independent.
Abudu took an unorthodox route to entertainment. She returned to Nigeria in the early 1990s, working as the head of HR for ExxonMobil until 2000, when she left to launch her own HR consulting firm and, several years later, a hotel in Lagos as well. In 2006, she decided to ditch the corporate world and break into TV.
She started 'Moments with Mo', which became the first daily talk show syndicated across the continent, landing high-profile guests like Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, and Hillary Clinton, then the US Secretary of State.
In 2013, Abudu launched EbonyLife, where she produces a wide array of TV shows, from her own talk show to an African version of “Desperate Housewives,” which she landed in a deal with Disney. She has also inked content distribution deals with CBS and Netflix. The network now provides premium content to 49 countries across Africa, as well as the UK and the Caribbean.
News Credit: The Business Insider
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