THE STORY OF A RISING GIANT

She was born in the United Kingdom and at age 7, her family relocated to Lagos, Nigeria. On getting to Nigeria, the parents sent her to stay with her grandparents at their cocoa farm in Ondo state, to learn about African culture.

At age 11, she attended Fiwasaye Girls Grammar School but returned to the UK shortly after her father died and attended Hammersmith County Secondary School before moving to the Ridgeway School in Kent. After her secondary school education, she went to West Kent College and MidKent College. She is a Masters Degree holder in HR Management from the University of Westminister, London. Also, a member of the British Psychological Society, and qualified in occupational and personality testing. She started off her career in the UK as a recruitment consultant in 1987, becoming a branch manager. She went on to work for the Starform Group, managing the Corporate Credit Management Exhibition from 1990 to 1992.

In 1993 she joined Arthur Andersen for Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited (now ExxonMobil) to head their Human Resources and Training unit. By the year 2000, having successfully completed her responsibilities to the ExxonMobil HR Transition and Merger Team, She recognized Nigeria’s growing need for trained and highly motivated talent pool that would take Nigerian businesses into the 21st century. So, she resigned from ExxonMobil to start Vic Lawrence & Associates Limited (Popularly known as VLA).

While involving herself in a number of business, she conceptualized and built the Protea Hotel, Oakwood Park, situated along the Lekki Expressway in Lagos, which was commissioned in August 2004. The facility is built over 1 hectare of land, comprising of state of the art training, conference and leisure facilities. Ever true to her purpose, the concept of Protea Hotel, Oakwood Park was to create a facility that would meet the needs of professionals needing the serenity of a suburban location featuring fully equipped and dedicated training and conference facilities together with the comfort of executive accommodation and leisure.

Today, the Protea Hotel, Oakwood Park plays a significant role in the development of Nigeria’s business community hosting an array of business events, conferences, workshops and training courses.

In 2009, Mosunmola Abudu, popularly known as ‘Mo’ began her talk show, ‘Moments With Mo’ which focuses on issues such as lifestyle, culture, health, entertainment, marriage and politics. She has built her TV show Moments With Mo‘ to unbelievable heights with over 200 episodes by October 2009. Guests have included celebrities, Presidents, Nobel Laureates, and the 67th US Secretary-of-State Hillary Rodham Clinton The show is being aired on M-Net with TV coverage in 48 African countries, the show now also airs on terrestrial and cable TV in other parts of the world.

She has decided to take it further, with the announcement of her own cable channel that’ll span the entire African continent. According to source (NET) Mo’ Abudu (owner of Moments With Mo), a HR Consultant-turned media major, is getting set to launch ‘EbonyLife’, a lifestyle channel that’ll run on DSTV in several African countries. This very huge project is funded majorly by Mo Abudu with other investors and will be launched in April.

EbonyLife TV is currently shooting a movie/reality show that will be starring some of Nollywood reigning divas like Rita Dominic, Kate Henshaw, Funke Akindele and Uche Jombo. This is an addition to the just wrapped up flagship programme SISTAZ!

This energetic and daring entrepreneur is the creator and executive producer of “The Debaters”, a reality TV show funded by Guarantee Trust Bank, and launched on 3 October 2009. She is also the founder of The Inspire Africa Foundation, a non-profit organization and human investment arm of Inspire Africa Ltd. An organization focused on raising funds to implement society-transforming initiatives.

She is married with two children, a girl and a boy, and lives in Lagos, Nigeria with her family.

Mosunmola Abudu aka ‘Mo’ is an ACTOR in the Nigeria business setting and has continuously proved that being a woman changes nothing.

NIGERIAN-AMERICAN MODEL FEATURES IN THE FAMOUS SPORTS ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE: 2013 EDITION

The annual swimsuit issue has elevated the careers of supermodels and superstars like Tyra Banks and Beyonce. Even our own supermodel, Oluchi, has been featured in several editions of SI's Swimsuit issue. It is awesome seeing another Nigerian model cover the pages of the SI magazine.

Nigerian-American model Adaora Akubilo born in Windsor, Connecticut, USA has been featured in the 2013 edition of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Magazine. She was photographed in Namibia by Kayt Jones.

She was highlighted in Sports Illustrated's 2012 Swuimsuit Edition. In 2007, she appeared on NBC as one of the 12 finalists in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search.

One thing is for sure, Nigeria has got talents in all fields and given the right platform, there will be too many stars to give light and strength to the new Nigeria.

Congrats to our own Beautiful Adoara.

SUPER EAGLES SOME DAYS BACK, NOW NOLLY-WOOD.

'DR. BELLO', the newly produced Nolly-wood movie by Mr. Tony Abulu is to debut in US theatres from February 22nd to February 27.

The film, 'DR. BELLO' which is said to worth over #150million will be starring Isaiah Washington, Vivica Fox, Jimmy Jean-Luis and Nigerian superstars Genevieve Nnaji and Stephanie Okereke.

It will be open at AMC theatres in New York, New Jersey Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Miami and Jacksonville. Others are Columbus, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.

 

FROM NIGERIA TO NEW YORK

You probably have heard of the SOCCKET - A re-invented soccer ball by a group of Havard students. It started as a group project in a 2008 class in Havard College where some students identified electricity problem in developing countries and came up with an idea of a functional soccer ball called the SOCCKET which can power an LED light.

Jessica Matthews, CEO and co-founder of Uncharted Play. Born to Nigerian parents and raised in America. She is a hardwprking and creative type and constantly looking for how to solve problems and make money from it too. She describes herself as a social entrepreneur. Matthew is currently an MBA student at Harvard Business School.

The SOCCKET is currently being used in poor communities in 10 nations around Latin America and West Africa, including Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria and, most recently, Haiti. Uncharted Play works with larger corporate partners like State Farm and Western Union, which pay for the balls, and NGO’s like Promundo and Children International, which distribute them. Bill Clinton endorsed the project in a speech at George Washington University last March, and high-profile musicians like Linkin Park and K’naan have also pitched the SOCCKET at their concerts.