The Everyday Leader podcast features inspiring individuals building and leading teams across Africa. Listen to episodes on your preferred podcast platform here.
About our Guest
This episode’s conversation is with Gabriel Gab-Umoden. Gabriel is a seasoned marketing professional that is passionate about creating enabling frameworks that foster growth and is on a mission to help people and businesses achieve peak performance. With over a decade of business marketing experience, he played an integral role in transforming First Bank of Nigeria’s operational model. In 2012, he joined the nascent Nigerian e-commerce company, Konga, and played a leading role in establishing the brand as a local household name.
Before joining Ringier One Africa Media (ROAM), Gabriel played a crucial role on the Suburban FiberCo management team that successfully steered the acquisition and deployment of fibre optic media services into 5,000 homes - the largest deal of its kind in West Africa. Now at The African Talent Company (TATC), in his capacity as Group Marketing Head, Gabriel is currently exposed to constantly evolving job market dynamics and uses these insights to aid relevant product development, develop adequate customer acquisition & retention strategies, and decide on the appropriate brand voice for the group’s pan-African jobs businesses.
His career has provided him with vast exposure in IT, cross-functional marketing, retail, product development and strategic planning. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Kent in the UK and a Post Graduate Diploma in Strategic Planning and Investment from Newcastle University in the UK.
Everyday Leadership in Action
Here are a few highlights from the conversation with Gabriel:
Be firm on outcomes and flexible on strategy: Gabriel learned early on the importance of experimentation. In his early marketing days while at Konga, he and his team were tempted to follow the traditional playbooks of global e-commerce players like Amazon and Alibaba to launch their annual marketing campaign. Instead, because their team had a culture of innovation and experimentation, they explored a new approach that embraced a popular Nigerian song lyric at the time, with great success that blew past their sales goal. He has taken this learning with him as he has explored other sectors outside of e-commerce and as he has risen into higher-level leadership roles, where he has needed to focus on defining the big-picture goals while empowering his teams to find the best ways to execute to achieve them.
Stay agile to grow quickly: Gabriel identified agility has his superpower. Over the years, he has maintained an ability to quickly learn how to develop and apply new skills in the different companies and sectors he has worked him. He also moved from Nigeria to South Africa, which also required rapid adaptation.
Use executive coaching sessions to expand your perspective: The African Talent Company makes executive coaching available to its leadership team. Gabriel describes this benefit as being one of the most valuable, as it has expanded the way he views managing people and deliverables. The sessions have helped him better define and build a workplace culture and become a more empathetic leader. Gabriel shared a story of how a coaching session helped him navigate and ultimately embrace a company decision to which he was initially resistant.
The Everyday Leader is a podcast featuring conversations with leaders from across Africa’s companies, organizations, and governments about their experience managing teams and projects throughout their careers.
Know of an “everyday leader” in your company or network? Nominate them here.
Gabriel Gab-Umoden: Group Marketing Head, The African Talent Company