A new initiative envisioned to popularize mentorship and ideas-sharing is about to be introduced in Nigeria, as journalist and brand strategist, Ikem Okuhu introduces a talk show, named C-SuiteCafé into the African media space.
As the name suggests, C-Suite Café is a talk show that engages Africa’s top business and policy leaders in a lighthearted discussion and in an environment of camaraderie that engenders inspirational conversations that educates, motivates and lifts.
Tagged a free online MBA class by the initiator, C-Suite Café is produced in collaboration with Media Icons Africa, an experienced broadcast content services company, and is designed to bring Africans up close and personal with the most successful among them in other to teach, inspire and instill the spirits and culture of enterprise, leadership and innovation across the continent and beyond.
According to Chief Executive of BRANDish Media, Ikem Okuhu, C-Suite Café was envisioned to tap and spread the knowledge behind successful enterprises, investments and policy initiatives.
Describing the show as a lifestyle programme of African executives, Okuhu said the programme will present to Africans an opportunity to ‘earn free MBAs by listening to, and immersing themselves in the strategic thinking and business ethos of successful Africans’.
The conversation will highlight the life and experiences of each guest CEO, including his or her education, career paths, family, their thoughts on business, practices that inspired their breakthroughs as well as challenges and profound insights along their individual paths.
‘What we want to do is to create the platform where Nigerians and Africans are brought close to the most successful people in our society to tap from their treasure troves of knowledge and insight, with a view to enabling other people to shape their pathways to the top as well’, Okuhu, a serial author and public communications expert, stated.
Continuing, he added that Africa is ‘blessed with changemakers who have made big differences in the worlds of business and policy. Whether we are speaking of entrepreneurs or people who have had successful careers that saw them rise from the lowest of ranks to the highest positions in companies and institutions.
We need to inspire the present and the coming generations by drinking from the fountains of knowledge warehoused in our successful men and women’.
On the partnership with Media Icons Africa, owned and managed by John Upah, Okuhu said C-Suite Café hopes to leverage the company’s expertise in broadcast content production in order to give Africans top quality content that will compete with the best in the world.
‘We are not doing this because we spotted a space. We are here because we want to serve the people with the most well-produced content that will not just meet the taste of our chosen niche, but also compete fairly with similar productions anywhere in the world’, he explained.
He emphasized that, unlike commonplace celebrity platforms, C-Suite Café was not created to celebrate money or to help launder ill-gotten wealth and fame. On the contrary, he said those chosen to appear on the show will be carefully selected using simple prequalification criteria that will include footprints of their journey to success.
‘We do not want to celebrate money for money’s sake. On the contrary, we want to bring people who have inspiring stories to share so that others will learn from their experiences. This is why in the course of this project; we will also be reaching out to the audience to find out the person whose journey and success story they would wish to share and we will do all in our power to bring the person’, he explained.
The show will be broadcast on national television, but in order to read a wider audience, plans are already advanced to explore the digital platforms of You Tube, Facebook Reel, Instagram, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) to connect with the millions of people that congregate in those different platforms.
‘The good thing about what we are bringing to the market lies in its cross-generational appeal. We are aware that successful people still want to learn more, especially from peers. We also know that whether you live in the urban rural, whether you are a teen or a tween, whether you are a Gen Z or a millennial, there are people whose stories would inspire you and there are people you want to ride on their stories to arrive at your own station.
This is why we will explore every platform to ensure that Africans are given a show they will find worthy to invest their time and resources in’, Okuhu stated.
