Adedoyin Jaiyesimi, 30, is the Chief Executive Officer of Comms Avenue. She takes TOLUWALOPE KAREEM through the journey of her career
Tell me about your childhood and educational background?
I come from a family of four and I grew up in a home filled with aunties and uncles for several years. My childhood was regular. There were many highs and significant lows but I was provided with everything a child could ever ask for. My dad gave me room to be inquisitive by answering my numerous questions which helped to fuel my love for information. He also fanned the flames of my love for reading by filling my library with books and I could finish reading a new book in one day.
I had my elementary and secondary education at CTC International School, A-Levels at Oxbridge Tutorial College. I then studied Law at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
Give me some insights into your career trajectory?
My journey into communications began with an internship at a media company. At the time, I wanted to explore what more I could do with my writing gift and that firm provided the right platform to nurture both my writing and creative ability. I eventually became a full-time staff and was the team lead for a youth focused magazine published by the company. In 2015, after completing NYSC, I took a job as the Brand Communications Manager at Victor Adeyemi Ministries and that role exposed me fully to the world of communications. After a year in this role, I started a brand communications agency called Content Craft where we executed communications briefs for corporate and philanthropic organisations such as The W Community, The Fountain of Life Church, Leading Ladies Africa, African Philanthropy Forum, Women in Business and Public Service, Heritage Bank amongst many other clients. I shut the agency down in 2019 and launched The Comms Avenue in 2020.
What motivated you to start the new company?
When I shut down Content Craft, I felt God was leading me to learn and operate within another field. Since I was aware of the numerous benefits of personal branding, I didn’t want my brand to be on hold. I still wanted to share useful content with the people who are connected with me online. I decided to share stories about my experience as a communications professional on LinkedIn. I shared the high and low points and it was interesting to see how those stories resonated with people. I began to get questions from other professionals who wanted advice or my opinion on something they were working on. It was at this point I noticed a gap. Where do communications professionals go to upskill? What forum is available for them to interact and exchange knowledge with other professionals in the industry? Since I couldn’t keep up with the questions I got, I decided to put together an event for communications professionals where we could hang out and learn from one another. Plans for this were underway when the coronavirus pandemic hit Lagos. Going back to the drawing board, God dropped the idea of a community and essentially gave me the blueprint which is a capacity building, knowledge exchange and networking platform for communications professionals across the world.
