Oluwakemi Olorode didn’t have to hustle her way out of poverty. Born and raised in a modest home in the capital city of Abuja, she seemed to have everything she needed.
From an early age, Olorode displayed a knack for business. As a student in secondary school, she would use her pocket money to purchase recharge cards and candies, which she sold to her classmates.
By graduation, she had saved ₦40,000–her first real capital– which she proudly deposited in a savings account with her mother’s help.
This interest in marketing persisted as she transitioned into university. She recalls, “I was going to class with a bag of sweets,” most of which she sourced from stores in Lagos and repackaged neatly. Along with this, she sold clothes and accessories.
Stepping into media and marketing
This informal background—including years of hands-on experience in media and marketing—ultimately shaped her professional path, leading to her advertising and communication agency.
Prior to this, however, she dabbled in media and technology companies, such as the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and Tech Republic, among others.
In 2014, she registered her first company, Indulgence Storez, a clothing brand. Around the same time, she worked in Hot FM, exploring the frontiers of marketing and communication. Starting as an intern, she rose through the ranks, eventually heading the marketing department.
Feeling she had reached the ceiling, she resigned from the radio station but didn’t completely cut ties with the station.
She often returned to bring in advertising deals and continued earning commissions from her marketing. The management, impressed by her performance, offered her another employment letter. But she was ready for something bigger.
She had saved a decent sum from her fashion business and media work. With that money, she faced three options: buy a car, travel abroad to continue working, or invest in the company she had just registered, IDCL Africa.
The first two options felt safer, but she chose the third. She withdrew her savings and rented an office space: an empty one, without furniture, fittings or staff.
Alone in the bare room, she doubted her decision but also comforted herself that meaningful success had to start from somewhere.
The EgyptAir contract
Her breakthrough came almost immediately. EgyptAir, the international airline, reached out after hearing about her previous work with Hot FM.
They wanted a wide radio publicity campaign in Nigeria, not just on one station but across multiple platforms, and though IDCL Africa was only a few months old, Olorode introduced it to them with so much confidence.
She quickly secured advertising slots with Cool FM, Wazobia FM, and other top stations, negotiating commissions that gave her company a steady income base.
From that single campaign, her credibility rose. Impressed with the results, EgyptAir expanded its contract to include social media promotions, billboard advertising, and SMS publicity.
That project marked the true birth of IDCL Africa. Before long, it became a fully operational agency with a physical office and structured departments. Today, IDCL Africa employs over forty-five people, with offices in Abuja, Lagos, Minna, Jos, and Kaduna.
Unlike traditional agencies that focused on either digital or traditional marketing, IDCL Africa intersected at both mediums.
The company became a one-stop hub for advertising, offering radio, billboard, and television placements alongside digital marketing, website development, tech innovation, and artificial intelligence solutions. It was an unconventional approach in an industry where most marketing experts specialised, but her model worked.
Despite early success, scepticism followed. “They felt, ‘She doesn’t own a radio station or TV station, so why advertise with her?’” she recalls many saying.
Unfazed, she explained that IDCL Africa worked in direct partnership with these media houses, allowing clients to access the same advertising rates and marketing reach, only with better coordination and service.
Running a company like IDCL Africa hasn’t been without hurdles. Olorode admits that not everyone claims to be entirely satisfied. In perspective, this represents around 10% of her clientele. Still they continue to patronise her brand.
“If we truly didn’t deliver, why would they come back?” she wondered. This contradiction, to her, captures a truth about humans’ relationship with business—how people can complain about delivery and still opt for the same agency another time.
For her, every experience, big or small, contributes to the agency’s evolution.
The IDCL Conference
In 2022, a year after IDCL Africa launched, Olorode started the IDCL Conference. The annual gathering, now in its fourth iteration, focuses on marketing, advertising and creative strategy, bringing together entrepreneurs, brand managers and media professionals across the country.
Olorode has also had to confront gender bias, particularly in boardrooms, where she’s assumed to be an assistant or sales rep for IDCL Africa.
On several occasions, after leading a detailed pitch and sealing negotiations, a potential client would still ask her to “call her oga,” assuming she worked for a male boss. Amused, she would excuse herself, pretend to make a call, then return and say, “My oga has approved it.”
“It’s difficult in Nigeria to tell people you own the company,” she says. “Maybe it’s because I have a small frame, or maybe because I’m a woman. But many people just don’t believe it’s you.”
Her experience is hardly isolated. An increasing number of women are driving Nigeria’s entrepreneurship boom. A 2023 report showed that 40% of Nigeria’s small and medium-sized enterprises are owned by women, and 83% of Nigerian women identify as entrepreneurs, the highest rate in Africa.
Yet, despite this progress, about 59% cite limited access to funding as their biggest challenge, while many say they receive less support and visibility compared to men.
Even though she started with a supportive background, she still had to prove her credibility in male-dominated spaces.
For Olorode, these numbers don’t discourage her — they deepen her resolve. She believes every successful woman founder becomes proof that the system can be bent, redefined, and rebuilt. “Leadership isn’t gendered,” she says. “It’s about capacity, about showing up and delivering value.”
Over time, her model proved itself. IDCL Africa now operates across Nigeria and other African countries, providing branding, mobilisation and consultancy for businesses and institutions.
Her third company, Kobo City, an online fresh-produce delivery platform which started in 2023, is still growing. “People are now getting familiar with it,” she said. “But they still know me more as the IDC Africa CEO because that’s the biggest brand for now.”
Asked about her motivation, Olorode rejected the idea that struggle should be a prerequisite for ambition. “People always ask me why I’m pushing as if I’m a breadwinner,” she said. “Everything I’m doing is because I have the drive for it. If I choose not to push, I’ll still eat, I’ll still look nice, but I just know I can do more.”
Olorode had her master’s in Business Administration from the National Open University of Nigeria in 2021. She secured several executive certifications alongside an honorary doctorate degree from Prowess University, Delaware, USA in 2024.
She attributes much of that drive to her parents, particularly her mother, who was involved in several businesses: real estate, sand and block supply, catering, and food distribution. Her father, a government worker, also reached the peak of his career.
Watching them both succeed inspired her to carve her own path. “And I told myself, I’m going to thrive. I’m going to give myself that name. I’m going to be recognised,” she says with evident pride.
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