My visit to EFCC office over an unnecessary petition was a great experience, Enang

Outgoing National President of National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), a former Managing Director of Samsung Nigeria, Mr Idoreyin Enang, has sat on the board of several blue chip companies. Enang in this interview with Journalists bares his mind on the challenges and triumphs in managing the activities of NIMN in the last four years at the sideline of the ongoing Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Uyo. Tony Okoh report.

Excerpt

Let’s us into your humble beginning and your journey of life to date.

My journey into work life started after my A levels when I got employment at the Ministry of Defense as a level 6 officer. I started from there before going back to school, after university education, my first major journey after doing my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) was at EIF, then I moved to Guinness Nigeria Plc which I joined as a management trainee at the age of 24. I spent 7 years at Guinness where I laid the foundation of what I later became in life.

After Guinness, I joined the Coca-Cola company and between the two companies, I spent 18 years of my corporate life. These are the organizations that formed the fabric of my career business and life generally. I left Coca-Cola and moved to Cadbury for 3 years as a commercial director. I was responsible for sales and market operations. That was when the company was having challenges but we navigated it back to progress and prosperity.

After three years I left Cadbury and moved over to Samsung as Managing Director, I was there for quite several years and greatly enhanced the revenue of the firm; from there I joined Lauriel the beauty giant and had a good time as the Managing Director for Lauriel West Africa. I managed the subsidiaries for the firm and had an office in Accra, Ghana. That speaks for my corporate journey and at the age of 49, I thought I had it and decided to go live my dreams.

In between my career pursuit, I discovered my life purpose and put up a social enterprise called Corporate Shepherd in 2009, February. It was a divine touch to teach, guide and motivate people. It became a unique centre to advance and it was divine because God spoke to me through his words in Isaiah 58: verse 12. Shepherding became my calling and I saw myself running a radio programme that I called Navigate with IDY. I started with one Radio station that roughly cost me about 400 hundred thousand on production and airtime way back in 2009 but I quickly extended to two other stations courtesy of my friends whom God brought as destiny helpers. Corporate shepherds teach, guide and motivate, they train and proffer solutions I am a licensed and qualified coach. I have centre for executive coaching, and my experience is bigger and better than all the certifications.

I have been in the business of leadership coaching, I left the corporate world in 2015 and my last stop was at Lauriel. I have been out of the corporate scene for 10 years but now I help individuals and organizations achieve performance and productivity as a coach.

We train, we consult and I have a media property, navigate with IDY. I have roughly about 10 stations across the country. I run a business school on Radio. I also sit on the board of several not-for-profit and profit-making organizations. I am privileged to serve on the board of advertising offenses as one of the members, I joined the faculty of Lagos Business School and I am the outgoing President of NIMN which I will leave in a few days after our AGM. I have put in four years in that organization as its president.

Discovering my life purpose in time has come to shape me into becoming the man I am today. I have a united family, I called the fantastic four of the tribe of the Enangs. This is who I am.

You have served the NIMN as president for two terms of four years and about to step aside can we know what are your achievements and challenges?

The NIMN as a brand has been going through what I will call strategic evolution. I am thankful to God that I have the privilege to be its fourth coach. We were established by Act of Parliament 25 in 2003, so effectively we are 22 years old from the time it was established as an act of parliament. However, the marketing institution or organization has been there since my career which spanned over three decades and I was already a member of the organization. However, there was an internal squabble that saw the rise of different factions which toured the main fabrics into shreds and we fought to bring our acts together to co-exist under one roof.

The act of 2003 cemented the factions into one and created a safe passage for us to gain grounds and that was the humble beginning Chief Lugard Aimiwu was the first leader, and we had Aare Kolade, then my predecessor Tony Agawume and myself. That is the four coaches so far, within that spectrum, so much has happened. When you come through a civil war, it takes a lot for reconciliation and for factions to embrace each other and come together to have smooth sailing.

The immediate past leader did his best to heal the organization and did quite a good structural work in which over 31 staff were laid off and only 4 were left behind. This helped salvage the institute. We needed to run in a dimension that would create relevance. I got sworn in 4 years ago in June 2021 and by my first week I was invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), because some disgruntled members had sent in an unnecessary petition, that was my first visit to such a place and it was a good one for me, however, that was the price one has to pay to serve his Professional Association, it was also a very humbling experience.

In my campaign before my leadership, I set out to do certain projects to reset the NIMN. The reset was centred around how to get global affiliations and set the ship to sail in the part of progress and prosperity. More importantly, creating a sustainable platform where we will be financially stable. In another way drives the marketability of the institution e. That was the cardinal point to start the process, however, I also discovered that people were not paying dues and the commitment of members was low but then as an institute we have the academia and the professionals. The guys in the academic were switched off, most of them were not forthcoming while few stood with us.

The matter was discussed at the council level and a roadmap was established. I met with different groups, this was the post-COVID-19 era and the impact was still there and most meetings were done virtually.

I did a lot to rally back members using various incentives such as debt reduction and forgiveness and only 158 people responded and I took it from there. I also emphasized the fact that we need quality over quantity and people who wanted to be part of the movement teamed up with me.

We derive our membership through corporate organisations, individuals and institutions. The institutions are retail organizations like the NNPC Limited with a whole gamut of retail organizations. Marketing is universal and we extended it to even people in the entertainment industry and had to create clusters to build our membership, it was now a cluster strategy. It has been a journey of sorts but am grateful to God. We have seen some key success factors in terms of global affiliations, we have signed an MOU with Chartered Institute of Marketing United Kingdom. We are now working on the deliverables of the partnership.

The other challenge we had was the female folks then there were very few who were almost male-dominated institutes and I made it a point of duty to drive diversity equity and inclusion. Today women lead various committees and their participation has increased tremendously. If things go well, our council will be made up of 30% women and this is a complete departure from the past. We have deliberately encouraged them to take up responsibilities and it has paid off. Today we are about to install the first female president.

What is your biggest Challenge?

The biggest challenge for me is finance and funding but am grateful to God that my experience in the corporate world also assisted greatly in navigating the challenges of management and ensuring that we remain afloat however in the 2023 annual report we recorded a loss. When I came he had tons of expenses and liabilities to deal with and we gradually surmounted all.

Again as a regulator, the law of the land requires people in the profession to register with the institute, people who are not formally registered are like persons driving without a driving license. It’s against the law. The law says for you to be classified as a marketer, you must be certified by this institute but it appears some people choose to be lawless. It’s a major challenge getting people to comply.

When I came in Wedi discovered over 80% of our revenue was not sustainable and apathy set in over the bad economy we had to explore other forms of funding or revenues, and we had to work inwardly. We have to synergize with other sister organization like the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) and recently the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

The starting point is that marketing is central to everything. Without marketing every other thing called business cannot come together. We have the spokes and the Hub, marketing is the Hub, and others are spokes. People tend to specialize in spokes and forget the Hub. The inflow was not as much as the outflow, but we had to take the bull by the horns and start addressing our challenges, we cleared our outstanding debts which are legacy debts and built a fresh one. I will say that we have not done badly, we have been able to stabilize the ship. We today have other sources of funding which is also helping us. There is a huge difference from where we were four years ago to where we are now. I will someday create time and pen down leadership literature for people who want to serve their professional bodies at the leadership level.

I have been president of professional bodies before but this was different it has impacted my business because of my commitment to ensure its success, my business is centered around me. I am the driver and the anchor person. I am the head coach and head partner but you see situations I spend weeks at the NIMN secretariat with my team working to ensure we keep moving forward. The job also exposed me to people and I must say that you may never really know people until your part crosses.

However, trust is one word that matters and people should ensure that it is not eroded while dealing with each other. Apathy is one problem that is faced by most professional organizations and I don’t know why professionals don’t take their bodies seriously. I believe that commitment should be keyworded, I am leaving the institute far better than I met it.

Now we have international recognitions, at some point, the Chartered Institute of Marketing United Kingdom invited me to a very important event similar to the Chartered Institute of Market Ghana where I was invited to sit on their Educational Board. I have done my best and also allowed for a seamless transition. It’s been a good four years and notwithstanding the bad economy, we are making progress while moving forward.

What is your membership strength, How do you recruit your members and what were the criteria to be part of NIMN?

From my last count, we have 3000 members, they come in through two routes, one through different stages of exams and one direct membership route. So it’s either through exams or direct but you must have acquired some years of experience in marketing.

How do you curb the activities of those in the business of marketing who have no plans to join the institute?

That is one tough area we are yet to properly check. The president before me initiated something but it is clear that there are people who do whatever they like. The act establishing the institute is once again being amended in the National Assembly and has gone past the second reading, when accented to, it will come out stronger and will deal with different grey areas. When the time comes, people will have no option to comply. The consciousness of obeying the law is getting better. However, we are still advising people to see the need to properly identify with the institute because of things they stand to gain including attending international status.

Are there any special privileges members stand to gain for enrolling?

Yes like every other professional association, there are several privileges people stand to gain both as an Associate and fellow. It is the people that make things happen and I must say that personalization is very key. Today we are creating consciousness for people to belong through clusters, today people in entertainment industries, airlines, hotels and many others all are affiliated with the institute through their marketing managers.

Those in social sciences today are dovetailing into the recipes with global happenings you can’t put your hand in one pie but the hub is marketing. Marketing is going through the process of creating demand and fulfillment Marketing is business and business is marketing. Again I want to say that in the last four years, we have had our conferences between the 19th and 21st of every June and I have introduced an interesting dimension for the academia to fully integrate into the institute.

They come and discuss topical issues. Initially we don’t have it this way but now it is a three-day show which will someday move to a full week of activities, presently the first day has the symposium and investment of the Associates, the second day has the conference and investiture for the fellows while the AGM takes place the 3rd day.

As you step aside after four years on the saddle, do you have any regrets, are you confident that the incoming president now a lady has what it takes to sustain your legacy?

In all modesty, I can address myself as a captain of industry. I have had a very good career. The lady taking over is okay and it is done with some intent totality, my greatest legacy lies in people and some members will carry on because it is imbibed in their spirit. That transformational mindset is a big legacy. I am glad that God made my pathway in such a way that every other marketer will say they wish to be like me. The other legacy is that I have been able to drive a lot of diversity with equity and inclusion. The curriculum of this institute was not touched for 13 years but I brought it back to life. How do you understand that my first marketing conference was held in Lagos second was in Abuja, the third was Ibadan and now we are in Uyo.

A marketing conference for students was organized in 2024 to create a process of recruitment, we need talented people for coaching and mentoring which we value. Continuing and making impacts is through building blocks. The incoming president has in her kitty five years of dedication, resilience and dedication to duty. The process of her emergence was open and seamless. The greatest legacy I have is a legacy of truth.