AAAN: Rufai Ladipo’s Wobbly Tenure Heaps Pressure on New Executives. In a society where smooth succession is always a big challenge even among professional bodies, the surprise decision of the immediate past president of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), and former Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director of STB McCann, Rufai Ladipo not to seek re-election as the AAAN President could be considered an achievement. However, close observers reveal that this “unNigerian” refusal of an incumbent executive to seek re-election might not be exclusively linked to turbulent electoral atmosphere peculiar to the Nigerian environment as most stakeholders struggled to decipher some semblance of achievements within the bland one year tenure of the Rufai Ladipo led executive . A year ago, Rufai Ladipo’s emergence had set a new industry record as he became the first employee Manager elected, as president of AAAN. This development was received with high hopes. His agency, STB- McCann also made history as the first agency in the Nigerian advertising industry to produce two presidents with Sir Steve Omojafor, Chairman, STB-McCann being a former president of the association. Regrettably, last week’s emergence of Bunmi Oke, the COO/ Executive Director of 141 worldwide, another employee manager, as the new president of the regulatory body marked the end of Rufia’s drab tenure. The election which took place in Premier Hotel in Ibadan after the 39th AGM/congress with the theme “Strategic Marketing communication and governance” was attended by industry top executives. The 2-day program had in attendance the executive governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi among other speakers who delivered pertinent issues on the marketing communication industry. A year ago when Rufai was coming into Office, top industry players like the Registrar, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Alhaji Garba Bello Kankarofi bubbling with expectations, commended the election of Mr. Rufai Ladipo as the President, (AAAN). He specifically pointed out that his antecedents which include his years of experience as former executive member of AAAN, Fellow of the Advertising Profession and Chairman, APCON Education Committee would ensure that AAAN would go places during Rufai’s tenure. He contested alongside Erhabor Emokpae, Executive Vice Chairman, Lowe Lintas and Longley Evru, MD/CEO, Angels Communications and won convincingly. At his inauguration last year, Ladipo promised to consolidate on the achievement of his predecessors, to ensure the take off of the Advertising Academy. He also promised to restructure and repackage AAAN to promote corporate responsibility, to support APCON’s reform project and to improve the human capital development in the industry through training and retraining of practitioners. From his valedictory presentation, none of the above promises was delivered; rather, what was listed as achievements was the admittance of three agencies- Fuel Communications, Creativexone Limited and Prize Communications into the body. Pundits wonder if the number was the unique factor or it was AAAN that midwifed these three agencies. Another achievement listed by Ladipo’s team was that they brought down the level of unethical conduct amongst AAAN members to a bearable level. Unarguably, the major feat of Rufai Ladipo’s administration was the effort to ensure that media stakeholders agree to resuscitate the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) project expand the scope and improve on its present deliverables. Despite all the promises, the assessment of Ladipo’s tenure by industry analysts indicate that he had a botched performance in key areas like establishing a functional Advertising Academy which he set up a board headed by Mr. Biodun Shobanjo, couldn’t hold to his promise to join AAAN with APCON in the efforts to sanitize the Advertising Profession in Nigeria. More so, he could not fulfill his major campaign promises that he is going to make sure that brand owners pay pitch fee, a practice that it is held in high esteemed in other climes among other vital issues that tally with the objective of the body that says …… It’s not far fetched why Ladipo could not go for the second term; the agency he sits atop of has consistently deteriorated since he took over from his Chairman, Sir Steve Omojafor. STB-McCann group, one of the nation’s top advertising group of companies that comprises STB-McCann Advertising and Universal McCann, a media specialist agency is now a shadow of its former self after losing most of her clients and businesses. Accounts like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestle and Swift network among others fell off the agency’s shelves while its managing director was busy attending to the services of a regulatory body. Though, insiders claimed Ladipo had the backing of the group, especially the Chairman to run for the office of the AAAN president, his involvement at the top echelon of AAAN has not in any way improved the lots of the agency. The situation in the agency according to investigations has attracted that attention of the senior Partner- McCann global agency and insiders confirmed that a major reorganization was imminent. Just last week, exactly two days after Rufai stepped down as AAAN President; he was pushed out unceremoniously as CEO of STB MacCann. The shaky performance of the immediate past AAAN executive has put tremendous pressure on the new executive led by Bunmi Oke. Practitioners’ expectation on what Bunmi Oke’s tenure will look like is also on the high side. Most practitioners are of the opinion that her reign will full of discipline considering her calm mien among other great managerial asserts she possesses. The Social Sciences graduate from the University of Lagos began her Advertising career at Grant Advertising, where she worked as a PR Executive/Account Management trainee between 1986 and 1989. Her unique organizational and presentation skills resulted in her being moved to client service department where she worked on multinational brands like Unilever’s Blue Band Margarine, Berec Batteries, UTC, Coca-Cola amongst others. Bunmi moved to LTC Advertising (now LTC-JWT Lagos), in 1989, and spent 10years (before a brief stint as head of Account Management in Advertising Techniques (Nig) Ltd in 1991. She moved to England UK in 1992 where she worked at the West End Job Employment Centre, London. She eventually returned to Nigeria in 1993 to rejoin LTC Advertising in 1994. In 1995, Bunmi became the 1st female Client Service Director of LTC-JWT Advertising and in 1997 she became the Director/Head Client Services and Media department. She left LTC-JWT in 2000 for a “career adventure” with her family to Abuja for 4years, working in an NGO and eventually, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) as the pioneer Chief Public Affairs Officer .Bunmi has been and is still on several AAAN committees including LAIF Management Board (2006 – 2010). She has been the Chairman for LAIF Awards since 2010. She is currently the only female member of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) Executive Board.