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Jamiu Ijaodola is a PR Professional who currently serves as the CEO of Eventhive.ng, a B2B event servicing company he founded while he was in the University. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Lagos State University. Jamiu’s Eventhive.ng has worked with clients across Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, UK and Czech Republic.
In this interview with BlackBox Nigeria, he talks about his journey into PR, how Eventhive.ng’s operations were affected by the pandemic, its core strategies, future in the event industry, among other issues.
Your company, Eventhive.ng, recently clocked one year of operation. How would you describe the journey so far in the event industry?
Exciting. It has been quite uneasy, considering the fact that, further into our launch, our business was largely affected by COVID-19 as our model is structured around physically converging our clients. However, we have had to retool our model to accomodate more of virtual engagements and networking amongst our clients across the industries we serve.
With a background in Mechanical Engineering, why the switch to PR?
My switch to PR was inspired by my participation in student unionism. While I was in school, I had keen interest in public and stakeholder engagements which spurred me into PR. I had deep introspection into what I think my future should look like, I was unable to align Mechanical Engineering with it, hence I decided to do full PR.
Described as one of the fast-growing PR firms in Nigeria, Eventhive.ng, is beaming with a lot of potentials. Considering how competitive the industry is, what would you consider your strategy to carve a niche?
Eventhive.ng’s strategy is largely anchored on diversifying our marketing strategy for the industries we serve. Beyond creating them with an opportunity to network and do businesses, we also help businesses amplify their works across digital spaces. This has further distinguished our impact across key sectors. Not only that, we promote more of after-event services by helping corporate organizations access key public sector stakeholders that are relevant to their businesses. So our events are beyond just attending to talk, we ensure organizations derive value from their participation right from when they signed up.
Eventhive.ng’s recent event, Lagos Transport Fest, brought together key stakeholders in the sector to discuss new ideas. How would you describe the relevance of this dialogue to the growth of the transportation industry?
Nigeria’s e-ticketing platform for the railway sector was launched at Lagos Transport Fest. The event has defined quite a number of regulations for the transport industry, as you would usually find policy makers attending to share their plans with private sector investors. Lagos Transport Fest has further positioned itself as West Africa’s meeting place for the Transport Industry. Beyond the conversation, the event annually helps to strengthen the relationship between public and private sector stakeholders within the transport sector. Technology companies also attend to showcase their new technologies which are aiding developments in the transport sector.
The advent of COVID-19 affected the global economy, part of which is the event industry. How did you manage to cushion the effect of the pandemic on your operations?
I would say COVID-19 impacted the event industry quite drastically as the business model is built on bringing people together. Thankful to technologies, we immediately converted our events to virtual platforms. I must admit that it has been quite uneasy pitching this to industry as virtual events are still alien to the ecosystem. However, we have been adding more services to our work to ensure we stay in business. We recently established our data and intelligence arm, datahive which is seeking to help the companies and individuals we serve make more informed decisions using data.
Funding has always been a major challenge for start-ups in Africa, particularly Nigeria. What is Eventhive.ng’s unique plan to attract funding?
When we started Eventhive.ng, we kickstarted our plans bootstrapping, financing with our personal monies. We are currently not seeking VC funds as we hope to further expand our capacity across the sectors we operate in. This, I believe, will further position us for investor funds.
What is the future of Eventhive.ng in the event industry?
Eventhive.ng seeks to become a global knowledge and information infrastructure for key sectors across the world. We want to help industries learn about new developments in their sectors, network with stakeholders relevant to their businesses and make more data-driven decisions. We are currently operational across Transport, Power, Tech and Real Estate. We have plans to expand into Construction, Agriculture and Oil & Gas before the end of 2021. Our operations are currently based in Nigeria. However, we have plans to expand across other African countries and the world.
