Abisoye Fagade was announced t as the new Director General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR. He replaces Alhaji Nura Kangiwa whose tenure ended in August.
Before this appointment, Fagade has had a successful career in the private sector where he carved a niche in integrated marketing communications for more than two decades.

Origin and education

A native of Ibadan, Oyo State, Fagade was born on March 10, 1974. He attended Queen of Apostles Primary School, Oluyoro, and Lagelu Grammar School, Agugu, Ibadan. He studied Demography and Social Statistics at Obafemi Awolowo Unviversity and graduated in 1998.
After completing his National Youths Service Corp (NYSC ) in 1998 at United Foods (makers Indomie Noodles), he joined Starcomms Telecommunications where he worked for a little over a year, and left to joined the IMS Group working with Tequila Event as a Client Service Manager.

Career and business

In 2009, he founded the Sodium Brand Solutions Limited, an experiential marketing company that has helped its brand/products and target consumers with the aim of helping companies achieve strong and measurable Return on Investment. Among his company’s were: Coca-Cola; Guinness, MTN, McVites, and many others.
Between then and now, Fagade has founded other companies.
As a businessman and marketing strategist, Fagade has built a very successful business with tentacles in different areas of business. He has this to say about his venture: “The Nigerian system does not support SMEs, we have experienced it over the last 14 years, and it’s been a struggle all the way.
If you are not a silver spoon, to grow in this country, I’ll say it takes the grace of God and your ruggedness, commitment, consistency, persistence. The agency would have died years back because of banks. I’ve had issues with banks because we are doing a little business, and we have to keep taking from banks for us to be able to execute multinational jobs.”
Currently, Sodium Integrated Solutions has investments in boutique hotels ( Alexia Place Hotel), agriculture, clean water company, and oil and gas, and other business interests.
Although not very known in the hospitality industry, Fagbade has worked with hospitality brands and has interest in the hospitality industry.. He explained: “I remember we were part of the people who launched MTN at that time; we had a lot of mind-blowing experiential activations for MTN. Then I caught the attention of my then boss, the MD of SO&U Group, Mr Udeme Ufot and Yemi Odusote. I was invited for an interview which I passed. Then I joined the SO&U Saatchi and Saatchi Group in 2006 after getting married as an Assistant Director in charge of experiential marketing. We did great stuff together; that was when I worked with Obong Victor Attah (Akwa-Ibom former Governor) on Ibom Golf, a golf experience that brought Colin Montgomery, Nancy Lopez and Retief Goosen to Nigeria.”

Venture into politics

Having spent years as a business man in marketing and communications, Fagade ventured into politics and was an aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the governorship position of Oyo State. He explained the reason: “I feel that the best of us just think we are the best, and we stay in our spot to complain. It’s time to get involved; we need to be part of these people. They will not want us to come, but we need to ease our way into their midst and start doing what we know how to do best.
“Bring our professionalism into play. If you’re a journalist, a doctor or whatever profession you are in, you need to start participating in Nigerian politics. Nigeria needs you; it needs all of us because we can’t leave it to these people anymore. We’ve left it to them for almost 60 years; look at where we are. You need to leave the comfort of your homes and businesses and ease your way into politics.
“It’s dirty like I said to you earlier, you have a glass cup of muddy water, and you don’t want to drink it, it’s either you do something about it. But if you drop a small drop of water in that muddy water, it will not still be clean, but if you pour more pure water into that cup, at some point, the water will get clean. So the more good people that come into politics, the more you push out the bad people or else you want to carry your pure water and drink straight, or you’re not using that cup.
“ So you that you feel that you are good people in this country start easing yourself into politics, they would not want you to come, so why not politics? We all need to put all our hands on deck and save this country. Nobody is a saint. They’ll dig up the past about you, but the good part of you is what you are projecting, and it’s what you should push forward.”
Abisoye Fagade has an NGO dedicated to building capacity for the youths called Oyo Si Ma Dun Network (OSMD).

Abisoye Fagade has been announced as the new Director General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR). He replaces Alhaji Nura Kangiwa whose tenure ended in August.
successful career in the private sector where he has carved a niche in integrated marketing communications for more than two decades.

Origin and education

A native of Ibadan, Oyo State, Fagade was born on March 10, 1974. He attended Queen of Apostles Primary School, Oluyoro, and Lagelu Grammar School, Agugu, Ibadan. He studied Demography and Social Statistics at Obafemi Awolowo Unviversity and graduated in 1998.
After completing his National Youths Service Corp (NYSC ) in 1998 at United Foods (makers Indomie Noodles), he joined Starcomms Telecommunications where he worked for a little over a year, and left to joined the IMS Group working with Tequila Event as a Client Service Manager.

Career and business

In 2009, he founded the Sodium Brand Solutions, an experiential marketing company that has helped its brand/products and target consumers with the aim of helping companies achieve strong and measurable Return on Investment. Among this clients of Sodium Brand Solutions include: Coca-Cola; Guinness, MTN, McVites, and many others.
Between then and now, Fagade has founded other companies.
As a business and man and marketing strategist, Fagade has built a very successful business with tentacles in different areas of business. He has this to say about his venture: “The Nigerian system does not support SMEs, we have experienced it over the last 14 years, and it’s been a struggle all the way.
If you are not a silver spoon, to grow in this country, I’ll say it takes the grace of God and your ruggedness, commitment, consistency, persistence. The agency would have died years back because of banks. I’ve had issues with banks because we are doing a little business, and we have to keep taking from banks for us to be able to execute multinational jobs.”
Currently, Sodium Integrated Solution has investments in boutique hotels ( Alexia Place Hotel), agriculture, clean water company, and oil and gas, and other business interests.
Although not very known in the hospitality industry, Fagbade has worked with hospitality brands and has interest in the hospitality industry.. He explained: “I remember we were part of the people who launched MTN at that time; we had a lot of mind-blowing experiential activations for MTN. Then I caught the attention of my then boss, the MD of SO&U Group, Mr Udeme Ufot and Yemi Odusote. I was invited for an interview which I passed. Then I joined the SO&U Saatchi and Saatchi Group in 2006 after getting married as an Assistant Director in charge of experiential marketing. We did great stuff together; that was when I worked with Obong Victor Attah (Akwa-Ibom former Governor) on Ibom Golf, a golf experience that brought Colin Montgomery, Nancy Lopez and Retief Goosen to Nigeria.”

Venture into politics

Having spent years as a business man in marketing and communications, Fagade ventured in to the politics and was an aspirant to be the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the governorship election of Oyo State. He explained the reason: “I feel that the best of us just think we are the best, and we stay in our spot to complain. It’s time to get involved; we need to be part of these people. They will not want us to come, but we need to ease our way into their midst and start doing what we know how to do best.
“Bring our professionalism into play. If you’re a journalist, a doctor or whatever profession you are in, you need to start participating in Nigerian politics. Nigeria needs you; it needs all of us because we can’t leave it to these people anymore. We’ve left it to them for almost 60 years; look at where we are. You need to leave the comfort of your homes and businesses and ease your way into politics.
“It’s dirty like I said to you earlier, you have a glass cup of muddy water, and you don’t want to drink it, it’s either you do something about it. But if you drop a small drop of water in that muddy water, it will not still be clean, but if you pour more pure water into that cup, at some point, the water will get clean. So the more good people that come into politics, the more you push out the bad people or else you want to carry your pure water and drink straight, or you’re not using that cup.
“ So you that you feel that you are good people in this country start easing yourself into politics, they would not want you to come, so why not politics? We all need to put all our hands on deck and save this country. Nobody is a saint. They’ll dig up the past about you, but the good part of you is what you are projecting, and it’s what you should push forward.”
Abisoye Fagade has an NGO dedicated to building capacity for the youths called Oyo Si Ma Dun Network (OSMD).