Nigerian by nationality, African in perspective and Global by experience, Oye Akideinde is a Media, Tech &
Entertainment Executive whose 20years+ experience has been primarily in entertainment, consumer goods, eBusiness, financial, media, music and digital sectors. With demonstrated initiative & innovation, he has been successful in technology, project management, strategy, marketing, product & business development, giving him a vast set of skills.
Awarded ‘The Music Business Executive’ of 2020 by Scream Awards & Marketing Edge's 2018 ‘Digital Entertainment Innovator’, listed as 2016's Avance Media's ‘100 Most Influential Young Nigerians’, MeetsMedia ‘Media Personality of September 2016’ & a nominee in 2010’s Future Awards ‘Professional of the year’, Oye also known as Oye A.K.D holds a Specialist degree in General Music Studies from the Berklee School of Music, US; an MSc in Business Information Systems from the University of Hertfordshire, UK & a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He also led Boomplay Music to win the coveted 'Best African App' Award at the AppsAfrica Innovation Awards in 2017.
Oye is the GM Music Services for the MTN Group and has been appointed as the Head of Music, Simfy Africa – a company MTN acquired. He oversees new market launches & operations in 22 active markets and is responsible for strategically developing & managing key relationships to fulfil its vision of becoming Africa’s largest sustainable music ecosystem. Prior to his engagement at MTN Group, Oye headed Operations, Music & Content Strategies, Business Development, Marketing and Artist, Label & Distro Partnerships as the Director, West Africa at Boomplay Music for almost 4 years.
He started the African Operations as the GM, Boomplay in Africa, building the best music teams across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya & Tanzania. He successfully built strong relationships with the African artist communities to make Boomplay have the richest local content catalogue in their chosen markets. He also created critical initiatives like identifying the core genres in Africa and maximizing their potentials through well-thought out marketing campaigns. He developed & drove Boomplay's rollout strategy in Africa successfully and made the African business fully operational; leaving them with MAU of 55m. Before joining Boomplay Music, he was Head, Business Development at Spinlet, one of the pioneer DSPs in Africa for 2 ½ years. He was responsible for successfully partnering with Etisalat, Samsung, Tecno, Google, Nokia among others to help grow the Spinlet user base to 1,000,000+ subscriber base. Prior to his career at Spinlet, Oye had co-founded 360nobs Limited, a technology driven media firm that owns 360nobs.com platform – 1 of Africa’s biggest entertainment websites catering to millions of unique visitors monthly. It had a talent management arm which managed several acts from Waje to Project Fame Alum – Immaculate Dache.
Oye has a very strong passion for the Entertainment Industry in Africa and is seen as a key stakeholder. Oye has been part of several music award academies (Headies and MTV Base) and a member of Felabration. A family man, he is actively involved in global music & digital workshops to contribute to discussions on various trends in Africa and its impacts & possibilities. He has spoken at Midem conferences, Social Media Week conferences, Music In Africa ACCES conference and has also been interviewed & featured by major media outlets from CNN to Pulse to Guardian Newspaper. Oye is a collector by heart – from Comic books to African art to vinyls.