March 10, (THEWILL)- Following a massive restructuring, ‘The Guardian’ Newspapers has appointed Toke Ibru as the Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director of the 40-year-old news medium. He will be taking over from Martins Oloja who will be stepping down in retirement at the end of this month. Toke is the son of late Alex Ibru, the founder of the newspaper and Maiden Ibru, who remains the publisher of the newspaper.
Until his latest appointment, Toke was an Executive Director involved in the digital transformation of the newspaper. He was also a member of ‘The Guardian’ Editorial Board. He is expected to deploy his experience in the corporate industry to enrich the brand equity of the newspaper.
A graduate of History from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, and an alumni member of IESE Business School in Spain, where he did his Executive Education in Media and Entertainment, Toke has over 15 years of commercial experience in publishing and seven years in hospitality management. In 2003, he established Lexan Media Services Ltd, which provides consulting services to global brands entering the Nigerian market and in 2005 he introduced Time Out magazine to the country, which published Time Out Lagos and Time Out Abuja under the license of the ‘Time Out Group’, UK.
He has been a Commercial representative of the Financial Times, UK since 2010, just as the platform published several annual special reports on Nigeria, including FT Nigeria Oil and Gas and FT Investing in Nigeria.
Alex-Ibru is currently a director on the boards of Ikeja Hotels Plc, Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc and is the Chairman of Charles Hampton, a subsidiary of Ikeja Hotels and in equity partnership with Lagos State Government’s Ibile Holdings. He is the Publisher of ‘Marie Claire’ Nigeria under licence from the Marie Claire International media group in France. He also sits on the advisory boards of WARIF International, Board of Governors Member of Trinity Foundation (Ibru Ecumenical Centre) and the Nigerian-Belgium Chamber of Commerce.
