Mr. Samuel Friday Edoho is one of the finest marketing strategists and branding experts in Nigeria. He is a philanthropist and consummate politician who hails from Afaha Eket in the Eket Local Government Area.

He has over 29 years of experience in consumer marketing and strategy, sales leadership, and general management roles in renowned FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) organisations, telecoms organizations, and state governments, including The Coca-Cola Company, Diageo/Guinness, Unilever, Globacom (Ghana and Nigeria), Visafone Communications Ltd., and Akwa Ibom State Govt.

Mr. Sam is well-rounded, having worked with culturally diverse managers and colleagues across continents, gaining the trust of superiors and peers in the workplace, and having travelled extensively throughout Africa, Europe, and America. His experience has afforded him the opportunity to manage people and resources requiring leadership, coaching, and mentoring skills at the highest level of corporate governance.

Between 2016 and 2019, he served as Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State on marketing and brand management. While on that job, he was responsible for selling government programmes and projects to the citizens and for promoting the governor, his performance, and the potential of the state to indigenes and non-indigenes, thereby attracting investment into the state. He led the successful launch and “sale” of the governor’s “Dakkada” philosophy, a social reorientation programme, to the people, and it has become the platform for this government’s actions and plans.

In his immediate past role as Executive Director (Operations) and Head of Business for Glo Ghana/Nigeria, a leadership position, he was responsible for total business results, including P&L (profit and loss). He led the successful launch of Glo into the crowded Ghanaian telecom market, supervising all the commercial, technical, and finance functions. As Director of Sales at Visafone, he designed and executed a successful route-to-market strategy for the Greenfield company and led the business to become the largest CDMA telecom network in Africa, delivering over $400 million in operating revenue. As Senior Brand Manager, Coca-Cola, he managed the Coca-Cola Trade Mark brands (Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, etc.) and Fanta in Nigeria, the 2nd biggest market for The Coca-Cola Company in Africa.

Mr. Sam Edoho has attended several leadership and technical training programmes locally and internationally and has been a facilitator with the Diageo Africa Marketing Academy and the famed UAC Training Centre. He earned an MBA from Delta State University and a BA (Hons) in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria.He is a member of the leading marketing professional bodies in Nigeria, APCON and NIMN.

His core areas of competence include brand building, general management, sales leadership, integrated marketing communication development and execution, and new product development and commercialization.

Since he left office as the SSA to the Governor in May 2019, he has been with his family in Canada until he returned in late 2021 to execute some philanthropic projects for his Sam Edoho Foundation (SEF), a nonprofit organization he founded 17 years ago to cater for the educational needs of indigent but talented children in Akwa Ibom State.