Page 66 - Powerlist 2020

Mo Abudu
Media, Publishing & Entertainment CEO/Executive Chair, Ebonylife TV

Crowned ‘Africa’s first lady of chat’, media mogul Mo
Abudu entered the world of TV as founder of the Nigeria-
based EbonyLife TV, which prides itself on being Africa’s
first global black entertainment and lifestyle network.
It currently draws in more than 8 million regular viewers
in around 50 countries. One of the guiding principles of
Ebonylife TV is the need to tell the world a different and
more positive story about Africa than it is used to seeing.
Perhaps most famously, London-born Mo is the creator,
executive producer and host of EbonyLife TV’s talk show,
Moments with Mo. The show was the first of its kind to be
syndicated across Africa, and has been running for more
than 10 years, with a guest list boasting the likes of Hillary
Clinton, former President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari,
Nobel Prize winner Professor Wole Soyinka and Managing
Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde.
In 2014, Mo set up Ebonylife Films, and was the executive
producer of its first feature length film Fifty, which was
the biggest premiere in the history of the Nigerian movie
industry and the top-grossing Nigerian film of 2015. It was
selected to screen at the 2015 London Film Festival.
Marcus Ryder Her second film, The Wedding Party, became the highest
Chief International Editor, China Global Television grossing movie in the history of Nollywood.
Network Digital Prior to her media career, Mo made her name as an
executive in ExxonMobil for nearly a decade, as the
promoter behind the Protea Hotel Oakwood Park, and as
Marcus oversees one the largest digital media news the founder of Vic Lawrence & Associates, one of Nigeria’s
organisations in China. leading outsourcing firms.
Based in Beijing, he is Chief International Editor of CGTN Forbes magazine has called her ‘the most important
Digital – the English-language version of China’s state woman in Africa’ and Mo is set to chair the 47th
broadcaster, China Central Television. His focus has been to International Emmy Awards Gala in New York in November
relaunch the foreign news channel digitally. 2019. In 2018 she was elected director of the International
He is also responsible for training journalists from across Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences.
the world to cover the news in an impartial and balanced In November 2018, the University of Westminster awarded
manner, part of his job that he calls ‘capacity building’. her an honorary Doctorate of Arts, in recognition of her
He tries to instil news values into journalists from outstanding services to broadcasting. And in April 2019 she
countries where those values may have been suppressed. was the first African recipient of a Medaille d’Honneur at
Marcus, who works at the Chinese news site at a time the MIPTV television trade fair in Cannes.
when it is keen to expand its global reach, says he is
attempting all of this while “trying to avoid imposing
so-called Western values”.
He started his career at the BBC in 1992 and has held a
number of positions, including executive producer, current
affairs, where he oversaw several high-profile programmes.
In the next few months, plans are underway for him to
set up the Royal Television Society’s first foreign-based
office in Beijing.
Additionally, he works closely with Sir Lenny Henry on
increasing diversity in television and was instrumental in
pushing for tax breaks for British films that meet diversity
criteria, a policy that the Labour Party has now adopted.
The campaign has the backing of major industry figures
such as Meera Syal CBE and Adrian Lester OBE, as well as
all the major entertainment unions. The campaign has had
several meetings with Downing Street, the Treasury and the
Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as well as
opposition party officials.
In 2019, Marcus gave evidence to the House of Lords
Communications Committee on how to increase diversity in
Public Service Broadcasting.

66 Powerlist 2020