Media Mogul
Mosunmola Abudu
Mosunmola Abudu, popularly known as Mo Abudu, is a Nigerian media mogul, philanthropist, and former human resources management consultant who was born on September 11, 1964. Forbes named her “Africa’s Most Successful Woman,” and The Hollywood Reporter named her one of the “25 Most Powerful Women in Global Television.”
Mo Abudu was born in Hammersmith, West London, in the United Kingdom. Her father worked as an engineer and passed away in 1975. Her mother worked in the catering industry. Mo’s ancestors were from Ondo Town in Nigeria’s South-west. She is the middle child of three sisters. Mo relocated to Nigeria at the age of seven to live with her grandparents before returning to England at the age of eleven.
Ridgeway School, MidKent College, and West Kent College were among her educational institutions. She graduated from the University of Westminster in London with a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management. She holds a qualification in occupational and personality testing and is a member of the British Psychological Society.
Babcock University awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (Honouris Causa) in 2014. Abudu received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Westminster in 2018 for her services to the Nigerian broadcasting business.
Mo received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Westminster in 2018.
Mo Abudu was chosen as an AVON Cosmetics brand spokesperson for the African market in 1983.
In 1987, Mo Abudu began her professional career as a recruitment consultant with the Atlas Recruitment Consultancy firm in the United Kingdom, from which she transferred to Starform Group in 1990. In 1993, she returned to Nigeria and was hired by Arthur Andersen to lead ExxonMobil’s Human Resources and Training division. Vic Lawrence & Associates Limited is her company. She went on to design, produce, and host Moments with Mo, and eventually founded Ebony Life Television, where she continues to produce entertainment material to this day.
Mo Abudu founded EbonyLife TV (ELTV) in 2006, a pan-African network that airs in more than 49 countries across Africa, as well as the United Kingdom and the Caribbean. On July 1, 2013, Multichoice’s DSTV Channel 165 broadcasted EbonyLife TV for the first time. EbonyLife TV, which is among the top 25% of most-watched channels on the DStv platform, has launched a premium, multi-screen video-on-demand (VOD) network aimed at Africans in the diaspora less than a year after launching. Following a carriage partnership with another pay-TV operator, StarTimes, it increased its Sub-Saharan African reach. Desperate Housewives Africa in cooperation with Disney, Sons Of The Caliphate, Castle & Castle, On the Real, and The Governor are among the TV drama series executive-produced and/or created by Abudu and aired on ELTV.
EbonyLife Films was founded by Abudu in 2014. Fifty (film) was her debut film as an executive producer. In 2016, she collaborated with The ELFIKE Collective to create The Wedding Party. The film went on to become the highest-grossing title in Nigerian cinema history (Nollywood). The Wedding Party 2, The Royal Hibiscus Hotel, Chief Daddy, Your Excellency (film), and ltré, “the story of a young, naive Nigerian journalist who goes undercover to expose the shady underworld of human trafficking,” were among the films she executive-produced or co-private produced. ltré’s screening was co-hosted with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) at CAA’s Los Angeles headquarters in June 2019.
In March 2018, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) announced that it had reached an agreement with EbonyLife TV for a three-year arrangement that included the co-production of The Dahomey Warriors, a series about Amazons who fought French colonialists in a 19th-century West African kingdom. She was named chair of the 47th International Emmy Awards gala, which took place on November 25, 2019 in New York.
AMC Networks (USA) and EbonyLife established a partnership in January 2020 to develop Nigeria 2099, an afrofuturistic crime drama created by EbonyLife.
In February 2020, EbonyLife TV and Netflix announced a new relationship. EbonyLife’s drama series Castle & Castle, Fifty, Sons of the Caliphate, On the Real, and The Governor, as well as a reality show, The Dating Game, and a feature film, The Royal Hibiscus Hotel, were bought by Netflix.
Netflix will renew its partnership with EbonyLife in June 2020. According to the agreement, she will collaborate with Netflix to develop two original shows and many Netflix-branded films. A film adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s drama Death and the King’s Horseman, as well as a series based on Lola Shoneyin’s best-selling debut novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, will be among the highlights.
Mo Abudu inaugurated Ebonylife Place, a lifestyle and entertainment resort on Victoria Island in Lagos, in December 2019.
Mo Abudu teamed with Netflix, a streaming service located in the United States, to launch two new TV series and several films on June 12, 2020. She inked Nigeria’s first-look deal on February 4, 2021, which builds on a collaboration with Sony in 2018 and adds to the company’s multi-title arrangement with Netflix. On February 17th, 2021, Ebony Life announced a partnership with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios to produce a slate of film and television projects, all of which will be set in Africa.
Netflix released the film ‘Oloture,’ a stunning art nouveau-style film based on a story by Mo Abudu, in September 2020. The film was primarily shot in Lagos and focused on human trafficking in Nigeria. “ltré explores a world that few people know anything about,” she said of the film. “That had to be dealt with in a particular way,” she added. “It’s not a documentary, but it addresses real issues that the majority of our society is blind to, bringing together the talents of some of the country’s most talented actors and filmmakers to create a film that is both intelligent and profound – and forges bold new genre and stylistic ground for Nollywood.”
Mo Abudu launched Ebony Life Place in the month of December 2019. It is the first leisure and entertainment resort in Nigeria. EbonyLife Place, EbonyLife Cinemas, The White Orchid Hotel, Popina, Traká rooftop restaurant & bar, The Wrap Pool Bar & Restaurant, The Victoria Hall, and The VVIP Lounges are just a few of the distinctive features. It is located on Lagos’ Victoria Island. Mo Abudu ebony life media partnered with Sony Pictures Television to launch ‘Alo,’ which translates to once upon a time, an African writer’s effort.
Mo Abudu has a son and a daughter and resides in Lagos. Previously, she was married to Tokunbo Abudu.
Moments with Mo, her TV chat program, is the first syndicated daily talk show on African regional television, and she is the Executive Producer and host of it.
Over 200 episodes had been recorded and aired by October 2009, covering issues as diverse as lifestyle, health, culture, politics, entertainment, tradition, music, and inter-racial marriages. The show “highlights the life and accomplishments of a usually well-known, but sometimes an undiscovered African individual who, by his or her own tenacity and determination, has accomplished something, overcome something, or been a catalyst for something that makes her or him a role model to others,” according to Abudu. Guests have included celebrities, Presidents, Nobel Laureates, and the 67th US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The show, which first aired on M-Net in 48 African countries, is now available on terrestrial and cable television in other areas of the world.
The success of the show, as well as its goal of changing the world’s perspective of Africa, has prompted parallels to Oprah Winfrey, with The Independent and Slate Afrique dubbing her “Africa’s Oprah” and “Nigerian Winfrey,” respectively.
The Debaters, a reality television show, is created and executive produced by Mo Abudu. It was founded on October 3, 2009, and is funded by Guaranty Trust Bank. The show promotes oratory in order to “give Africa a voice.”
Abudu was named the first African woman to own a pan-African television channel by Forbes Africa (2013). In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter named her one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Global Television, and she was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Women Werk in New York (2014).
Abudu has been nominated to serve on Nigeria’s Advisory Group on Technology and Creativity. Abudu was named to the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Board of Directors, which oversees the International Emmy Awards. She was later named Chair of the 47th International Emmy Awards Gala, which took place in New York on Monday, November 25, 2019. She was the first African-American to be cast in the role.
She was nominated to the 2018 Power List, which honors the UK’s top 100 most important people of African and Caribbean descent. In 2018, Abudu was also nominated to serve on the Nigerian Advisory Group on Technology and Creativity.
She received the MIPTV Médaillesd’Honneur 2019 in Cannes, France, in 2019, making her the first woman to get the prestigious honor. Later that year, Abudu was named to the 2020 Powerlist, a list of the top 100 most important individuals of African/African-Caribbean heritage in the United Kingdom. Greatest Blacks Ever: Top 100 Blacks Who Changed the World for Peace, Progress, Prosperity, Pleasure, a 493-page book, features her; an Ambassador Elliston Rahming’s book, was published by Dog Ear Publishing.
Mo Abudu received the 2019 Médaillesd’Honneur at the Marche International des Programmes de Television in Cannes (MIPTV). She was one of four prize honourees, and was honoured in April 2019. The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) represented Mo Abudu at the above-named awards.
She was ranked one of the top 20 most powerful women in global entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter in October 2021.