In September, we embarked on our very first recruitment drive to find the ideal candidates to assume the management of the upcoming Top Sprinter talent search and the media professionals who will take the MoC blog and our coverage of Nigerian Athletics to next level in 2015.
Following the launch of this brand new website on Dec 1st, Making of Champions is pleased to announce our new team of sports writers and project managers who are going to take us into 2015 and beyond! Please see below their profiles and join us in extending congratulations to them in their new roles for Making of Champions which they will be assuming in January!
Mirian Opara
Mirian will be joining Making of Champions (MoC) as a Project Management Consultant. She started her career as an Events Planner and also has extensive experience as a Marketing Manager, through her previous roles at Kachifo Ltd and Brentt Consulting. In her illustrious and exciting career to date, Mirian has also held Senior Business Development and Operations positions at the African Movie Awards and the Nigeria Leadership Initiative.
Having worked extensively in the capacities of planning, organizing, and implementation, she has the knowledge and expertise of a wide range and scale of projects, most recently serving as the Project Manager of Nigerian Idol, one of Nigeria’s biggest and most popular TV reality shows.
Mirian’s enthusiasm to break new frontiers and her passion for “fixing” things has led her to become part of the MoC team that will hopefully be part of creating Nigeria’s next Olympic Champions!
Mirian holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Lagos, an MBA in-view from Edinburgh Business School, UK and is PRINCE2 Project Management professional certified.
Yemi Olus
Yemi Olus will be joining Making of Champions as a Senior Sports Writer. She is a Lagos-based sports writer with a bias for athletics. She started her career at NEXT as a Reporter before becoming a Sports Reporter at the National Mirror, where she hosted a weekly column ‘On the Track with Yemi Olus’, which focused on track and field athletes within and outside Nigeria, for over two years.
A self-acclaimed ‘athletics junkie’, Yemi has garnered extensive experience in covering national and international events live, such as the National Sports Festival, The National Trials and the African Athletics Championships in 2012 and 2014. She has covered some of these events while working in a freelance capacity for the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).
Yemi holds a BA in Public Administration from Ahmadu Bello University and will complete her Masters in Political Science from the University of Lagos in January 2015.
Funmi Fameso
Funmi Fameso will be joining Making of Champions as a Junior Sports Writer. She is a 2012 Graduate of Lagos State University, where she obtained a BSc in Microbiology. She worked as a Health Centre Laboratory Assistant during her NYSC year and since then she has worked as a Junior Sports Writer for her church’s youth magazine, Kingsword Youth Club Magazine.
Having grown up thinking that she was going to be a creative artist, it was watching the Sydney 2000 Olympics that ignited her passion of sports, most especially Athletics. Sports means three things to her: Passion, Hard work and Dedication, and her dream is to play a role in the production of Nigeria’s next Olympians!
Finally, here is the profile of the Founder & CEO of Making of Champions, who will lead the new team in 2015 & beyond!
Bambo Akani
Bambo Akani is the Founder and CEO of Making of Champions (MoC). A former Investment Banker in the UK and Management Consultant in South Africa, Bambo made a dramatic career change in 2013 when he relocated to Nigeria to become a Sports Entrepreneur and launch MoC, borne out of his desire to see Nigeria return to prominence on the global stage in Track and Field and other sports.
He is the Executive Producer and Director of the feature-length documentary Making of Champions: “The History”, the story behind Nigeria’s Rise and Fall in Athletics at the Olympics. He started making the film after the London 2012 Olympics, where Nigeria did not won a single medal! A TV release is planned in 2016 prior to the next Olympics in Rio!
Bambo is also an avid sports writer and photo-blogger, and has quickly become an internationally recognized Athletics Expert. He appeared in a new weekly Athletics segment on the Sports Tonight Show on Channels TV during the 2014 Athletics season and has also appeared on Jamaican Television and Radio to discuss the MoC Film, and to review and analyse key events in world athletics.
Bambo holds an MEng and BA in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University in the UK and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management in the US.
