A veteran journalist, whose media training and experience spans over three decades, Dr Doyinsola Abiola is a woman of many noble parts. Perhaps Dr. Abiola is mostly remembered in Nigeria and abroad for her role as the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of Concord Group of Newspapers, a role she held from 1986 to 2001, building Concord into a viable business. She supervised a workforce of about five hundred (500) reporters and administrative staff nationwide; introduced community and vernacular papers for the broader dissemination of news and development ideas. More importantly she contributed to the growth of the newspaper industry and media in Nigeria.
Dr. Abiola is the first Nigerian female Eisenhower fellow. She has served on Boards such as the CNN African Journalist of the Year Awards; was Chairperson National Commission for Women Affairs and the Nigerian Media Merit Awards Board of Trustees. She was a Member of the Steering Committee or Strategies and Marketing of NEPAD (2002).
The first woman to receive the Wole Soyinka Lifetime Award for Journalistic excellence is a woman whose work continues to be an inspiration to the present crop of journalists, and will continue to be an inspiration for the future crop of journalists.
