AREWA24, the leading 24/7 Hausa language family entertainment and lifestyle television network and production studio in Nigeria and West Africa, announces its first major leadership transition in over a decade. Celestine Umeibe, currently AREWA24’s Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer, will formally assume the role of Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Jacob Arback, who will move into the newly created role of Executive Vice Chairman. Mr. Umeibe will continue to oversee the company’s commercial sales operations.
Says Celestine Umeibe: “Jacob Arback played a pivotal role in the remarkable success story of AREWA24 over the past decade. His unique yet inclusive leadership style enabled AREWA24 to navigate the business storms and challenges that often overwhelm start-ups, especially in this region. Mr. Arback’s elevation to the position of Executive Vice Chairman is well-deserved, and will no doubt continue to impact positively on the business.”
Outgoing CEO, Jacob Arback, has worked closely with Mr. Umeibe at AREWA24 since the network launched in 2014. “There is nobody more qualified and capable to lead AREWA24’s second decade of growth and impact than Celestine,” says Arback. “His natural leadership abilities, business and branding acumen and deep knowledge of our media and entertainment industry made Celestine an easy choice for our Board of Directors. I’m very excited to watch how the next decade of creativity, innovation and growth plays out under his leadership. Since the very first days of AREWA24, Celestine has demonstrated a passionate commitment to the ‘why’ of AREWA24 – – ‘to reflect and celebrate pride in local culture and in the local language of Hausa’.”
With Mr. Umeibe’s 10+ years at AREWA24, plus his previous senior executive experience in commercial, marketing, and business positions at both StarTimes and TVC, he brings a wealth of experience to AREWA24’s rapidly changing television and media landscape, along with a focused vision for the company’s future. Mr. Umeibe will be tasked with blending creative programming decisions with technological innovation and the growth of new revenue streams in order to accelerate AREWA24’s mission of becoming one of the top Pan African television, production and media companies on the Continent.
ABOUT AREWA24: AREWA24 and its production arm, AREWA24 Productions, was launched in 2014 to fill a glaring void of authentic, locally-produced and high-quality Hausa language entertainment and lifestyle programming that reflects pride in Northern Nigerian life, culture, music, film, art, cooking and sports. Today, AREWA24 reaches 45+ million Hausa speakers in Nigeria and West Africa through its free-to-air broadcast on Eutelsat satellite, on the StarTimes PayTV bouquet (channel#138), the two Multichoice payTV platforms, DStv (channel #261) and GOtv (channel #136), and on the Canal+ payTV service (channel #297) in Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Togo. AREWA24 benefits from active audience engagement across its digital platforms at www.AREWA24.COM, www.facebook.com/AREWA24, and Instagram.com/AREWA24channel. AREWA24 also operates a global streaming service, AREWA24 On Demand in partnership with Vimeo. To subscribe to the global streaming service AREWA24 ON DEMAND, go to http://tv.arewa24.com or download the app from the iOS App Store, Google Play, Apple TV, Roku Channel Store, or Amazon Fire TV.
For additional information, please contact: info@arewa24.com
