Meet Sam Adeoye, communications polymath rewriting executive visibility playbook in today’s attention economy

In today’s hyper-accelerated media ecosystem, where visibility functions like currency, and attention has become one of the world’s most aggressively traded commodities, a new intellectual model for understanding newsworthiness is emerging from Nigeria.

And at the centre of this movement is Sam Adeoye, public relations leader and communications polymath, whose 20-year borderless career spans journalism, creative direction, advertising strategy, digital culture, and public relations leadership.

Adeoye is the creator of the E.P.I.C. Framework, synthesised from traditional news determinants and adapted to surface positive and ownable storytelling directions for top executives, founders, and public officials.

E.P.I.C., says Adeoye, represents Earliness, Proximity, Impact, and Change. What he proposes is simple but profound—newsworthiness in the context of executive PR is not accidental; it is engineered. It can be studied, predicted, and intentionally designed. And for the corporate leaders, founders, and public figures who increasingly come to him for guidance, this framework is fast becoming the definitive compass for navigating visibility in a world that no longer rewards silence.

“With continued practice and several tests, we developed a formula to customise the system for each subject,” he notes. “Each of the four elements is weighted accordingly to pinpoint exactly which of the pillars is strongest for each subject.”

To understand why the EPIC system resonates, one must understand Adeoye’s unique career path; few communications figures in Nigeria have occupied as many vantage points.

He began his career in 2005 at The Guardian, where he reported for Life magazine and The Guardian on Sunday. There, he wrote culturally resonant features, profiled emerging talent, covered entertainment and media, and authored the weekly marketing column, Marketing Edge. Twice, he was shortlisted as a finalist for Journalist of the Year at The Future Awards early recognition of his precision, narrative depth, and instinct for stories that capture the public mood.

From journalism, he was headhunted into advertising, rising rapidly through copywriting leadership roles across Nigeria’s top agencies: Verdant Zeal, 141 Worldwide, DKK Nigeria, and STB-McCann. Along the way, he helped build campaigns for some of the world’s most recognisable brands: Coca-Cola, Interswitch, MasterCard, Central Bank of Nigeria, Diageo, Facebook, MTN, Ecobank, PZ Cussons, Samsung, Unilever, Beko, Visafone, and others.

His work spanned everything from digital strategy to creative direction, experiential concepts, advertising campaigns, and new business initiatives for creative agencies. His rapid turnaround work at DKK Nigeria, helping grow the client roster from one to 12 in two years, and his cross-market portfolio at STB-McCann, are still cited by industry insiders.

In 2009, Adeoye was named Staff of the Year at Verdant Zeal and appointed founding COO of the communication group’s new PR subsidiary, RedGecko Limited his first formal foray into public relations management, setting the stage for what was to come.

After more than a decade in advertising, Adeoye pivoted completely as Senior Partner at Boardroom Hypeman, where he pioneered a “Key Person Positioning” approach for CEOs and founders. He then joined Airtel Nigeria, one of Africa’s most valuable telecom brands, as Head of Public Relations.

This panoramic cross-industry experience is what makes the E.P.I.C. approach to executive positioning quite compelling. Adeoye appears to understand the newsroom, the boardroom, the agency corridor, the social feed, and the CMO’s table, all from the inside.

According to Adeoye, the reason so many talented people remain invisible is that they misunderstand the architecture of media relevance.

“Earliness is about timing, being ahead of the wave,” he explains. “Proximity is your relevance to what the audience already cares about. Impact is the measurable or emotional consequence of your actions. And Change is your ability to shift something yourself, the industry paradigms, or the public conversation.”

These four factors form the backbone of how journalists value stories, how audiences choose what to amplify, and how modern leaders build influence. Adeoye argues that anyone, either CEO, founder, executive, or policymaker, can become visible strategically, not randomly, when these factors are intentionally activated.

As he puts it, “The goal is not publicity. It is visibility intelligence. It is not about chasing the news cycle; it is about shaping the conditions that make the subject relevant to the news cycle.”

Adeoye’s subjects typically arrive at inflection points: ascending to new roles, positioning for boards, seeking investor recognition, preparing for regulatory or political transitions, or building a public narrative that matches the scale of their ambition.

In a world where corporate success depends not just on competence but on perception, Adeoye argues that visibility is now infrastructure, much like capital, technology, or distribution. “Some executives think visibility is vanity,” he says. “But it is leverage. You don’t win appointments, influence policy, attract partnerships, or grow a company’s reputation in silence.”

Through EPIC, he provides a repeatable way to evaluate personal newsworthiness, create visibility roadmaps, and design stories that resonate across media, audiences, and gatekeepers.

With over 15 years in PR and marketing communications, more than 20 years across media industries, and influence that stretches beyond borders, Adeoye represents a new breed of African communications leader: editorially trained, creatively sophisticated, PR-seasoned, digitally fluent, and culturally attuned.

As business, politics, culture, and technology collide in Africa’s age of accelerated ambition, voices like his are beginning to shape how stories are told and how influence itself is constructed.

And if E.P.I.C. becomes the default process for understanding modern visibility, its origin will be traced back to one man.

Chisom Michael is a data analyst (audience engagement) and writer at BusinessDay, with diverse experience in the media industry. He holds a BSc in Industrial Physics from Imo State University and an MEng in Computer Science and Technology from Liaoning Univerisity of Technology China. He specialises in listicle writing, profiles and leveraging his skills in audience engagement analysis and data-driven insights to create compelling content that resonates with readers.

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