In a world saturated with marketing noise and hyper-commercialised branding, few voices resonate with the sincerity, strategy, and results of Adedamola Sobowale. In 2022, Adedamola’s legacy of excellence was nationally recognised when he was honoured with the City People Outstanding Talents Award in Sales Leadership, a distinction earned not by popularity but through decades of tireless commitment to elevating sales strategy across Nigeria’s most competitive industries.
For Adedamola, the path to this coveted award was not paved in comfort but in experience. With over a decade of frontline success in the FMCG, building materials, and pharmaceutical sectors, he has reshaped what it means to be a Sales Leader in the modern African market. Whether managing billion-naira territories for Nestlé, driving sales logistics at Nigerian Breweries, or engineering exponential growth at Lafarge Africa PLC, Adedamola has left his mark, permanently.
What makes this recognition exceptional is not just the outcome, but the process behind it.
The City People Award: A Benchmark for National Talent
The City People Outstanding Talents Award stands apart in Nigeria’s landscape of accolades due to its strict vetting and authentic reputation. Recognising the most impactful individuals across sectors, including science, business, entertainment, and public service, the award spotlights excellence that often remains behind the scenes. Nominations are peer-driven, but the final list undergoes a rigorous audit by a multi-disciplinary panel of industry veterans, analysts, and talent scouts.
In the 2022 edition, the focus was on transformational impact, those who not only performed but reshaped the metrics of performance. Adedamola emerged from a competitive pool not merely for his statistics but for his enduring strategy, his influence on national sales culture, and the human capital he has developed under his mentorship.
Crafting a Sales Legacy
From his earliest professional steps in Nigerian breweries taking up one of the lead roles in a major project called Trade Census which helped to understand the number of relevant outlets to the business which helped to plan resources in the right places to GSK where he spearheaded the successful launch of Horlicks & Sensodyne in the country while also delivering a very successful National Commercial Conference as Head of Logistics. Adedamola’s style has remained unwavering, analytical, results-oriented, and human-centred. While many sales professionals aim for targets, Adedamola builds ecosystems.
During his tenure at Nestlé Nigeria, he steered a team of 50+ to deliver over ₦5 billion in annual sales, doubling the territory’s value within two years. His grasp of trade execution, shopper insights, and pricing dynamics positioned him as the go-to strategist when expansion or market penetration was on the agenda.
His transition to Lafarge Africa PLC brought even greater challenges—and rewards. In Akwa Ibom, Adedamola not only managed but also scaled operations to deliver over 31,000 tons of cement monthly. His leadership drove the market share from 48% to an astounding 62%, transforming the competitive landscape and setting new performance standards for the brand. All this while ensuring depot operations, team compliance, and marketing activations operated like clockwork.
Yet Adedamola’s genius is not in numbers alone; it is in people. He has consistently nurtured frontline sales agents, empowered supervisors with strategic tools, and created cross-functional partnerships with marketing, logistics, and finance teams. He understands that sustainable success in sales is not about one person, but about one system running efficiently under inspired leadership.
From Grassroots to Global
Few professionals can boast of the breadth of industry experience Adedamola has earned. From beverage giants like Nigerian Breweries and Heineken Africa to pharmaceutical titans like GlaxoSmithKline, he has navigated diverse sectors with adaptability and foresight.
With each role, he adopted a learner’s mindset, supplementing his practical experience with strategic learning: sales automation from Heineken, essential selling skills from Nigerian Breweries, and advanced sales management frameworks from Nestlé and Lafarge. He is an MBA holder in Marketing from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, rounding out his street smarts with boardroom acumen.
Even in his most recent role with Lafarge Africa PLC, Adedamola has continued to demonstrate flexibility and leadership, handling client needs with finesse and guiding operational staff to maintain high service standards. The result so far has since helped sustain double digit growth in market share & volume and at the same time delivered the National Number 1 distributor in 2020 and 2021- first time a distributor outside Lagos has ever achieved such a feat.
Quiet Resolve, Loud Impact
What separates Adedamola from his peers is not the glory of corporate wins but the quiet resolve with which he achieves them. He isn’t one for fanfare. Rather, he thrives in the gritty details, price compliance, activation logistics, conflict resolution, or shopper behaviour analytics. It’s this quiet confidence that has made him a mentor to many and a cornerstone in every organisation he’s served.
He has also been a key player in institutional knowledge-sharing. As part of various sales leadership academies, including Lafarge’s Project Safari and the GlaxoSmithKline Winning Academy, he has contributed to building frameworks that still guide organizational best practices today.
A New Standard for Sales Professionals
When Adedamola stood to receive his City People Award, it wasn’t just a personal victory. It was a statement to an entire generation of sales professionals that you don’t need to chase fame to earn national relevance. That strategy, ethics, and delivery still matter. That sustainable leadership isn’t in the headlines, but in the hustle, the humility, and the human impact.
Adedamola is also an accomplished IT expert whose unique blend of technical mastery, business analytics, and strategic management sets him apart as a leader in delivering innovative enterprise solutions. With a deep command of IT systems and data analytics, he excels at transforming complex business challenges into scalable, technology-driven outcomes. Adedamola’s extensive experience in management informs his ability to design and implement robust IT architectures that align with organisational goals. His interdisciplinary expertise enables him to bridge the gap between technical innovation and business strategy, consistently delivering solutions that enhance operational efficiency and drive digital transformation. Adedamola’s analytical precision, leadership, and commitment to excellence position him as an invaluable asset in the IT landscape.
With this award, Adedamola Sobowale is not just being celebrated. He is recognised as a leader, a builder, and a strategist who took sales beyond transactions and into transformation.
