The Temple Management Company is one firm that plays big in Entertainment. The company is not 3 yet. It will hit 3 years come to next March and what a journey it has been! It was launched in March 2016, with a very clear vision to be the leading pan-African Sports and Entertainment agency.
The MD/CEO, Idris Olorunnimbe, explained that they knew what solutions to set out to provide in a very peculiar industry populated by young talented and creative people. “Our goal is to manage and represent the best among this pool of young stars, optimize their potential and make them materials ready to compete in the global marketplace.
To achieve this goal, we have existing partnership arrangements with global players such as Roc Nation in the US, First Access in the United Kingdom (UK) and Touch HD in South Africa. In addition, we now have office branches in South Africa, East Africa, and Francophone Africa. Let me give you the example of one of our young proteges,a 13-year-old Tennis prodigy, Marylove Edwards, who has moved from being a Nigerian champion to becoming an international star-to-watch.
Through our intervention, she now schools at the world-famous sports education institution, IMG Academy, Florida which has trained the greats in the sports such as Andre Agassi, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, and the Williams Sisters. Fresh on the mind is the recent accomplishment of another one of our talents, Bisola Aiyeola, who emerged as AMVCA Trailblazer. The list goes on of how we continue to optimize potentiality of our talents from sports to the arts, media, and entertainment. As I mentioned, this is a journey and we are for the marathon.”
What was the idea behind the setting up of the company?
“We identified a gap for a 360-degree representation of talents, a one-stop shop for management, marketing, and representation. I must say that before, there was no existing model for what we were trying to do, so we had to intercept. Our consultants returned our briefs when we were trying to lay the blocks for the foundation of what we are building. There was no structure in place or pre-existing model. That’s a sad reality. Rather than deter us, it spurred us on. The advantage is that it gave us a clean slate with which to work and to paint an idyllic portrait of the sort of landscape we wanted to operate in.”
The MD, Idris Olorunnimbe, is a consummate strategist and philosopher, Idris has a Law Degree from the prestigious University of Lagos, Nigeria. He was born on 4th of July 1978 and hails from Lagos, a cosmopolitan city where he grew up and has served. He began his education at St Saviour Primary School, Ebutte Metta before proceeding for high school at Federal Government College, Ijanikin, Lagos.
As an entrepreneur, he has helped build an unusually wide variety of businesses, including a Pre-School, an Automobile Company, a Record Label, and two Nigerian fashion brands. He continues to serve in the advisory capacity in those companies even as he admits that Temple represents a culmination of his life’s work.
Idris has a passion for public service, and he worked as a Personal Assistant and Senior Special Assistant to Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, then Governor of Nigeria’s leading State, Lagos, from 2007-2015. Before then, he co-wrote a policy paper on driver reorientation in Lagos, which led to the introduction of Drivers’ Institutes in the State.
He mentors several young creatives and frequently engages in public speaking in that capacity. An avid art collector, he has a long-standing relationship with creative talents and entertainers alike. He has supported several concerts, shows and sports tournaments in Nigeria.
In just two years, Idris Olorunnimbe has piloted Africa’s fastest growing creative firm to break boundaries and position itself as the go-to team in the industry. TMC was key to the staging of Sunny On Sunday and the record-breaking King Sunny Ade Guitar auction among others.
Temple Management Company (TMC) offers a 360-degree service in four key spheres of operation namely entertainment, sports, arts and media. It has a solid footprint across Africa as well as in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The company represents some of Nigeria’s biggest talents such as Bisola Aiyeola, Jeff Akoh, Sound Sultan, Mavin Records, 9ice, Lekan Babalola, Funmi Iyanda, Victor Ehikhamenor, and Biyi Bandele. Others are Seye Ogunlewe, Marylove Edwards (Tennis Prodigy) and Ebi Onome (Super Falcons Star), Georgia Oboh (Golfer) and most recently Kenneth Omeruo (Super Eagles & Chelsea FC).
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