Why sustainable growth depends on systems, not campaigns – Afam Anyika

Afam Anyika, a growth and marketing strategist and CEO of MediaKing Nigeria, with over two decades of experience, has been shaping brand and market expansion across Africa and the Middle East. He was also a founding member of Jumia, where he helped lead early growth strategies during the company’s formative expansion phase. In a recent discussion, Anyika highlighted his focus on building scalable growth systems that deliver long-term enterprise value. He has led market entry, product launch, and expansion initiatives in over 16 industries, including fintech, healthcare, FMCG, and energy.

Anyika has worked with companies such as Jumia, Konga, MAX Nigeria, and Helium Health, helping them translate complex market dynamics into actionable strategies, strengthen brand positioning, acquire customers, and align teams across diverse markets. In this interview with CHISOM MICHAEL, Anyika explains that sustainable growth comes from scalable systems, a clear strategy, and adapting to local markets. He balances data with intuition and emphasises that lasting impact aligns business success with social value.

You have worked across more than 16 industries; how has this breadth shaped the way you approach market entry and expansion?

Working across multiple industries teaches you that while sectors differ, the fundamentals of growth are often consistent: access, trust, and distribution.

For example, whether you’re working in media, energy, or consumer products, the first real question is always: how do people discover and adopt what you’re offering? In one market, that might be driven by digital channels. In another, it could be physical distribution or community influence.

In a previous project expanding into a new regional market, we found that what looked like a pricing problem was actually a trust issue. Once we partnered with the right local channels and aligned with trusted intermediaries, adoption improved significantly without changing the product itself.

So that breadth allows you to recognise patterns early, but also to respect local nuance. It’s really about applying proven principles, but adapting execution to the realities on the ground.

In your experience, what distinguishes a growth strategy that lasts from one that only delivers short-term results?

Short-term growth is often campaign-driven, promotions, discounts, or heavy marketing bursts. It can create quick traction, but it tends to fade once that activity stops. Long-term growth is usually built on systems.

A good example is what we’re doing with MediaKing. Instead of relying on recurring campaigns to drive usage, the focus is on building infrastructure, connectivity that people can rely on daily, and a communication layer that institutions can consistently use. That creates compounding value. The more people connect, the more useful the system becomes, and the more embedded it is in everyday life.

In contrast, if growth depends on constant spending or intervention, it becomes difficult to sustain.

You mentioned MediaKing as an example of building growth through systems rather than campaigns. In practical terms, how does that model work, particularly in markets like Nigeria where connectivity infrastructure is still evolving?

In practical terms, it’s about building for daily utility, not periodic attention.

With MediaKing, the focus is on making connectivity consistently available in environments people already use, transport hubs, campuses, markets. Once that reliability is established, usage becomes habitual rather than campaign-driven.

Over time, the platform becomes part of how people access the internet, and how institutions and businesses communicate. Growth then comes from repeated use and embedded value, rather than continuous marketing activity.

You often operate at the intersection of strategy and execution; how do you ensure that ideas translate into measurable outcomes?

The biggest gap between strategy and execution is usually clarity.

In one rollout I was involved in, the strategy itself was strong, but execution stalled because teams interpreted objectives differently. Once we broke the plan into very clear deliverables, timelines, and ownership, progress became measurable almost immediately.

I focus on three things: defining success in specific terms, assigning clear ownership, and building feedback loops early.

For instance, instead of saying “increase adoption,” you define what metric represents adoption, over what period, and what actions directly influence it.

That level of clarity makes execution less subjective and easier to manage.

Having worked in both startups and established organisations, what differences have you observed in how they pursue growth?

Startups are typically driven by urgency. They need to prove viability quickly, so they move fast and experiment more freely. Established organisations, on the other hand, are often managing complexity, existing customers, systems, and reputational considerations, so they move more cautiously.

I’ve seen startups scale quickly but struggle to maintain structure as they grow, and I’ve also seen large organisations miss opportunities because decision-making becomes too slow. The most effective approach tends to combine both.

For example, in one organisation, we created smaller, agile teams within a larger structure, allowing faster experimentation without compromising overall governance. That balance, speed with discipline, is what sustains growth.

Many markets across Africa and the Middle East are fragmented; how do you make sense of complexity when entering such environments?

Fragmentation can look overwhelming at first, but it usually becomes clearer when you identify the key points of influence.

In one expansion project, the market appeared highly dispersed, with multiple regions, different consumer behaviours, and fragmented distribution. But once we identified a few dominant channels and key aggregation points, the complexity reduced significantly.

It’s rarely necessary to solve the entire market at once. Instead, the approach is to identify where adoption is most likely, build a strong presence there, and then expand outward from that base.

In many African markets, for example, transport hubs, marketplaces, or institutional environments can act as anchors for broader expansion.

When deploying a platform like MediaKing’s high-density public Wi-Fi network in fragmented markets, what kinds of environments or urban nodes become the most effective starting points for adoption?

The most effective starting points are high-density, high-frequency environments, places where people gather and return regularly.