The board of directors of Punch Nigeria Limited has appointed Adeyeye Joseph as the newspaper group’s Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief. Joseph’s appointment will take effect from May 1, 2022.

The newspaper’s current Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Ademola Osinubi, who forwarded a notice of retirement to the board in October 2020, will be retiring from the services of the company on April 30, 2022, after a distinguished career as the leader of the country’s most successful newspaper company.

The board, which took due notice of Osinubi’s preference to retire at the time, refused to accede to his request because of the unexpected onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and deferred his retirement by 18 months.

Osinubi, a former editor of The PUNCH, Saturday PUNCH and Sunday PUNCH, was general manager before he was appointed managing director/editor-in-chief. He had an outstanding career as a reporter and editor before taking over the company’s leadership reins at a time when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb.

Working closely with PUNCH’s emeritus chairman, Chief Ajibola Ogunshola, and ably supported by the board, Osinubi clinically executed the board’s vision for the company and conceptualised management policies that contributed immensely to the successful evolution of PUNCH from a tabloid newspaper into a dominant quality newspaper brand in Nigeria.

Under his stewardship, the company became Nigeria’s most-widely read brand, while its newspapers, reporters and editors won local and international journalism awards consecutively and repeatedly.

Osinubi who was in the services of the company for 45 years and served as managing director/editor-in-chief for 27 years will remain on the newspaper’s board of directors as a non-executive director. He will also continue to serve as a trustee of the Punch Media Foundation.

In a speech delivered at his last board meeting as the company’s managing director/editor-in-chief, in March, Osinubi said, “I am thankful to God for the unique privilege to have served the company in this role and at a time it posted a tremendous growth trajectory in relevance, capacities and prosperity for all stakeholders.

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“There can’t be a better choice than Joseph as my successor at this period in the life of our newspaper company.

“He is a highly ethical professional with a deep understanding and knowledge of print and digital journalism. He has shown a proven commitment to higher levels of relevance and all-round growth.”

Joseph, a former editor of The PUNCH and Saturday PUNCH, has played key roles in the ideation and implementation of successful print and digital projects in the newspaper group’s publications and digital arms in the last ten years.

A winner of the Editor of the Year prizes of the Nigeria Media Merit Awards and Diamond Awards for Media Excellence at different times, and the DAME Informed Commentary prize, Joseph was the newspaper’s controller, digital and publications before his elevation into the board of the company as executive director, digital and publications in 2016.

He started his journalism career in THISDAY where he worked in all of the newspaper’s titles, and its special publication, Glitterati, at different times, before leaving as a chief correspondent to join PUNCH in 2005.

Reacting, Joseph said, “I am grateful to God for this rare privilege. I’m also grateful to the board for the confidence reposed in me. I am honoured to succeed Mr Osinubi, whose track record of outstanding accomplishments is nonpareil in the industry.

“It is a time of great uncertainty for print and digital newspapers but as Sun Tzu wrote, ‘in the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity’. I intend to make my stewardship a period of relentless search for opportunities to grow our platforms, audience and revenue, and to create sustainable value for all our critical stakeholders.”

He described PUNCH journalists as some of the most outstanding reporters and editors in the industry.

He said, “With the support of my colleagues within and outside our editorial units, I intend to sustain the culture of corporate excellence and the tradition of timely, courageous, pro-people journalism that has stood PUNCH in good stead in the last two decades.”

Joseph holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Obafemi Awolowo University and a master’s degree in Digital Journalism (distinction) from the Middlesex University, United Kingdom. He is an alumnus of the Lagos Business School Advanced Management Programme; the General Management Programme of Cranfield University, United Kingdom and the International Institute for Journalism, Germany’s newspaper management programme. He is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and the Institute of Directors of Nigeria.

PUNCH