Meet the founder betting Africa’s next entertainment giant will be built on ownership, not just storytelling

A story can be licensed, remade, adapted, streamed across continents, or transformed into an entire franchise, generating value long after its first release. That reality has reshaped the global entertainment business.

It is also the philosophy guiding Oyinkansola Owoyemi as she builds Faaji Productions. While many production companies focus on creating the next hit, Oyinkansola is thinking beyond opening weekend success.

Her ambition is to create African intellectual property that can travel across borders, reach global audiences, and retain its ownership and value on the continent where it was created.

“We’ve never had a storytelling problem. We have extraordinary writers, actors, directors and producers. What we’ve had is an ownership problem,” she said.

It’s a simple observation, but one that eventually led her to start Faaji Productions, a premium production company with ambitions that stretch far beyond making television. While many studios focus on producing content for broadcasters and streaming platforms, Oyinkansola is trying to build something she believes Africa needs more of: an entertainment company whose biggest asset isn’t a camera or a studio set, but the intellectual property it owns.

It’s why she’s independently financing GRIT, an upcoming reality series hosted by actress Ini Dima-Okojie. Shot in Kenya, the show brings together 11 strangers under one roof to compete for a ₦50 million grand prize. Along the way, they’ll navigate high-stakes challenges, forge strategic alliances, test shifting loyalties, and outwit one another in a game where trust is fragile and deception can be the ultimate advantage.

To many people, it’s simply another reality series project entering Nigeria’s growing entertainment industry. To Oyinkansola, it’s the first chapter in a much bigger story.

“I’ve always been fascinated by businesses that create long-term value. My professional career has been in business strategy and sustainability, so I’ve naturally developed a habit of looking beyond what’s successful today and asking a different question: who owns the assets that will still matter twenty years from now?” she said.

When she began asking that question about entertainment, the answer surprised her. Africa was producing global stars, globally recognised music and films watched across continents. Yet the continent wasn’t creating nearly enough entertainment assets capable of generating value for decades.

That realisation became the foundation of Faaji Productions. “I’m not trying to prove that Africa can tell great stories. We settled that a long time ago. I’m trying to prove that Africa can own the world’s next great entertainment formats,” she said.

It’s a subtle difference, but one that changes the way she thinks about every project. Oyinkansola likes to make one distinction whenever people ask what Faaji Productions actually does. “Production is what we do. Ownership is why we do it,” she said.

Most production companies build content for clients. Faaji wants to build intellectual property. That means every idea is evaluated differently. Before asking whether audiences will enjoy a show, the company asks whether the idea has the potential to become something much bigger.

“We’re not building around one show or one season. We’re building an institution,” Oyinkansola said.

At Faaji Productions, every project is judged by a deceptively simple question: can this become enduring African intellectual property? If the answer is yes, the next question is not whether it can succeed locally, but how far it can travel.

Every project at Faaji Productions is measured against that standard. The goal is to build assets that can continue generating value years after their initial release. If an idea has the potential to travel across markets, evolve into new formats and remain culturally relevant long after its debut, then it is worth pursuing.

That philosophy is one of the reasons Oyinkansola made the unusual decision to independently finance GRIT, Faaji’s flagship reality series hosted by Ini Dima-Okojie.

“The biggest challenge has been choosing the harder path. It’s much easier to build when someone else is financing the vision, but ownership often requires patience and sacrifice,” she said.

There were opportunities to accelerate growth by giving away more control, she admits. But speed was never the primary objective. Building a company with long-term ownership at its core mattered more.

For Oyinkansola, ownership is not simply about protecting creative freedom but fundamentally changing the economics of storytelling. A successful television format, she argues, derives its value not only from the audience it attracts today but from the opportunities it creates tomorrow. Shows can be licensed into new territories, adapted into different markets, expanded into additional formats and continue generating revenue long after their first broadcast.

“A successful show isn’t valuable only because people watch it today. It’s valuable because it can be licensed, adapted into different territories, expanded into new formats and continue creating value long after it first airs,” she said.

Without ownership, creators often find themselves contributing to someone else’s long-term asset rather than building one of their own.

But that does not mean she dismisses the role of investors, broadcasters or streaming platforms. In fact, she sees them as essential partners in the industry’s growth. The difference is that she wants Faaji to enter those relationships from a position of strength.

“They’re incredibly valuable partners. But partnerships are strongest when both sides bring something valuable to the table. I wanted Faaji to own that value first,” she said.

Self-financing has also reshaped her understanding of entrepreneurship. When every decision directly affects your own capital, priorities become clearer, and discipline becomes non-negotiable.

“When it’s your capital, every decision matters. You become very intentional about where resources go because you’re thinking beyond one production. You’re thinking about building a business that lasts,” she said.

The experience has taught her to think differently about risk. Rather than avoiding it, she has learned to evaluate it carefully, ensuring every investment either improves the audience experience or strengthens the long-term value of the intellectual property being created.

It has also reinforced a lesson many entrepreneurs struggle to learn: the power of restraint. “I’ve learned that saying no is one of the most valuable skills an entrepreneur can develop,” she said.

That same discipline extends to the stories Faaji chooses to tell. Oyinkansola has little interest in creating content designed to dominate social media conversations for a weekend before disappearing from public memory. She is drawn instead to stories that reveal something meaningful about people and leave a lasting impression on audiences.

“We’re interested in ideas that reveal something true about people. I think they create conversations long after the credits roll,” she said.

Authenticity plays a central role in that process. For Oyinkansola, building globally successful entertainment does not require sacrificing cultural identity. If anything, she believes the opposite is true.

“The stories that travel furthest are often the most specific. People everywhere understand ambition, betrayal, friendship, loyalty, sacrifice and hope. Those emotions don’t belong to one country,” she said.

Rather than trying to imitate successful international formats, she believes African creators should focus on telling universal stories through an African lens. It is a philosophy that sits at the heart of GRIT, a show she describes as more emotionally grounded and visually elevated than traditional reality television. The ambition is not simply to entertain but to create a premium format capable of resonating with audiences across different cultures while remaining unmistakably African.

Yet Oyinkansola’s vision extends beyond television itself. As an African woman building an independent entertainment company in an industry traditionally shaped by gatekeepers, she has never been interested in waiting for permission to pursue her ambitions.

“When I decided to build Faaji Productions, I made a decision very early on that I wasn’t going to wait to be given permission to build,” she said. “I was going to build successfully in this industry regardless.”

Over time, she has become less focused on gaining access to existing opportunities and more interested in creating new ones.

“There will always be rooms you’re invited into and rooms you have to build yourself,” she said. “I’ve become far more interested in creating opportunities than simply accessing existing ones.”

Part of her motivation comes from wanting to expand perceptions of what African women can achieve within the entertainment industry. She hopes Faaji’s success will inspire more women to see themselves not only as creators, but as founders, studio owners and builders of globally competitive businesses.

Beyond that, she hopes the company contributes to a broader shift within Africa’s creative economy. While she acknowledges the importance of international partnerships and investment, she believes African creators should think more intentionally about ownership.

“I want us to think not only about getting commissioned, but about building intellectual property that we own,” she said. “Africa doesn’t need to choose between partnership and ownership. We need both.”

That idea ultimately captures what Faaji Productions is trying to become. The company may produce television, but television is only part of the story. GRIT may be the first expression of her vision, but Oyinkansola is already thinking far beyond a single show.

“I don’t want Faaji Productions to be known only for GRIT,” she said. “I want us to become one of the defining entertainment studios to come out of Africa.”

She hopes that one day audiences around the world will enjoy globally successful formats without realising they all originated from the same African company. If that happens, the achievement will be about more than television. It will be proof that Africa can do more than tell great stories. It can own them too.