Content Quality and Business Model Innovation Key to Africa’s Creative Competitiveness MTN’s A’isha Umar Mumuni
MTN’s Chief Digital Officer has identified content quality improvement and business model transformation as the two critical factors that will determine African creative products’ global competitiveness over the next five years.
At NECLive 2025, A’isha Umar Mumuni outlined MTN’s comprehensive strategy to build platforms supporting content creator communities across video, gaming, music, education, agriculture, and health sectors, targeting substantial revenue goals across Africa.
Mumuni emphasized MTN’s role as ecosystem orchestrator rather than content producer. “We don’t create content. We coordinate the ecosystem—talking to artists, record labels, copyright holders, finding technology and infrastructure for distribution, and implementing talent discovery mechanisms. Someone has to bring everybody together,” she explained.
The digital services executive praised emerging quality improvements, citing video director TG Omori and the fashion sector as examples of excellence, but insisted continued elevation remains imperative for global competitiveness. “We’re getting there, absolutely getting there, but we have a long ways to go,” she stated.
More critically, Mumuni challenged existing business models, arguing that past approaches won’t achieve desired future outcomes. She highlighted YouTube’s success as an advertising platform that African creators underutilize. “Mobile advertising is a very small part of our business, but YouTube grew because it’s an advertising platform, as did Google and Facebook. We have to change business models,” she said.
Mumuni expressed particular concern about revenue distribution across extensive value chains, noting that creators receive insufficient compensation despite generating significant content value. She called for reimagining how money flows from content consumption to creator pockets.
The MTN executive confirmed the company has begun its multi-year journey, building technical infrastructure to support large-scale creator communities before layering on additional features and platforms. “MTN is well-placed, well-situated to bridge the gap between telcos, content creators, and consumers because we have the reach, the technology, and the name recall,” she concluded, signalling the telecommunications giant’s commitment to powering Africa’s creative transformation.
