Irvine Partners opens up shop in Lagos

Lagos, Nigeria.

“Nigeria is a dynamic and important market and our clients need us there,” says Rachel Irvine. Irvine Partners CEO. “A physical presence in the country means we are able to directly service our international clients in the Nigerian market, and Nigerian clients internationally,” she adds.

The new office is in addition to Irvine Partners’ offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and is being headed up by Marian Balogun, who has extensive experience in handling external PR for multinational firms, and deep knowledge of Nigeria.

The Lagos office is already tasked with handling blue-chip accounts such as Google Nigeria, which the agency also represents in South Africa, and will be aggressively pursuing new business opportunities, says Balogun.

“Irvine Partners continues to enjoy significant expansion. We’re creating avenues for our clients, existing and new, to have reach in global markets where they can grow their business and reputation meaningfully and sustainably,” Irvine comments.

Irvine Partners kicked off its Lagos operations with the recent Google for Nigeria event, attended by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Irvine Partners worked with the Google EMEA communications teams to ensure blanket media coverage across all channels.

Google’s communications and PR Manager, West Africa, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, says the company was expecting significant output from the new Irvine Partners office. “In South Africa, Irvine Partners consistently delivers work as agile as our business, so we expect the agency to continue to deliver more of the same in Nigeria,” he says.

Irvine says her team is actively looking into other markets on the continent, specifically Kenya.