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Mo Abudu
She built a pan-African channel out of Lagos, then made Hollywood come to Lagos for the stories.
The rise
Born in Hammersmith, west London, on 11 September 1964 to Nigerian parents, she took a master's in human resource management at Westminster, ran training and HR for ExxonMobil and opened a recruitment firm in Lagos. In her forties she launched 'Moments with Mo', the first syndicated daily talk show on African television.
What they did
She launched EbonyLife TV on 1 July 2013, left DStv in July 2020 and turned the company into a studio. 'Fifty', 'The Wedding Party' and 'Òlòtūré' followed, then AMC's 'Nigeria 2099' in January 2020, Netflix's first multi-title African deal that June and a Sony first-look deal in 2021. 'The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives' premiered at Toronto in September 2026.
The full picture
EbonyLife's reach runs through foreign platforms: the money comes as commissions from Netflix, Sony, AMC and the BBC, and several announced titles never reached a screen. The pivot cost her the channel itself, and the return to cinemas — a Nigerian release on 4 December 2026, a London venue — is a heavy bet on thin box office.
Why it matters
Nollywood sells volume; she sells rights. By making the deals rather than the appearances, she moved the argument from whether African stories travel to who owns them when they do.
“Global audiences have, by and large, not been exposed to African content, made by Africans, so they may not yet demand that which they don't know.”