Joel Edmund Nettey
Chief Executive, Origin8 Saatchi & Saatchi, Accra, Ghana. Age: 38
With his passion for building relationships and a penchant for achieving the extraordinary, Joel Edmund Nettey is right where he believes he should be. Co-founder and chief executive of Origin8 Saatchi & Saatchi, Ghana’s leading marketing communications agency, Nettey has led his team in national and trans-Atlantic campaigns that propelled Origin8 from a small desktop publishing company to a multiple award-winning affiliate of global advertising icon Saatchi & Saatchi. Under his leadership as, consecutively, head of Account Services, chief operating officer and chief executive, Origin8 Saatchi & Saatchi’s client roster expanded to include local and international blue-ribbon companies, including MTN, Ghana’s s largest GSM network; Cadbury; Guinness Ghana Breweries Ltd.; Nestlé (across Central and West Africa); Peugeot; Société-General SSB; and L’Oréal West Africa.
At the Ghana advertising industry’s 7th Gong-Gong Awards in 2009, the firm won one platinum, four gold, and five silver Gong-Gongs, the highest number for any agency. Nettey’s successful organizing of events at the University of Ghana awakened his passion. “I was convinced that I wanted a career in marketing communications and events management. I just wasn’t sure which of the related fields would lead. Today, I do all of them.”
In addition to Origin8 Saatchi & Saatchi, Nettey manages five other companies in Ghana: AdSpaceDDB Ghana (advertising); Platform Ltd. (public relations, events and merchandising); Imprint (offset and digital printing); Spectra Studios (audiovisual productions); and Engage Ltd. (media buying). In May 2009, Business Initiative Directions awarded him the International Quality Crown in New York in recognition of “his outstanding commitment to quality and excellence in the realm of customer satisfaction, leadership, innovation and efficiency.”
Nettey holds a master’s degree in business administration and bachelor’s degree with honors in economics and psychology from the University of Ghana. During the little time he has for relaxation, you can find him with his wife, Rachel, and their three children, or watching an English Premier League soccer game.
Fun Facts
Nickname: Big Joe
Facebook or LinkedIn: Facebook
What actor should play you in a movie: Dennis Haysbert
Favorite singer: Bob Marley
Favorite R&B singer: Joe
What artist/group would you go on tour with: Jennifer Lopez
Movie theater or home theater: Home theater
