Alex Okosi is the senior vice president and managing director of MTV Networks Africa. Alex Okosi left Nigeria as a young boy in the late 1980s to seek a better future in the United States. By the early 2000s, the music executive was carving a successful career with broadcasting giant MTV, holding strategic positions within the influential medial company both in the United States and Europe.

Born in the West African country of Nigeria, Okosi moved to the United States at the age of 12. He excelled throughout school, graduated with high honors in 1994 and won a scholarship to St. Michael's college in Vermont. He credits his mentor Midge Monte for shaping his character and showing him the value of working hard to achieve your goals.

Okosi's determination and academic excellence helped him land a job with MTV straight after university. His talents soon started to shine. Okosi worked both in MTV's New York and West Coast offices before moving to London to be part of the company's international strategy team.

He first planted the seed of bringing MTV to Africa during a business lunch with the head of the broadcasting giant. Okosi was convinced about the power and value of the African market, but putting together a viable business plan was far from easy -- a lack of data on the size of the advertising market, coupled with infrastructure challenges, hampered Okosi's ambitions. 

In the mid-2000s, at a time when not many were convinced about his continent's economic potential, Okosi helped persuade his bosses to launch a dedicated MTV channel for Africa.

Okosi says the future of Africa lies with the millions of young people across the continent who are willing to work hard in order to succeed.

"One thing that I do admire about our young Africans is their spirit," he says. They're a bunch of young people that have the same aspirations as their international counterparts and they manage to succeed even despite some of the challenges that we face on the continent," he says.

Okosi returned to work in Africa after nearly 20 years in Europe and the United States, determined to use his knowledge and experience to help the continent fulfill its true potential and to change negative, stereotyped and hackneyed perceptions about Africa and to help usher in the African renaissance.

Since launching MTV Base in 2005, Alex has made it his business to champion African music, kids’ and youth culture, creating programmes, events and initiatives that allow African kids and youth to shine. 

On or off TV, Alex Okosi has tirelessly supported initiatives that motivate, empower and educate African youth, including Choose or Lose, a youth voter mobilization campaign (2011 Nigerian elections), MTV Base Meets, an initiative in which leading influencers connect with young Africans and MTV Making the Video (in which international video directors exchange skills with African film-makers). He also lends major support to the MTV Staying Alive Campaign – MTV’s HIV and AIDS awareness and empowerment campaign. More recently, the second series of sex-and-relationships drama Shuga: Love, Sex, Money made waves around the continent with its uncompromising focus on real relationships among Kenyan youth.

Following the company’s global re-brand, Alex became Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Viacom International Media Networks Africa in June 2012.  Alex is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

CNN, Africacast.