Odua Investment Company Ltd, the holding company for the joint investments owned by the six states of the South-West, has announced the appointment of Mr Abimbola Alagbe as the new Managing Director/CEO of Western Hotels.
In a statement by the Boards of O’dua Group and Western Hotels, owners of the prestigious Premier Hotel and Lafia Hotels based in Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State, the new Managing Director was charged to hit the ground running.
He is expected to deploy his wealth of experience to chart a new course of profitability for the hotels so as to justify the confidence reposed in his choice by the owners of the 53- year-old hospitality outfits.
Alagbe, 52, holds a combined-honours, bachelors degree in Language Education from the University of Ilorin and a Masters Degree in Communications & Language Arts from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He is a member and officer of many professional bodies in Nigeria.
Prior to this appointment, Alagbe was General Manager/CEO of the Ogun State government-owned Gateway Hotels chain where he rose through the ranks to become the General Manager in the over 500-bedroom hotel chain.
He brought to the job close to two decades experience in marketing, public and customer relations, accounts, housekeeping and other key operational departments of the hotels before he became the Chief Executive Officer between 1995 and 2009.
He was later redeployed to be at the helm of affairs as the Managing Director/CEO of the Gateway Tourism Development Corporation, the agency of the Ogun State Government which licenses and regulates the hospitality outfits, tourism and allied businesses in the entire state up till 2012.
That afforded him the privilege of serving at the federal level, as a member of the Presidential Council on Tourism.
He later joined the management of Ron Deotom Ltd, a hospitality and allied industry’s management outfit, offering Total Hospitality Integrated Services, based in Nigeria and the U.S. as the Chief Operating Officer.
He is widely travelled and has been in all the continents of the world.
He sits on top of several boards of business concerns as well as on the governing council of many professional bodies in Nigeria.
He is a two-term Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Ogun State chapter, one time member of the Governing Council of the NIPR, Two-term Chairman of the APBN Ogun State
Trained in Nigeria , UK and the U.S., he has since 2015 been admitted a Fellow of the U.S. government-sponsored COCHRAN educational training on value chain distribution and hospitality management.
