CKROWD announces two new members to join its advisory board

The two new advisory board members, Katherine McVicker and Adeleye Fabusoro will provide independent advice, strategic insight and foresight, support and scrutiny for Ckrowd's growth.

Africa content creators have not yet caught up with their contemporaries in other parts of the world. There are still a lot of loopholes and no structure to the monetisation of African content. Furthermore, consumers who want exclusively African content are mostly at a loss on where to get them.

Ckrowd is a content streaming service that is trying to bridge the gap between African content suppliers and their global content consumers. They create a marketplace that provides the opportunity for content creators to earn income.

Content creators give unique, exclusive and engaging content experiences to their consumers. In return, the consumers support African content creators by giving monetary exchanges for the different levels of access granted to them.

The original and exclusive African content in education, information and entertainment is distributed directly to local-global consumers in a short video and live stream format.

In its mission to export African local content for global consumption, the direct-to-consumer platform has appointed new members who will use their global expertise to drive change across innovation in the technology and entertainment industries.

Ckrowd announced the appointment of Katherine McVicker and Adeleye Fabusoro, as executive board members to its Advisory Board, effective February 9, 2022. Adeleye has also been officially appointed as a venture partner of the company. With these appointments, the Ckrowd’s Board will be expanded to 10 advisers.

The new board members will provide independent advice, strategic insight and foresight, support and scrutiny for the company’s growth. They come from a range of backgrounds across the music and entertainment sectors, bringing an impressive array of expertise in guiding Ckrowd to deliver its strategic objectives and implement new strategies to boost productivity and serve the global creators and digital economy.

Kayode Adebayo, CEO of Ckrowd said: "Our goal is to build a formidable global team with capacity and experience around solving problems that talents face day to day in their career. The major ones are how to monetize their talents, knowing who exactly their consumers are and understanding how to cater for them at scale. So, I’m delighted to welcome these two experts to the Ckrowd Board".

He also added they join us at an exciting and important time as we launch new technology tools and strategies that will start to transform how we work and serve creators across different creative disciplines. Each brings a wealth of experience from careers in innovation, music, law, entertainment and digital publishing - all critical elements of our future work. I look forward to working with them in the coming weeks and months.

Katherine McVicker is the founder and director of Music Works International, and co-founder of Cultural Connections of Africa (CCA). In her 30-year career as an agent, specializing in jazz and world music, she’s helped to develop the international careers of a wide range of artists, including Norah Jones, Richard Bona, Lizz Wright, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Because of her work across the globe, she brings experience in working with arts professionals in many cultures and has successfully built partnerships and networks in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

She said: "I’m honoured and excited to be on the Advisory Board for Ckrowd. The Ckrowd platform is at the forefront of streaming initiatives.  In addition to providing unique content to Africans at home, the plan to go global and reach the diaspora of Africans and other Afro-descendant groups living in other parts of the world offers endless opportunities to grow and succeed.

The focus on allowing artists to monetize their content also helps to address one of the major inequities in today’s digital market and even the playing field for creatives to be treated fairly. Bravo, Ckrowd!"

Adeleye is one of the biggest indigenous language content creators for Africa Magic on DSTV. He is a consummate business executive and serial entrepreneur with a specific focus on media and creatives. Armed with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theatre Arts B.A. (Hons), and M.B.A.

With a focus on strategic management & marketing as well as a certificate in film making from the prestigious New York Film Academy, he runs Rare Edge Media, a multimedia content production organisation where he churns out flagship content especially in the indigenous Yoruba language.

He commented: Ckrowd is the next oil for content creators. It gives you the flexibility and capability to determine your income. Ckrowd will create a closer affinity between the content creator and fans. Importantly it is global. This is the time for Africa.

These appointments will contribute to driving Ckrowd’s key focus on making an impact that matters in the communities in which it operates. It would also strengthen the role of innovation, culture, entertainment and technology amongst content creators to inspire change, revenue growth and profile’s creativity, especially in lower-middle-income countries.

Ckrowd (pronounced as "crowd") distributes African content in information, education, and entertainment to a global audience in short video and live-stream format. It has been created to solve the problem of poor revenue for African and Afro-Diaspora content creators by allowing them to profit from revenue opportunities on the platform.

Ckrowd also provides an online portal where original, exclusive varieties of African content are well organised, can be accessed with ease and consumed as on-demand short videos and live series