By Chris Onuoha

Nigeria’s serial entrepreneur and cultural scholar, David Lanre Messan aka DLM has been appointed as the campaign manager for one of the Oxford councillorship hopefuls, Dianne Regisford’s in the United Kingdom. Lanre Messan will be working in the capacity of a Director, Strategist Communication and Digital Content Management.

DLM who is currently at Oxford University as an Academic Visitor to James Currey African Studies is certainly not a regular entrepreneur. Aside from his passion for helping entrepreneurs transform their ideas into real, thriving businesses, DLM apparently has a knack for providing help outside of the traditional business landscape.

DLM got connected with Dr. Dianne Regisford through a mutual friend, Kelvin Kellman who made the recommendation to Dianne. Kellman was aware of David’s political background, notably because of the role he played in Atiku Abubakar’s last presidential campaign in 2019.

DLM worked as a Grassroot and Technology Strategist. Atiku was the main rival of Muhammadu Buhari who was president at the time and was running for a second term which he did win. David also worked as a Communications Consultant for the Lagos State Government under Babatunde Raji Fashola’s regime.

David Lanre Messan who spoke to Vanguard reporter noted that he is willing to work with Dr. Regisford on her campaign because of her leadership qualities and how much she is doing to promote cultural diversity and inclusion in the Oxford community.

“Dr. Dianne Regisford (Ph.D) is a Social Sculpture practitioner, poet, ARTivist (artist-activist), and social impact entrepreneur. Her academic research focuses on Belonging as a pathway to creating an equitable and just society. Dianne is a passionate campaigner for racial equity and social justice for communities less heard, less seen, and undervalued in Oxford.

“Born in Oxford, Dianne is acutely aware of the divide between the “town & gown” and through her work, she creates participatory approaches to community engagement to ensure voices less heard are amplified.

As a consultant and strategic advisor, Dianne works tirelessly with community-based organizations on projects which meaningfully tackle inequality in Oxford,” Lanre-Messan said.

Earlier this year, DLM joined the James Currey Society as a Scholar, where he got to learn from and interact with the likes of Dr. Nwelue Onyeka who founded the society, James Currey, on whose legacy the society was founded, and other literary experts like Stephen Embleton.

David says he made this move to equip him with the literary skills and knowledge required to tell the story of entrepreneurship from an African perspective.

Formerly an idea strategist, DLM now works full time as a startup builder and investor in his company, FirstFounders Inc., a venture studio. The company works together with aspiring founders to bring tech-driven ideas to life through a 4-step process:

Ideation: Together with the founder(s), extensive research is conducted to generate ideas and establish the vision for the new startup.

Validation: The digital product is designed and exposed to target users to confirm the business idea and method of distribution.

Creation: The idea is built out into a marketable and investable product and a go-to-market strategy is created. FirstFounders also assists the startup in recruiting its first employees for full operation.

Spin-Out: Founders are introduced to top investors to raise external funding for growth and scale.