Steve Babaeko:Chief Executive Officer X3M Ideas

Steve Babaeko (born June 1, 1971, Kaduna) is a Nigerian advertising and music executive, public advocate, founder of X3M Ideas, a Lagos- based digital advertising agency that was listed in 2017 as "one of Nigeria’s fastest growing communication agencies. He is also the founder/CEO of X3M Music, a record label that has as it’s marquee act, among others, Nigerian singer-songwriter Simi. He was on the 2018 jury of the New York Advertising Festival.

Babaeko attended the Federal School of Arts and Science in Suleja, Niger State for his A-levels, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for his first degree in Theatre Arts, though he said he had always wanted to be in advertising. He did his mandatory National Youth Service (NYSC) at NTA Kaduna. He began his career in 1995 with MC&A Saatchi & Saatchi where he worked for five years; then to Prima Garnet Ogilvy (agency), where he also worked for another five years; and 141 Worldwide, where he worked for seven years as creative director. He left in 2012 to set up X3M Ideas.

Babaeko is currently the Publicity Secretary of the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), Associate member of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), and current Chairman of the Lagos Advertising & Ideas Festival (LAIF). In August 2012, Babaeko founded X3M Ideas as "a full fledged advertising company" He also founded X3M Music, a record label, which has Praiz and Simi as its prominent stars.

He says he founded X3M Ideas with "a pretty small team of about 8 persons" after he turned 40 and "started seeing the world from a totally different perspective." The company, which now has a staff of over a hundred people, moved to its purpose-built office complex in Lagos in 2016 He hailed advertising expert George Omoraro for his approach to marketing. Since 2006, Babaeko has been married to photographer Yetunde Ayeni Babaeko. Yetunde Ayeni-Babaeko (born 1978) is a Nigerian photographer. Yetunde Ayeni-Babaeko was born in Enugu, Eastern Region, Nigeria in 1978. Her father was Nigerian and her mother was German. She moved to Germany as a child, attending secondary school there and completing a photography apprenticeship at Studio Be in Greven. In 2005 she returned to Nigeria. In 2007 she opened her own studio, Camera Studios, based in Ikeja.

Ayeni-Babaeko's 2014 exhibition 'Eko Moves', in collaboration with the Society for Performing Arts of Nigeria (SPAN), portrayed dancers in public spaces in Lagos. Her 2019 exhibition 'White Ebony' highlighted the situation of people with albinism. Yetunde is married to Steve Babaeko. Babaeko (Lagos man or the man from Lagos) was not his family name; it was the first name given to his grandfather by his great grandfather to honour a Lagos lawyer who won him a significant court case against the monarch of his village. The generation after, including Steve’s father, who served in the Nigerian Army, adopted the name as their last name.

His parents had almost nothing. While his late father served in the Nigerian Army, his mother was a trader who turned their small room into a beer depot. Steve had tough times growing up as the eldest among his parents’ six children. "They all lived in a room,” “There was this little curtain dividing the room. So, there was a frontal part where they had chairs, his dad’s table with his stereo system and records, and a few things. Adjacent to the frontal part, they had the iron bed where his parents slept, and under the iron bed, there were mats. So, whenever they wanted to sleep, they would bring out the mats and sleep. It was tough. If any of them ate once a day, that person were considered lucky. It was tough growing up for him.”

It was in 1981 that he got the first real glimpse of his family’s poverty status. “He was only 10 years old when he realized, for the first time in his life, that his family was acutely poor,” This reality helped him through the many rough patches he walked through and fueled his ambition, driving him to make the most of any opportunity. It also fueled his determination to go to school a midst the adversity he faced from an uncle. Who believed his education at a government college was too expensive for the family. He asked Steve to drop out and register as an apprentice at a fridge repairer workshop.

He was confident about proving his uncle wrong. For Steve, confidence and strong will have never been an issue. Despite the adversity, He bagged a degree in Theatre Arts from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in Kaduna. After the mandatory national youth service, Steve recognized that for him to bring any of his dreams to fruition, he would have to move far away from home. In 1995, he packed his bag and moved to Lagos, where he would have to squat with a chef at Durban hotel, now Golden Tulip, for two years. “The moment he made up his mind that he wanted to be an advertising practitioner, he knew he had to come to Lagos because all the major advertising platforms are in Lagos,” “ His biggest fear was, would he even find a job? Lagos is notorious for breaking you if you are unlucky. He was apprehensive because he didn’t want to fall on the side; he didn’t want to be one of those people that Lagos ends up breaking.” For those two years, Steve would stand before a mirror daily motivating himself. He said to himself “For me not to be successful in this town, then the beach must dry up.”

He saw in Lagos, the city where his dream would thrive, and the city enhanced his growth, fame and fortune. After settling in Lagos, he hunted for a job for two months before eventually landing his first Advertising job with MC&A as a copywriter/radio-TV executive. He spent five years on the first job and moved to Prima Garnet Ogilvy, where he spent another five years before he was seconded to 141 Worldwide (now Nitro 121) as Creative Director for seven years. At Prima Garnet Ogilvy he met Yetunde Ayeni, one of Nigeria’s leading photographers, who became Mrs Babaeko in 2006 and mother of his three boys.

Yetunde grew up in Germany, where her mother came from. A word of advice to anyone reading this always set your goal right, strive for survival what ever challenges you may face in life never give up . Just like Steve Babaeko from Grass to Grace he is a brave man, an achiever. He made sure he achieved his dream of changing the life of his family. And also successful, He is now a husband to a beautiful woman and also the father of handsome looking boys.