Theresa Ayoade, the Chief Executive Officer of Charter House, has described the sequence of events that resulted in the establishment of the highly regarded Ghana Music Awards.
Mrs. Ayoade shared the story in an interview with JoyNews that has not yet been broadcast. In the interview, she stated that her Nigerian husband got the idea when he heard two Ghanaian musicians bickering over who is the most popular at the backstage of Agoro, another TV show he came up with. Agoro is set to air in the near future.
According to the CEO, who was a sales expert at the Multimedia Group at the time as well as a creative lover, she jumped on the idea, and as a result, the nation's most reputable music award event was born.
"Agoro is a television program that was created by my husband. He was the one who designed the program, which was quite amazing considering that he was a Nigerian and didn't understand the local language, yet he still managed to design a program that was a big success.
And the Ghana Music Award was formed out of Agoro, because it was on that Agoro platform that was carrying performers to other regions of the country. "And Ghana Music Award was born out of Agoro." So while he was in Kumasi, he was at one of the gigs, and he happened to overhear Akyeame and Lord Kenya bickering about who had the most fans. Mrs. Ayoade recalled how her husband offered such recommendation after returning from his trip.
She claims that her spouse was very interested in Ghana's thriving music scene due to the emergence of various musical genres such as hip life amongst others.
As a result, following his travels across the country with the Agoro program, he proposed the idea of the Ghana Music Awards to his wife. This led to the awards' inception.
I was already working in marketing, so I stepped right into it, and together we created it, packaged it, and prepared it for launch. "So at that time, I decided to resign from my position at The Multimedia Group, which was Joy FM, so that I could join him in organizing it, and that was when Charter House was born," she explained. "It was at that time that I resigned from my position."
Mrs. Ayoade will be appearing live on your screens tonight at 9 o'clock as part of the PM: Express Personality Profile edition of JoyNews. She will be speaking with Ayisha Ibrahim about her life and the highs and lows she has experienced throughout her 24-year tenure as CEO of Charter House.