Reputation, Remote Work, and Raising Your Rates: Regis on Building a Global Brand from Ibadan, Nigeria

Regis left a broadcasting career in 2016—his words, “the day I fired my boss”—to build Brandnet, a marketing agency that replaces a company’s entire in-house marketing team at a fraction of the cost. Today he works with founders in the US and Europe, runs a decentralised team, and speaks candidly about what it actually takes for Nigerian professionals to earn global respect. He sat down with us to talk about building a career from Ibadan, the challenges that come with a Nigerian passport, and why your name is your most valuable currency.

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Tell us about Brandnet and what you actually do.

The idea came from broadcasting. As a TV and radio host, I kept seeing the same problem: business owners needed visibility and had no real structure for it. Setting up an agency felt like the natural answer. Brandnet is a network of brands—ones we manage, ones we create, ones we help build each other.

The model we’ve landed on is replacing a company’s in-house marketing department entirely. In the US, a minimal two-person marketing team costs at least $7,000 a month before benefits and 401k. We deliver the same output—honestly more—at about 25% of that cost. No benefits, no overheads, just a subscription. That gives us a front-row seat to Google best practices and the ability to move at real scale.

What’s been the biggest payoff beyond the income?

The global perspective. I served as global CMO and VP at the US-Africa Trade Council before pivoting to Brandnet, and the most valuable thing that experience gave me was learning to look at what works in other markets and bring it home.

There’s a concept I think about a lot: linear innovation. Something might be considered outdated in Latin America or Europe but simply doesn’t exist yet in Lagos. The opportunity isn’t to reinvent it—it’s to study the cultural nuances, cross-pollinate, and introduce it here. That gap is a genuine competitive edge, and it’s how I approach most of what we do.

Working globally also cushions you from unstable local economic policy. When you think from the global street, one country’s inflation or currency crisis doesn’t capsize you. The bigger mindset shift—one I want more Nigerians to fully grasp—is that we are global citizens. You don’t have to be in New York to work in New York.

What does remote work actually look like from Nigeria?

COVID, for all its devastation, accelerated something that was already overdue. It forced the world to accept that proximity and productivity are not the same thing. I’ve watched people close deals from Ibadan with counterparts in New Zealand. Virtual conferences, deal rooms, investment calls—it all became normal overnight, and that shift is permanent.

But the infrastructure part is entirely on you. Good internet isn’t optional. Stable power isn’t optional. Silence isn’t optional. If you’re serious about competing globally and you’re in a noisy, unstable environment, downsizing to a quieter place with reliable power and connectivity is a better investment than the extra space. Your environment shapes your output.

For teams, the standard is agility and real-time visibility. “I’m working on it” is not a status update. Everyone should be able to see exactly where a task stands at any moment, regardless of timezone.

What challenges have you had to navigate, and how?

The hardest one is what I call the Nigerianization of workers—and it shows up in two painful ways.

The first is reputation. Nigeria’s country branding problem is real. Before you even open your mouth, the perception of fraud and criminality precedes you. I know freelancers who have worked for 17 years without ever disclosing they’re Nigerian—aliases, VPNs, rerouted identities. The answer, slow as it is, is intentional reputation-building. In some cases, that means strategic pro bono work to demonstrate your quality before you name your rate. Not exploitation, not charity—a timed, deliberate demonstration of value. When you’ve proven it, you charge. And you charge more than you would have.

The second is pay discrimination. I’ve seen it in black and white: a Nigerian professional listed at $72,000 per year in a startup’s investor documents—because the pitch needed it—then offered $20,000 in the actual employment letter. The Nigerianization of salaries is real. If you’re working with startups on deferred payment, understand what you’re agreeing to before you commit. A great vision is not a guaranteed paycheck.

PayPal’s long exclusion of Nigeria is another chapter in this story. It set Nigerian fintech back by years and cost professionals real income and opportunity, not because of anything they did, but because of where they were born. But every obstacle has a silver lining—that exclusion forced us to build our own financial infrastructure. Cenoa is part of what came out of that.

Any regrets looking back?

Two honest ones. The first is not having enough of a backup plan when I left broadcasting. I walked out on sentiment, not strategy. We weathered it, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Have your plan, and then have a backup for your backup.

The second is overcommitting to startups on the promise of deferred payment. There is no guarantee any startup closes its funding round, and I’ve watched talented people spend a year or two on that promise only to walk away with nothing—or worse, a lowballed offer that doesn’t resemble what was on the pitch deck. Know when to walk away, even when you believe in the vision.

What habits make your work more efficient day-to-day?

One thing above everything else: invest in your reputation. It compounds. When your name carries weight, clients come to you already sold. I’ve had people call me from cities I’d never reached out to, tell me they know what I do and what I charge, and ask when I can start. That conversation never happens from a cold email campaign.

LinkedIn is a good example of where most people get this wrong. It’s flooded with pitches and metrics, and the human element has almost disappeared. But the real decisions—the ones that move money—still get made through relationships. People will scroll past a hundred inboxes and still call the one person a trusted colleague vouches for. I had two clients from different countries meet at a conference in Atlanta, realise they both knew me, and end up doing business with each other on the strength of that shared connection. Word of mouth is the holy grail of marketing, and it’s available to anyone willing to build it.

Practically speaking: get your environment right first (power, internet, quiet), run your team with real-time accountability tools, and be human first. Everyone wants to be AI-first right now. Be the human who uses AI to go faster.

What would you tell someone just trying to break in?

Start with character. Your ethical foundation will be tested—especially as a Nigerian, where one compromising situation can confirm every negative stereotype and make things harder for everyone who comes after you. Ask yourself: can I defend this? If the answer is no, walk away.

Then invest in reputation relentlessly. Connect for relationships, not transactions. Bring humanity back to business—sometimes that means charging a client less than you could, being transparent about what you actually spent, and giving back what’s left. That’s how you build the kind of loyalty where price stops being the first conversation.

And take your infrastructure seriously. If you want to compete globally, treat your workspace, tools, and connectivity as professional investments, not afterthoughts. You cannot build a global career from a chaotic foundation.