AMAKA CASE STUDY
Inside AMAKA’s 70K+ Creative Network & $100K+ Creator Ecosystem: How I Led Partnerships and Multi-City Events
My Role
Growth Partnership Manager (Global)
Cross-functional leadership across sales, partnerships, events, talent, and community growth.
The Challenge
AMAKA was scaling quickly and needed to strengthen partnerships, grow community trust, and execute high-impact events and campaigns across multiple countries — all with tight timelines and a lean team.
The organisation also aimed to deepen its relationship with African creators while building a consistent pipeline of brand collaborations.
I stepped into this role during a period of rapid expansion where AMAKA needed:
• a strong partnership engine tailored towards the platforms pivot
• high-quality events across global cities
• structured creator programs
• more reliable internal systems
• community engagement that resonated
And the company had to achieve this without the expensive overhead typical of global media teams.
The Solution
1. Build a scalable partnership and events pipeline
I helped develop a repeatable outreach and partnership process that made it easier to secure, manage, and deliver collaborations across regions.
2. Strengthen relationships with creators, brands, and cultural organisations
I managed communication and expectations on both sides, building trust and improving retention across AMAKA’s creator and partner networks.
3. Create opportunities for African creative talent
I helped establish and run AMAKA’s internship and creator programmes, placing emerging creatives into funded roles with global brands.
4. Improve cross-team coordination
I helped clarify workflows, timelines, and responsibilities to make partnership and content execution smoother and faster across departments.
Global Partnerships I Led & Supported
I played a core role in building and supporting AMAKA’s global partnership ecosystem across Africa, the UK, and the US. This included securing partnerships, co-leading negotiations, managing deliverables, supporting execution and ensuring alignment between creators, partners, and internal teams.
I had the pleasure of managing Amanda during her time at AMAKA, and in that time she made a meaningful impact on our team. She is smart, creative, and an absolute team player, always bringing positive energy and genuine care for the people around her. During her time with AMAKA, Amanda led several projects and became the go-to person for all our creative partners, building strong relationships and ensuring delivery of high-quality work. She also demonstrated a natural ability to build commercial partnerships and showed real potential in sales. Her true strength, however, lies in content, relationship-building, and storytelling – skills that make her stand out as both a strategic thinker and a trusted collaborator. Any team would be lucky to have Amanda, and I’m confident she will continue to thrive and add value wherever she goes.
Sibahle Alkema|Head of Marketingl AMAKA Studio
Brand Results
60+
Countries primarily US, Nigeria, the UK and South Africa
17M
Average impressions reached for AMAKA branded and editorial campaigns
2M+
In Funding, AMAKA was backed by Morgan Stanley and Equitane Ventures
10+
Influencer collaborators like Ayra Star, Yemi Alade and Naomi Cambel
Key Contributions & Strategic Impact
Led cross-functional initiatives across content innovation, global partnerships, creator programmes, and internal operations to support AMAKA’s multi-market growth.
Strengthening the Creator Pipeline + Establishing The Creator Partnership Program
During my time, AMAKA:
• paid out over $100K to African creators
• collaborated with talent across 60+ countries
• expanded its creator-facing opportunities through partnerships and sponsored placements
I directly supported:
• creator recruitment
• briefing
• communication
• content expectations
• talent support across campaigns
This improved both trust and retention within the creator community.
High-Impact Events Across Three Global Cities
I led cross-functional execution and partnership support for events in:
New York: Supported AMAKA’s activations and partnership presence during global conferences and industry gatherings.
London: Coordinated events and partnerships tailored to the African and diaspora creative ecosystem.
Lagos: Collaborated closely with team members on ground to support creative and community-driven activations.
Across all cities, I handled:
• partnership integration
• talent alignment
• creator communications
• logistical coordination
• storytelling and brand positioning around events
Establishing and Managing the AMAKA Internship Program
I helped lead the creation and operationalising of AMAKA’s cross-brand internship program — a pipeline that opened doors for emerging African creatives.
We connected and sponsored five creators to secure internships with high-impact organisations, including:
• African Business Magazine: Fully funded, part-time internship in African business media
• The Native Magazine: Paid virtual internship in pop culture and content creation
• Sony Music West Africa: Fully funded Lagos-based music industry internship
• Amplify Africa: Opportunities focused on cultural storytelling and content
• New African Woman Magazine: Editorial and features-based creative support roles
The program created real career access for young talent who previously had none.
Developed New Content Formats to Attract Our ICP
I created and contributed to the development of content designed specifically to attract AMAKA’s ideal creator and brand partners. This included launching new editorial formats, cultural features, podcasts, and unique community-facing events that strengthened AMAKA’s positioning in the creative ecosystem.
One of the standout initiatives was the Pitch IT Competition, hosted in collaboration with Sony at Sony Alpha Fest, Hella Awkward and more where creators pitched their ideas live for industry access and visibility. This event format helped showcase both emerging talent and partner brands in a way that felt authentic and high-impact.
This mix of content and experiential touchpoints made AMAKA more discoverable, more trustworthy, and more relevant to both creators and partners.
Amanda is a highly talented, creative, hard-working and wonderful colleague. I worked with her on multiple creative projects for two years at AMAKA, and her research, tenacity and passion for projects, and hard work ethic is unbeatable. She is multi-skilled in that she can write, ideate, produce, present and analyse data, and is an excellent problem-solver. Amanda’s also really friendly, fun, compassionate and fair to work with, and you would count yourself very lucky to work with her!