When Stanislaus Martins took the keynote stage at the 10th edition of ADICOM Days in Abidjan on April 16, 2026, he came with a message the room was not entirely ready for. Africa, he argued, has stopped moving as a single digital block. It is now visibly splitting into two tempos, and pretending otherwise is costing brands real money.
His keynote, “A Two Speed Africa: What does a dynamic market look like? Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa,” opened to a packed hall at the Sofitel Abidjan Hôtel Ivoire, where over 2,000 participants and 500 digital leaders had gathered for the anniversary edition of the gathering. A black and white portrait of Martins filled the LED wall behind him as a simple “Bonjour Abidjan” greeted the audience. The pleasantries lasted about a minute. Then he got to work.
Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, Martins said, are not just bigger African markets. They are structurally different ones, each pulling sharply ahead of the rest of the continent for very specific reasons. Nigeria carries the weight of a maturing creator economy and unmatched cultural export power. Kenya leads on mobile money sophistication and offers an English language gateway into East Africa. South Africa brings a mature advertiser base, deeper measurement standards, and the most developed regulatory environment on the continent. Together, in his telling, they are the three primary engines, while everywhere else is still building the rails.
The strategic question for brands and platforms, he put it bluntly, is no longer whether to be in Africa. It is which speed lane your business is built for, and how honest you are willing to be about that with your shareholders. A pan African strategy that does not differentiate Lagos, Nairobi and Johannesburg in media mix, creator economics and audience behaviour, he said, is not a strategy. It is a press release.
The timing of the keynote was no accident. Just weeks before ADICOM Days 2026, Aleph Group, the global digital advertising and fintech infrastructure company operating in over 130 high growth markets, promoted Martins to Managing Director, Sub Saharan Africa, the first Nigerian to hold the role. His remit, previously focused on West Africa, now covers the full region, including the commercial relationships Aleph holds with Google, TikTok, X, Spotify, Pinterest, Snapchat, AudioMack and Uber across the continent.
With more than two decades behind him at Insight Publicis, Jumia, Meta and now Aleph, Martins is one of the few voices on the continent who can speak to African digital growth from the agency floor, the client side and the platform boardroom. When he stands in Abidjan and says the continent is moving at two speeds, the brands paying attention are the ones likely to still be relevant when ADICOM Days returns in 2027.
Watch the official highlights from the 10th edition of ADICOM Days below:
ADICOM Days 2026 was held on April 16 and 17 at the Sofitel Abidjan Hôtel Ivoire. Visit adicom-days.com for the full programme.
