About Me
Growing up as that odd kid who didn’t fit in, I quickly learned to tell stories as a way of self care. To avoid being seen, I lived in the precarious world of story books. I travelled with Lemuel Gulliver to the seas, and mourned with Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I wanted to know why Macbeth couldn’t stop himself from killing the king. Why do people do what they do? Why do people care about power, beauty and loyalty? And how are the outliers, like myself, finding their voices? Family and personal tragedies deepened my search for meanings; how to make sense of the world around us and how to respond with empathy. That’s how storytelling found me.
My career's key highlight is creating Orange Academy, Africa's first practical school of brand experience. If I were to sum up my career in one statement, it’s about sitting with key stakeholders to ask and answer the critical questions: why should anyone care?
Long Bio
Kehinde Bademosi is a storytelling strategist with over two decades of combined expertise in advertising copywriting, service design, social marketing, healthcare marketing, creative leadership, and human-centered design spanning Africa, Europe, and the USA. His former employers and clients include Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore City Health Department, Coca-Cola, various international financial brands, telcos, fast-moving consumer goods, and lifestyle brands. Kehinde is the founder of Africa's first school of integrated brand experience, Orange Academy, Lagos.
As the Director of Social Innovation at the Baltimore City health department, he created a proprietary storytelling framework to address complex social problems. His storytelling framework was adopted for a multidisciplinary project at the CDC and several health departments in America to create more holistic health interventions.
Outside of work, He volunteers on projects that promote diversity and inclusion. For example, Kehinde is the convener of Pride Afrique, the premiere pan African pride. He hosts the HappinessHis.com webcast - a collection of love stories to inspire same-gender-loving men in their pursuit of happiness.
Kehinde has been published as a writer for PEN America, Maryland Institute College of Art’s BLEED, and several international journals. He currently lives and works from his studio in Venice.
“Thanks for presenting, I heard great things. One design team told me their nonprofit participant had a complete transformation after your workshop. He came back able to articulate his story much better and suddenly seemed to understand how to work with a designer. A great testament to your work! ”
“Kehinde’s personal and professional journey have prepared him to be deeply empathetic. He brings this quality to all of his work as a designer and storyteller. He’s an abundantly creative and talented designer, a strategic thinker, a motivating and collaborative partner, a deeply attentive listener and observer, and a genuinely kind person. He has a rare ability to capture and convey the feelings and life experience of others with deep authenticity and respect, and to elevate voices oftentimes unheard or ignored. He’s a true and inspiring force.”
“Kehinde’s expertise and talent in applying a human-centered approach to design, advertising, and community engagement was revolutionary to our static public health program. It was a pleasure to watch Kehinde transform not only our program’s definition of community engagement and behavioral change communication, but that of the entire health-focused government agency. Skilled in communicating with diverse audiences and tailoring his designs to the satisfaction of cross-functional teams (which included grant managers, program coordinators, epidemiologists, community outreach workers, clinicians, and political appointees), Kehinde consistently delivered a final product that perfectly addressed the needs of the program and the communities to which we were accountable. It is rare to work with a such a multi-faceted creative who is adept not only in visual design, audio production, and in-person and social media engagement, but also capable of managing the strategic administrative and operational direction of his portfolio. A keen listener, visionary, and effective communicator, Kehinde is the consummate “complete package”. I look forward to future collaborations with his company!”
“As Hopkins’ senior manager for social innovation and marketing, Bademosi works with the Baltimore City Health Department, epidemiologists, physicians, social scientists, academics and community leaders on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) grant to implement programs providing comprehensive care while incorporating the behavior, health and social statuses of men who have sex with men — especially men of color.”
“Kenny was introduced to me by one of my sales managers. He said he was attending Orange Academy - a brand building school in Lagos, and he met a teacher named Kenny who happens to be the owner too. He assures me that I Would be dazzled by Kenny’s creative prowess.
We met and I was dazzled indeed. And we made a number of creative campaigns that helped our brands significantly. One of our brands So Klin detergent became the Number One Brand by Nielsen ratings.
I would say Kenny is a creative wizard. I can never forget what he always told me
The client gives the logic, Orange Academy (he meant him) gives the magic!
And behold it always came out that way. I simply provided the business sense of our campaign and he interpreted it and created the consumer-friendly sense of it
Kenny is one of the best creative minds in my work life. Miss him so much, Miss working with him.
- Oliver Terante, Head Sales and Marketing, Eko Supreme
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“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Kehinde both as a program partner and workshop participant. In both cases, Kehinde’s instruction was engaging, intuitive, and produced great results in a very short window of time. He helped my organization improve how we tell our brand story, which gave me new insights into our work. He made a potentially difficult challenge pretty simple, effective, and fun. I’d hire him again in a heartbeat!
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“Kehinde and I worked together in 2009 on a USAID/ AI.COM project to stop the epidemic of Avian Influenza in Nigeria. I was the Senior Communications Consultant for AI.COMM on the project, and Kehinde was the Creative Director on the communications agency side, FCB, Lagos.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with Kehinde and came to know him as someone who brought insights and innovation to the team. Kehinde led the creative team that delivered the campaign materials for the major countries in West Africa. ”
