THE FOUNDERS

AKUNNA COOK​

Chief Executive Officer/ FOUNDER

Akunna Cook is the visionary CEO and Founder of Next Narrative Africa, a media production company telling African stories for global impact. Akunna recently led Africa policy at the State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. She was also the inaugural Executive Director of the Black Economic Alliance, and has successfully led initiatives in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. The Nigerian-American diplomat, lawyer, and strategist now brings her multi-sector track record of success and passion to the mission of producing entertaining and socially impactful African stories for global audiences. Akunna Cook is a proud graduate of Howard University and holds a masters degree from Harvard University and law degree from the Yale Law School.

EMMANUEL UDUMA

Chief Creative Officer/ CO-FOUNDER

Emmanuel Kalu Uduma is Co-Founder of Next Narrative Africa. With a bias for media for development, Kalu has been a writer/producer with the BBC Media Action working on social behavior change projects like Wetin Dey, a TV drama series on HIV and the DFID-funded Story-Story: Voices From the Market, the longest running radio drama series in Nigeria, focused on health and citizens rights through social impact programming. He would go on to produce MTVShuga Radio Naija, a 12-episode radio drama series on HIV/AIDS targeted at at-risk young people on the African continent, as well as executive produce and show run two full seasons of MTV Shuga Nigeria, the global award winning TV series about young people navigating choices around HIV, produced for Viacom Intl. (now Paramount).