Femi Soneye’s identify hardly ever makes headlines. Yet, for 20 months, he managed how Nigeria’s nationwide oil firm defined itself to the general public, serving as Chief Corporate Communications Officer at NNPC Limited throughout one among its most scrutinised intervals.
Soneye took on that function carrying a journalism background constructed throughout three continents, having labored in Nigeria, Australia, and the United States earlier than settling into Nigerian public relations, a breadth few home communicators can declare.
Before NNPC, he had already constructed his personal media platform, founding and publishing Per Second News, a multimedia outlet that gave him firsthand expertise working a newsroom fairly than merely advising one. That report earned recognition.
In 2025, the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations named him Spokesperson of the Year, beating communications heads from Shell, NIMASA and the Nigeria Police Force for the title. His standing extends past Nigeria. Soneye holds membership in the National Association of Black Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists in the United States, alongside the Nigerian Union of Journalists at residence.
Colleagues hint his working fashion to ‘Omoluabi,’ the Yoruba customary of integrity and good character, and to his Ijebu Igbo roots, a calm disposition that stood out inside an trade identified for aggressive public relations techniques.
The clearest marker of that self-discipline got here in June 2025, when Soneye resigned from NNPC after 20 months in workplace, selecting to return to journalism and make extra room for his household fairly than prolong a highly effective state appointment.
Few communications executives stroll away from that form of put up voluntarily. For Soneye, the spirit that drove that call is the exact same intuition that constructed his popularity in the primary place: measured timing over visibility.
Clearly, the person, in contrast to many on the identical path, is aware of that credibility in communication is constructed via consistency and restraint fairly than fixed presence in the information. Little surprise he’s excellent.
