Media executive and author Toyosi Etim Effiong has revealed that her marriage to prominent Nigerian actor and filmmaker Daniel Etim Effiong directly influenced her career transition into celebrity talent management.
Speaking during a recent podcast appearance, she explained that she noticed a significant lack of professional structure and legal frameworks in her husband’s career and in the wider Nollywood industry during the early years of their marriage.
Leveraging her background as a showbiz organiser in New York, United States, she decided to introduce standard international entertainment practices to the local film industry, using her husband as her primary client.
“I am married to Daniel Etim Effiong, Nigeria’s finest filmmaker and actor. Earlier on in the marriage, I realised that there wasn’t a lot of structure in his career and the Nigerian movie industry generally,” she stated.
She criticised the highly informal nature of talent bookings in the sector, where producers negotiated actor fees over the phone without formal paperwork or respect for the artistes’ schedules.
“Producers just casually call actors and ask when they will be available for a shoot, and when the actor is available, they start bargaining for the artiste’s fee over the phone like market women. Sometimes, you will clear your calendar for a shoot, and the producer will call and tell you it has been cancelled at the last minute. There was no structure or legal framework,” she added.
Toyosi noted that she stepped in as a self-appointed manager to review her husband’s film contracts, manage his digital presence, and streamline his professional engagements. Following the immediate success of her intervention, several of her husband’s colleagues in the movie industry approached her to manage their brands as well, thereby establishing her talent management firm, Toyosi.
