Founder & CEO
Lola Martins is a communications strategist, a filmmaker, and the founder of TAP Creative.
Eleven years building communications functions at PwC Nigeria, Still Earth Holdings, and Dev-Afrique Development Advisors. Now on the AFI filmmaking track and publishing weekly on how AI is reshaping the creative practice.
Communications has been the through-line. Anakle, PwC West Africa, Still Earth Holdings, Dev-Afrique — different industries, different audiences, the same assignment every time. Figure out what’s actually true. Then say it in a way the right people can hear.
I didn’t start TAP Creative to choose between strategy and film. I started it because both ask the same first question — what is actually true here, and who needs to hear it.
TAP Creative is the company built around that diagnosis-first practice. The Agency works with brands globally on the strategic communications side. The Studio produces film rooted in African storytelling. Both arms run on the same discipline: understand the situation before recommending the intervention.
B.A. Public Relations & Advertising, DePaul University, Chicago (Cum Laude) · Minor in UX Design
What each role taught her
2024–2026
Dev-Afrique Development Advisors
Mapping the stakeholders first is what separates the programmes that land from the ones that stall
Communications across a Gates Foundation–funded portfolio spanning geospatial data, WASH, agriculture, and women’s economic empowerment — the $4M+ Umbrella Fund among them. The 2,500-delegate WSH Data Labs launch at AfWASA ICE 2025 worked because the communications strategy started six months before the invitations went out.
2023–2024
Still Earth Holdings
Repositioning beats a bigger ad spend, almost every time
Built the marketing and communications function from scratch for a national real estate group. Repositioning the brand and aiming at the actual decision-makers produced a 25% lead increase and ₦50M in additional loan disbursements — on the existing ad budget.
2021–2022
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Brand prestige doesn’t guarantee communications effectiveness
Campaign development and thought leadership for the West Africa firm. Even at PwC, the same diagnostic gaps surfaced — just at a higher price point. The insight: no amount of institutional credibility compensates for a brief that wasn’t honest about the audience.
2019–2020
Anakle Limited
The brief is almost never the real problem
Digital strategy for Globacom, Access Bank, Sterling Bank, Olam, Johnnie Walker, Diageo, and Malta Guinness. Seven brands, six industries, same pattern. The instinct to diagnose before building was born here.
Want to work with Lola?
Whether it’s a strategic communications challenge, a film project, or something the brief hasn’t quite captured yet — start with a note.