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Joan Okorodudu is a prominent Nigerian fashion entrepreneur, model scout, skincare technician, and former Nigerian beauty queen.
Okorodudu received the prestigious Lifetime Presidential Award on October 7, 2024, as a result of her steadfast devotion to promoting African artists, culture, and fashion as well as her support of the Kakuma Refugees camp and young women.
Mrs. Joan Okorodudu was born in 1958 in Auchi, Nigeria, and attended a local government primary school, Ebu Lokoja Kogi State, and Itohan Girls Grammar School in Benin City, where she actively participated in athletics, which earned her a scholarship to Boston University in Massachusetts, where she earned a degree in political science.
During her NYSC, she applied for Miss Nigeria (Kaduna Zone) and won, which got her to the final in Lagos, where she won a car as the first runner-up.
During her early age, she was politically active as a member of the United Party Nigeria’s youth section. Also, she was active in American politics during Bill Clinton’s administration and she met President Biden when he visited the area for his campaigns and campaigned locally for Clinton in Wilmington, Delaware.
Her journey to the fashion world started at age 5 when she posses to take photographs like a model.
Later, during a trip to South Africa in 2007, Joan and her colleague Juliet Morgan now Mrs. Eke found themselves making an unplanned decision that gave birth to Isis Models Africa, a leading modeling agency in Africa after the South Africa Fashion Week and has regularly produces talented models that walk the most sought-after runways in Paris, Milan, New York, and other cities.
She is also the founder of an NGO dedicated to empowering young African talent, Runways to Freedom as well as Nigeria’s Next Super Model, a platform that has produced talents featured in international fashion events in Madrid, Paris, Milan, and other fashion capitals.
She is married to retired air vice-marshal and two-star Air Force General of the Nigerian Air Force Terry Omatsola Okorodudu, whom she met on the same flight. The couple have a son Bidemi Okorodudu.