Wally Bakare's Bio

Wally Bakare has more than 25 years of experience in the cable and telecommunications industry and is currently responsible for the efficient and effective operational performance of Spectrum in the West Region covering Southern California, Arizona and Hawaii. 

Since 2018, Bakare has served on the University of California Riverside Foundation Board of Trustees, and is the 2024 chair elect of the board. In March 2024, he was elected as a board member of the Denver Art Museum. 

His Tilga Scholarships, named in honor of his father Tola Bakare, has provided financial support to 30+ college students at UCR, Tuskegee University, the Ohio State University and Rhode Island School of Design over the past 12 years.

In 2020, Wally founded Tilga Art Fund. As one of the first initiatives of the Fund, Wally partnered with the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art in Lagos Nigeria to provide thousands of prints of important art works in the museum collection to visiting high school students. 

Additionally in partnership with Rele Art Foundation in Lagos Nigeria, The Tilga Art Fund awarded grants to 12 practicing young Nigerian artists in 2020 and 2021. The Fund has since expanded to provide grants to young artists in South Africa and Uganda in 2022 and 2023 respectively, with the vision to support young artists across the African continent.

Wally is a prolific collector of contemporary and modern art by black artists across the globe. With the collection he hopes to leave a lasting legacy promoting black excellence and black culture with viewpoints from artists across Europe, Africa and the Americas.

He’s received multiple awards and recognitions over the years including: Most Influential Minorities in the Cable Industry by Cablefax Magazine (multiple years); Top Forty under 40 in Central Ohio (2010); Luminary Award by National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) (2009); Top 50 under 50 Corporate Executive on the Move by Diversity MBA Magazine (2007).

He is a proud father of Daniel Bakare, a creative and business development professional based in Los Angeles and Dawn Bakare, a marketing professional based in New York City.

2022 CableFax Magazine Most Influential Minorities in Cable 

Ohio’s Broadband and Cable Association, May 24, 2010

Columbus Business First, Jun 8, 2010,

Multichannel News, March 27, 2009

Upward African Woman Newsletter, March 2020

By Felix Hoover 

For Your News Columbus 

Sept. 30. 2010 

The lottery that Oduwole “Wally” Bakare won 15 years ago came with no option for an enormous lump-sum payment and with no guaranteed yearly payout, just a chance to live out a dream. 

Thanks to that special lottery, though, Bakare. finds himself living a modified dream as a vice president and general manager for Times Warner Cable Mid-Ohio. 

In his office at headquarters on Olentangy River Road, he gestures to a motivational poster that he hopes the 900 workers under his supervision buy into. He pulls out his cell phone and points to the private numbers of many of the city’s most prominent leaders, folks who understand his ability and desire to better the community. 

“Service is my raison d’etre,” said Bakare, who had served said. 

Even though he described himself as “spiritual, not religious,” he also said, “I know that God has a plan for my life.” 

Others have noticed how he’s carrying out that plan. including CableFAX Magazine, which in 2009 named him one of the “Most Influential Minorities in Cable,” and Business First, which this year recognized his professional and civic involvement by naming him as one of its 40 under 40. He’s 39. 

Bakare takes pride in being one of the highest ranking African-Americans in his industry, and he openly talks about how his position allows him to experience the arts locally and elsewhere. 

His roots are in Lagos, Nigeria, where he grew up in a middle-class family. He traveled a lot with his father, who was an entrepreneur. 

In 1993, a mentor handed Bakare a form that would change his life, an application for a immigration visa to this country. Of the million applicants, 55,000 were chosen in that special lottery. 

“I was blessed to be one that was picked,” Bakare said. “I came as a legal immigrant, which allowed me to start looking for a job immediately.” 

Bakare saw snow for the first time the winter he came to the States, which wasn’t the only surprise for someone who came to this country with only $100 to his name. 

How he got where he is reflects commitment, hard work and determination to surmount obstacles. The means might not resemble his childhood vision, but the results show significant elements of the original dream. 

That vision called for him to attend college in the United States. That didn‘t happen when he was an undergrad; he earned his bachelor’s from Lagos State University and a master’s from the University of Lagos. 

Eventually, however, he would add a graduate degree from the University of Maryland and would continue to upgrade his vita with training and studies offered in connection with his current job. 

Bakare was married when he came to this country in 1995. 

“We came to study youth ministries,” he said. “We had been involved with children’s ministries in Nigeria.

” The idea was to set up libraries and safe places where teens could play video games. 

Bakare is no longer married, and he didn’t set up arcades and libraries, but he’s involved with helping young people as the board vice president for Starr Commonwealth Columbus (formerly the Hannah Neil Center), as a mentor with the Oakmont Elementary School Young Gents Club of Columbus, and as a volunteer with Junior Achievement of Central Ohio and with The Ohio State University’s Todd A. Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male. He also is a volunteer coach with The Vineyard Community Center Career Clinic in Westerville. 

As a lottery selection Bakare was legally permitted to seek work as soon as he arrived in this country. With two years experience back home in computer science and a master’s degree in international law, he figured he’d pick up where he left off as soon as he arrived in the States. 

He spoke English, but with an accent that made it difficult for many people in this country to understand him, he said. 

The dream would be deferred. To make ends meet he passed out fliers in Baltimore and sold vacuum cleaners before a temp service referred him to Nextel, where he became an office clerk. 

“I filed invoices for nine months,” Bakare said. “That was my entry to telecommunication. I worked my way up.” 

In 2006, he began working for Time Warner in Los Angeles as vice president and general manager of voice services. While there he led the digital phone launch team in the L.A. region, which resulted in more than 300 percent subscriber growth throughout the TW Cable/Comcast/Adelphia integration. 

Experience Columbus must not have reached him before his move here in 2008 as vice president and general manager for Time Warner’s Southeast Ohio area. His expectations for the city were lower than an ant under a limbo bar, but he quickly learned it has much to offer, especially in the arts. 

He recently saw the touring production of Wicked and attends all performances of BalletMet. 

In his current position since May 2009 Bakare has been responsibile for field operations, which means that he’s the boss of the techs who come to homes in central, northern and southeastern Ohio. He‘s also in charges of the front desk workers who check in equipment that customers return. 

“I’m responsible for what makes the cable company a cable company,” Bakare said. 

The way he carries out those responsibilities suggests that the cable company has hit the lottery, too.