Elumelu is acknowledged as one of the most influential corporate leaders in Nigeria and a prolific African entrepreneur of the new generation. To Tony Elumelu, chairman of United Bank of Africa Plc, leadership of a board is not child’s play but one that requires the extra-ordinary. He is of the opinion that it is a position that thrives on expertise, the rare ability to see beyond what others can see and having the right composure to calm down a stormy session with maturity and the requisite mien, which you can bring to bear to capitalise on opportunities and also overcome threats that the company is facing. Above all, he said the chairman is supposed to be a very good cheerleader, so that when his team is down, he can lift their spirits, and when they are up, he can multiply their strengths many times over. To lend credence to his words, Elumelu’s journey to recognition in business circle and the respect he earned as a quintessential boardroom leader hinges on his year of experience in banking, coupled with his early exposure to operations within the boardroom.
The United Bank of Africa Plc he leads wears a corporate carriage as Africa’s global bank. Elumelu, a towering corporate personality for a bank that was struggling to retain its local market share, is a clear reflection of how he picks up the smallest business idea and makes it big. That is precisely what this banker/economist did in Nigeria banking that dramatically reconfigured the industry’s long-established competitive league and placed the leadership baton in his own hands.
A high-powered new growth engine has since fired off at Transcorp with Elumelu’s entry that actualised new investments in power, oil and gas, agriculture and hospitality.
The corporate whiz kid has a big heart for business that is often hidden from competitors the time he appears in the scene. He was not taken seriously when he picked up a bank gasping for survival breath and renamed it Standard Trust Bank Ltd [STB], in the Nigeria’s troubled financial markets in 1997.
Having defined a viable path, Elumelu applied an innovative service to win the hearts of clients. The response the market gave him was the equivalent of discovering gold – setting the bank on one of the fastest growths seen in history of the industry. In terms of service quality and products innovation, STB became the reference mark in corporate turnaround success in the sector
Elumelu is the man who found a meeting point for the parallels, the strength in business of an old generation bank and the growth driving services quality of a new generation bank. This great corporate titration added the quickening spirit of STB to the massive business volume of UBA. Which birthed the creation in 2005 of new UBA that emerged as one of the largest financial services organisation in Africa, operating in 19 African countries, as well as New York, London and Paris. The merger appears to have defined the path of consolidation that Nigerian banking followed just a year after.
It takes a vision to rightly define a corporate purpose and a big heart to drive its realisation. Elumelu has demonstrated he possess the two. By far, his greatest attributes that sets him apart in the business space is the ability to think big but begin small. A business coup is sure to happen when an organisation that has the desire to rule the industry is under rated or disregarded while it is painstakingly working on its dream.
This is indeed the corporate story of how Elumelu moved from the insignificance of taking over a troubled bank in 1997 to presiding over one of Africa’s largest banks, through a just, concise and painstakingly efficient leadership. What he has accomplished in the banking sector, he has taken across to other sectors of the economy even at a continental level. He has created business across the continent, in sectors critical for economic development. His vision is to create institutions that will be role models for African business. He is the chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African investment holding company he founded in 2010, with investment in financial services, power generation, oil and gas, agribusiness, real estate and hospitality.
(Leadership)
