UZOMA DOZIE BEYOND DIAMOND BANK @50!

One thing Uzoma Dozie will forever be credited for is the role he played in growing the Retail Banking arm of then Diamond Bank and also overseeing the successful merger with Access Bank making the institution Africa’s largest bank with over 30 millions customers. To him, the merger was a profitable and expansive move that raised shareholders’s shares to three times its value. Not one to be sentimental, he chose wisdom and growth over sentiments and today, the merger is proving to be the huge success it was predicted to be.

Post Diamond Bank, rather than rest his laurels and enjoy early retirement, Uzoma is not slowing down as has recently unveiled his new company, Sparkle, a first-of-its-kind mobile-first platform, which will use technology to support and grow an entire community, in its millions, and retailers across the continent. It has always been said the worst thing bestowed upon man is to have an idle mind. Uzoma has moved on, created a product designed by him and cannot wait to launch his baby! In this interview with KONYE CHELSEA NWABOGOR, he talks about the joys of turning 50, his pleasures of life and further plans for his next chapter.

Many people do not know you are a photographer. How long have you had this hobby?

I started when I was 10 years old, when the world was film, and black & white and a completely different world then. Then you had film rolls, which you would insert into the camera and wind. You would take your pictures and until they were processed, which could take a week, you couldn’t tell if you had good pictures or not. It was genuine suspense. There were many incidents of disappointment in those days. Today you just point, shoot and the outcome is instantaneous and you can take shots over and over again, without thinking twice. That is kind of the expected standard these days.

What is your specialty in photography and what are your favorite places to shoot and why

That’s a question I get asked all the time and before, I would say street photography and landscape. But if I look at the pictures that I have taken over the years, they are actually across a wide range, from landscape, people, objects, streets, etc. One thing they all have in common is that they are all moments captured in time. So my favorite place so far has to be Nigeria. So many moments I have captured that just reflect the uniqueness of us and really validate the adage that people are the real natural resource of any community. People – their personalities and their quirks - bring photos to life.

You are planning a partnership exhibition with Kelechi Amadi-Obi. What is it called and what is the purpose of this exhibition?

Not just with Kelechi, but also with Victor Ehekhamemor, and Nkem Nwatorucha. I wouldn’t say it’s an exhibition necessarily, but a journey into capturing stories of Lagos that will give us an insight into the people of Lagos from different viewpoints. It’s pretty exciting stuff, and I really am looking forward to working with these incredible artists.

In our case, this merger was driven by the desire to create a platform that would provide the best of services and products coming out of Africa for our 30 million+ customers. As someone famously said, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. No sense of organic loss there, just a sense of inorganic success.

What are the benefits of the merger of Diamond and Access bank, and why are you not playing any role in the new merger?

Diamond Bank was made up of various stakeholders - but in the end, people are the most important. Customers, Staff and Owners - they are the core of everything we worked on.

The merger had a number of considerable benefits for all those involved. The owners got three times the market value over a three year period, which included a cash component equivalent to the share price.

Today, if you had held on to your stocks, they would have doubled in value. With the merger, we were able to move up our holding from a tier 2 to tier 1 dividend paying stock. In the process, we created an ecosystem of over 30 million customers in Africa, an unmatched array of products and series to serve all customers, locally and globally, which should translate to an upside in share valuation – so it was a strong move for owners.

For Diamond Bank staff, they became part of the largest customer platform in Africa and now have the opportunity to grow their career in many different areas, locally and globally across different functions. Also – and importantly, there were no redundancies as a result of the merger; this wasn’t a cost cutting exercise.

For Diamond Bank customers, both individuals and businesses can now tap into a global and local market to help them achieve their objectives, and they are also part of an ecosystem that helps connect business to markets and people to businesses. With one in three people banking with Access, clearly transaction costs will go down - so there are benefits all round.

The most important role that I played in the merger was to ensure that the values that we saw before we began the journey would be realized. For this to be achieved, we had to connect and engage with all the various shareholders, within and outside the country. Herbert Wigwe and I conducted countless town hall meetings with customers, staff and regulators, selling the value proposition and answering questions or concerns. Today, I can say that the numbers speak for themselves. I am happy to play the role of a shareholder and advocate of one of the most exciting global platforms coming out of Nigeria - but for me, I took the opportunity to move away from a day-to-day role, so I could pursue new ventures that were calling me.

Some might say you gave up a legacy with this merger but how did it feel to you and what drove you to take this plunge?

Diamond Bank was set up to help people. So the most important factor of the founder’s legacy is to help people succeed, to help them do what they want to do. Leveraging on technology, Diamond Bank was able to help disenfranchised segments in the business community, access financial services that would help them reduce their cost of doing business and reduce their risk and create better

customer outcomes and experience. With this merger, we created a platform with the largest customer base in Africa, with the best of breed solutions for them to get on with their lives and businesses, locally or globally. That’s a legacy that we are proud of and it is a legacy that will continue. The company name has changed, the ethos and the mission hasn’t - it’s grown stronger thanks to the merger.

What preparations were made to ensure a smooth transition and handling of teething problems between both staff with this merger?

We were very deliberate in taking the best of both organizations into the new entity, so during the transition, teams that cut across the different functions comprised both Access and Diamond people. Team Lead decisions were easy because it was based on which organization had the better capability. We also set up help desks and channels to answer the questions of staff from both organizations.

Even with the advantages of the merger do you still feel any sense of loss organically with the development?

Not at all. Change is inevitable and one must always focus on the objectives. The largest financial institutions in the world came about by mergers of companies with shared values. Take for example CitiBank.

In our case, this merger was driven by the desire to create a platform that would provide the best of services and products coming out of Africa for our 30 million+ customers. As someone famously said, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. No sense of organic loss there, just a sense of inorganic success.

Are there some products from Diamond bank still being used in Access bank now?

Yes there are, and quite a few, especially the retail products and services. We took the best of both organizations. At Diamond Bank we built a very strong retail franchise, not just products and services, because that’s easy - anyone can come up with a product, but leveraging on a strong organizational retail culture and a very good understanding of how to leverage on technology to enable people and businesses, that’s where the real skill lies.

Tell us about your new baby Sparkle. You said this idea had been brewing in your mind when you were in Diamond bank but the atmosphere was not conducive. Why?

Diamond Bank pioneered retail banking in Nigeria. That is undisputed. We brought on board hundreds of thousands of retailers in a short period of time.

But there was only so much we could do, due the nature of our set-up.

What I wanted to do with Sparkle was build on what Diamond Bank had started in terms of delivering services to retailers and bringing more online banking services to the retail sector, but concentrate on a different market segment, and also move all financial services and activities online. The mobile phone is the most powerful tool we have to scale business and commerce on the continent, and start bringing structure to Nigeria’s informal economy. That’s what Sparkle is shaping up to do.

When do you intend to launch Sparkle and what products are you starting with?

We’re still in the product development stage with Sparkle – speaking to our target market and ensuring that we are a customer-centric platform. We expect to go into beta testing in early 2020, with a full go-to-market strategy a couple of months later.

A few of the products and services we expect to launch with are customer experience-led support services, ranging from inventory management and invoicing statements to foreign exchange services and a POS-via-mobile function.

What cutting edge should we expect from Sparkle that will make it stand out?

Happiness.

Sparkle will provide seamless transactions for millions of people who have historically been denied access to even the most rudimentary financial services. Seems simple – maybe idealistic – but speaking to so many people about their experiences in Nigeria’s financial sector, we think that the services we will be offering will bring happiness.

At this precise moment in time, this feels cutting edge for the market.

Who is your target audience?

In short, everyone. We are a fully inclusive platform that wants to provide financial and lifestyle services to all – retailers, SMEs, individuals. There are around 40m micro and small businesses in Nigeria – most of whom are underserved by traditional banks. This is a massivemarket segment for us to tackle, to start with, because we want to drive financial inclusion in Nigeria, using technology to scale access to the unbanked.

Drilling down even further on who we want to target, we know that women, in particular, are more likely to be excluded from the current financial system, so we are particularly keen to support and pioneer women’s roles in the digital economy – specifically supporting women in the marketplace with mobile digital tools that help them run every aspect of their business life.

Tell us a bit about your other half Adesua. What do you find most endearing about her?

Adesua is my Adesua, my life partner, lover and friend. I really don’t know how I would be without her. She compliments me. We are very different in many ways but we share a lot when it comes to life values. Beyond being my number one fan, she is driven, proud of what she has done with her career, and is very passionate when it comes to family.

What do I find endearing about her? She really makes me smile and laugh. She can go from local to global in an instant.

Quality time?

You know, where there is a will, there is a way. I don’t think a day goes by, wherever we are in the world, that we don’t speak. We know each other’s timetable and we try to fit ourselves inside each other’s pocket even if it’s for a fleeting moment when we are doing our own things. But when we are together, which is quite often, we do the simple stuff; we watch Netflix together, we gist and I know that we just enjoy each other’s company.

How flexible is your time now outside Diamond bank?

I have a less rigid day-to-day schedule, so I certainly have a little more time to explore my passions, such as photography and playing tennis and so forth, however building a new business also takes up a lot of time and keeps me consumed. So in theory,I have more flexibility, but the nature of the work is a lot different. I’m also having to go back to the drawing board and learn new ways of thinking and working, as I build out the team and build a new product from the very beginning.

Adesua is my Adesua, my life partner, lover and friend. I really don’t know how I would be without her. She compliments me. We are very different in many ways but we share a lot when it comes to life values. Beyond being my number one fan, she is driven, proud of what she has done with her career, and is very passionate when it comes to family.