I Was Nervous When Appointed As BOI Boss
• I Have Been an Arsenal Fan Before Wenger Became Coach of the Club • My Wife is the Backbone of My Success
While young, he was more than a high-flyer; named the best graduating student with a first-class were unforgettable moments for him. Simple, suave and unassuming, he leads a team that is not short of confidence and capability. But having known success all his life, his heart fluttered when he recently got an appointment: to be the boss of the nation’s Bank of Industry. One year down the line though, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry, Rasheed Adejare Olaoluwa, stands tall. Olaoluwa, whose triad of metamorphoses (engineering, accounting and banking) had taken him through corporate institutions like Arthur Anderson, FSB, UBA, GT Bank, ARM and UBA Capital, now sits atop Nigeria’s biggest development bank. Relishing his last one-year at the BOI, Olaoluwa tells Crusoe Osagie how he is having fun in his new role, the BOI’s staff’s scare that he was appointed to sack them and how he overcame his initial nervousness. Being a grateful man, he attributes his success to his darling wife
How did you feel when you were picked to head BOI?
When I was appointed I was nervous. I was, for a number of reasons; the first was the fear of the unknown. It was the first time I was going to have a taste of the public sector. I have always been a private sector executive for so many years, I was cautiously optimistic but inside me a little nervous because of fear of the unknown. I tried to get as much information as possible, even before my appointment, because I was aware that I was being considered. So I tried to dig up information in order to understand what goes on inside, because until you actually get on the inside, you will not get the full picture. So there was that nervousness. One year down the line, I think I can say now with a lot of confidence that it has been worth my while. It is a kind of challenge that I have been waiting to handle. After 26 years in the private sector, the BOI represents a good opportunity, a very good platform, to be able to make a difference and an impact. It is giving me an opportunity to apply most of what I have learnt over the years. I am very glad to be able to make the difference.
Difference between running a commercial bank and a development finance institution.
Let us first take a look at running a development bank. I read quite a bit about this in terms of what are the priorities for a development bank. There is a traditional school of thought that believes that because we are a development bank, profitability is not important. But there is also a prevailing school of thought which believes that you can actually make an impact and still be profitable and that is the school of thought that I believe in and this is what we are using to drive the BOI. So, we are trying to make an impact and at the same time, we are trying to make that impact in an efficient manner that ensures that we can maximise our revenue and optimise our expenses, and thereafter, make our small margins to sustain the operation. Apart from that, every other thing is like the private sector because it is about efficiency. If it is something that is going to take you one week in the public sector and it takes one day in the private sector, you have a room to improve; maybe you may not achieve the objective of the one-day target like the private sector but at least you can do two days instead of five days. This is what we are trying to do and this is why we decided to upgrade our banking application. The new banking application, the RUBICON, gives us the capacity to automate our processes. We have also re-engineered all our processes, both operational and credit processes and the likes. We have now commenced the automation because before you automate, you must first re-engineer. So we have done the re-engineering and we have started the automation. We are running with a private sector mindset but we are supporting customers with a developmental orientation.
Challenges as BOI boss
The immediate challenges faced, I will like to classify them into three categories. Let me start with the staff. I was assuming that many of the executives might not have the skills and capacity required to make the changes I wanted to make. So I carried out an assessment as soon as I came in and to my pleasant surprise, I actually discovered that they were highly skilled people and all they needed was just to be led properly. They needed to be led in a particular direc- tion and inspired. Once we started working together, I realised and it became clear to me that one of my problems was solved because to make any change in any place, you need to be surrounded with the right people. I have a core set of executives that I can work with.
The second is related to staff because there was lots of apprehension on their part, thinking that as a new chief executive officer, I have come to fire everybody. But I have also learnt over time that one must first of all assess what one has before one determines what is needed or otherwise. I made the BOI staff realise that that was not the objective. I told them that as long as everybody is doing their jobs. How do we determine that someone is doing his job? We have a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and we have done that with everybody having a performance appraisal. If one is doing well, one does not have a problem with me. If one is not doing well, that is when the person and I will need to have a discussion. There is also the challenge of customers. Unfortunately, there are numbers of Nigerian enterprises who believe very strongly that because it is a
development bank, it is an opportunity for them to share from the ‘national cake’.
My kind of CEO
When they are coming to the BOI, their objective is not to get a loan to repay but to get the loan and disappear. Some people come to BOI just to present any kind of forged, fake and cloned documents as collateral. We made sure that our law was up and doing to ensure that these plans do not go through. The way we have tried to send a signal is to set up our hall of fame and shame. That hall of fame is for anyone who takes a loan from the BOI and pays back. In other words, if someone performs on his loans, we will recognise the person and also celebrate that person. So we inducted 10 companies into our hall of fame. These companies are those who have taken a loan, at least, two times and they have fully repaid. In fact, in the case of Innoson, he is on his fifth loan. So he is a man who started with the BOI as an SME and today, his enterprise has become a conglomerate. We are proud to be associated with him. I have mentioned staff, I have mentioned customers. It is time to talk about the public sector. Since it was my first time, I sought advice from friends and mentors to ask on the way forward. Of course, I got a lot of advice, but you know as an executive, you need to also know how to filter the advice so that you know which advice to consider and the ones you say no to.
When I came on board, a number of people tried to do things which were the kind of things I was not used to. But, of course, you can say no. I told them, ‘Sorry, this does not make sense to me,’ thus respectfully declining their gestures. After sometime, they began to realise that I am different and once they realised that I am different, they gave me my space. It was clear to them that I wanted to run a very efficient and transparent institution. In fact, I should have said four: the fourth thing was the members of the public. In my first few months at the BOI, every week, I was getting over 10 requests for sponsorship of different kinds of fora, events and usually these requests have different categories ranging from gold and silver categories down the line. They had a wrong impression that there was so much money available in the BOI, and they wanted to get part of it. So when I get such letters, I just draw a big line across it and I tell my staff that once they see that line, they should shred it because those requests they were making were just non-events.
Somebody will just come and say we want to give you an award and we want the BOI to sponsor the event. Once you say you want to give me an award and you are asking me to sponsor the event, it is not a real award. For me, that was shocking because that was the first time I was being exposed to such a parasitic culture. What they were just waiting for was the opportunity to extract money; many of these ones usually get recommendation from top government officials. A government official will sit down and write a letter on a government letterhead to say that I recommend these people, kindly support them. But I regard them as absolutely non-value adding. This has been the experience, but I think over time, we have told them we could not help them with such requests.
Key indicators of progress
We have the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan and the three core sectors are: agro-processing, solid minerals and metals, energy and petrochemicals. We are supporting companies in those sectors either through the BOI direct loans or through the Central Bank of Nigeria’s intervention. We report to the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, but we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to support certain sectors like rice, cassava and others, but the supervisory ministry is industry, trade and investment. As at the end of December, our shareholders’ fund was N162 billion and as we speak today, it has risen to N170 billion. The paid-up capital of the BOI is N142 billion and the authorised capital were about N250 billion out of which about N142 billion has been paid. What this means is that between the N142 and the N170 billion is what has accrued over time. One does not accrue reserves if all one’s loans have gone bad. In fact, the shareholders’ fund will be reducing. So this is an indicator.
When I came on board, we accepted bank guarantees from many commercial banks but we did not have limits for the banks. So one of the things I did was to set limits because if I accept N20 billion guarantee from someone and I call the guarantor and the person is unable to pay, it is a huge risk. Now, we have limits for every bank. I have personally signed and sent a letter to every bank managing director, to advise them because the criteria we used are very open and transparent, asking about their deposit base, shareholders’ fund, non-performing loans ratio, liquidity ratio and the likes. So, it was very clear and transparent and today as we speak, we have a limit for every bank in terms of having business to do with other commercial banks. When we call a guarantor, we expect bank to pay us back immediately and the whole industry now knows that if you guarantee a loan at the BOI, the loan will never go bad. We have changed that perception.
BOI: strong and capable
Capacity is a relative terminology; if we say the BOI’s shareholders’ fund is N170 billion and you know that N170 billion is less than a billion dollar today. Dangote is doing a project in excess of $10 billion. Obviously, one needs to mobilise resources from everybody. Everything is based on the project size; if the project is small, one bank can take it and as it gets larger, two or three banks can take up the project.
Combining engineering and financing
My first job was with Arthur Anderson. I joined Arthur Anderson on the first day of December, 1987 and within three years, I wrote my Institute of chartered accountants of Nigeria examinations which I started from foundation; being a graduate of civil engineering, I had to do professional examinations 1 and 2. I cleared all the exams and qualified as a chartered accountant. I left Arthur Anderson to join the bank sector. I did not join the banking sector with my engineering degree but with my three and half years experience with Arthur Anderson as well as with my accountancy qualification. I have had lots of experience. My first bank job was at Federal Savings Bank, an international bank, which was around the time FSB transited and restructured to become FSB. I was a unit head in the corporate banking department and just after a year or so, I moved to GT Bank where I was the pioneer head of corporate banking in Ikeja branch, Allen Avenue in Lagos State.
I was in GT Bank for over six years. I rose from being a deputy manager in 1993 when I joined GT Bank and left as an Assistant General Manager in 1998. I also spent one year as an executive director at ARM. I was made a regional head in Ecobank and later became the Group Head, Commercial Banking. From there, I got my first appointment as an executive director at Universal Trust Bank and later moved to the United Bank of Africa. I was appointed to the board of the UBA on March 4, 2008. I was the pioneer chief executive officer of UBA Africa. So in that capacity, I led the expansion of UBA to Africa expanding the franchise from just Nigeria to 19 countries. I visited 32 countries in Africa because the initial intension was to expand UBA to 32 countries but we revised it to 20 but eventually did 19.
I was also appointed as the pioneer CEO of UBA Capital when the company was listed but UBA Capital is now United Capital. So it was from engineering to accounting and to banking not directly from engineering to banking. The engineering skill will forever be useful because it is all about analysis and synthesis and this is what you do in engineering. Analysis means you take an item and you break it down into component. Synthesis means you take the component and you form it into a whole. So, both are working concurrently. Coping with the home front and work They say behind every successful man, there is a woman. I have a wife who has always been there for me and the children. Some of the school activities, homework and the rest are being handled by her. She studied education, so it helped a lot. My kids, most of them, are grown up now. My first daughter is over 21 and is a graduate of psychology; about to start her master’s programme. My first son is an undergraduate in the university also with my second daughter. My last son just finished JSS 3. I have two boys and two girls.
Relationship with your children
With my lovely children I interact with them face to face, via telephone and emails. I have to use all channels available to relate with my children when I am on the road.
Regrets
No regrets whatsoever. I am having a ball.
High and low points of career
There have been so many high points and it is like drawing a graph. It goes up and down but the last low is higher than the previous high but it keeps rising. I have been very blessed. I have had several high points. Which do I want to talk about: is it graduating with first class or being the best graduating student in the university? I remember my parents sitting there during my convocation and I was called out three times to receive my prize. That was the high point. I had a desire to serve in Bauchi State and I did not know anybody in the National Youth Service Corps. Luckily for me, when my name came out on the list, I saw Bauchi State. I was so happy and I called my friends about my coming. I was posted to a town called Azare and within nine or 10 months I learned a little bit of Hausa just from being a youth corper serving in a government secondary school.
I was a mathematics teacher and during that time, I came to Arthur Anderson to write an aptitude test and also did interviews about three times because we were about 200. The first time we did the test about 55 people passed and that meant one had scored at least 35 out of 50. After the three interviews, they needed up to about 15 people and eventually we were hired. I was serving from December the previous year to November the next year and by July I got my appointment letter while I was still serving. My youth service ended November 30 and I assumed duty at Arthur Anderson on December 1st.
I was a deputy general manager at Ecobank when I was recruited as an executive director at UTB. The managing director later retired and I was made acting CEO. So it was a series of highs. I joined UBA not as an executive director. I keep telling some professionals to always bid their time. I was acting MD at UTB and was then hired as a General Manager at UBA, but the MD said I should come in and prove myself and he would recognise me and I took a leap of faith, exactly two years after I joined, the board appointed me as the executive director of the UBA. There are always moments that gets one down, but as the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. There will always be challenges and that is why we are here to face them. Nothing good happens by chance. Success does not happen by chance and nothing good comes easy. When one is in a position like this, you take the good, the bad and the ugly. That is why we are here.
My preference for blue
For me, the colour of business is white or blue. In terms of shirts, your shirts should be either white or light blue. In terms of suit, I recommend dark suits; it is either a black or navy blue suit.
Being an Arsenal fan
I am a gunner and I have been supporting Arsenal since 1995 even before Arsene Wenger was hired as a coach. I see people when they say they are supporting Chelsea but I tell them that the blues became relevant some 10 years ago. 20 years ago, Chelsea was not even in the premier league.
I Am Having a Ball – I Have No Regrets. I Am a Public Sector CEO with Private Sector Mentality