Oluwatoyin Sanni is the Group Chief Executive Officer of United Capital Plc, a leading African investment banking firm based in Lagos, Nigeria. In its recently released results, United Capital reported a 46.6 percent growth in its profit after tax sustaining its half-year growth despite the current economic downturn.
The New Diplomat duo of Associate Editor, LAOLU ADEYEMI, and Business Editor, OKEOWO OLAMILEKAN sought her out and engaged her on how she has been able to maintain the growth recorded by the organization and ways out of the recession. Excerpts.
How do you combine the multiple roles of being a CEO, Pastor, housewife and a mother?
It takes commitment, it takes conviction also on each of the roles that you are playing; that each one is important to you and that none of them can be cast aside. It also takes the understanding and support of members of my family, my helpers and supporters in church and of course, my very important colleagues at work. I think the relationship is mutually reinforcing because all of us recognize the fact that we all play a role in each other’s life and we all need one another, so we need to keep supporting one another. Also, once you also recognize that it takes more than a job to make you feel fulfilled, that it takes more than just being married to make you fulfilled and that it takes more than being a pastor to make you feel fulfilled, then you negotiate the terms of each of these commitments with your stakeholders while making necessary adjustments here and there.
How has it been rising through the ranks?
It has been interesting and exciting. I have enjoyed every day of all the years that it has taken me to get to where I am today. And, when I say I have enjoyed every day, it is not to suggest that it has been a bed of roses. It’s just to say that I personally thrive on overcoming challenges. Sometimes, it can be a roller coaster ride but I recognize the fact that we were not created for good times only and that man was created to cope with the environment. I am a Christian and also a pastor. So I know that when God puts man on Earth in his initial mandate, he included the instruction to dominate his environment, to manage the environment, to confront challenges and overcome them, so we take life with its challenges and utilise the available grace to sort it.
Your book, Yes, You Too Can, delves into how women can break through the glass ceiling, for the benefit of those who did not read the book, how can women who aspire to be the best attain such goals?
It would help such women to start by having a sense of purpose. They need to realize that they were created to achieve something and that none of us is an accident. If you have a sense of purpose and you understand that very early, it will help you not to be defeated and disturbed by challenges and not be distracted by events that may happen along the line in facing opposition. Secondly, I think they need to have faith in our creator that he created us for a purpose and that he will equip us with whatever it takes to achieve that purpose. Then very importantly, they have to have faith in themselves that they have what it takes to do whatever they want to do, to get to where they want to get to. So they need to have confidence in themselves. To have confidence in yourself, obviously, you need to invest in yourself, to develop yourself. You need to get the right education, the right professional skills. You also need to develop themselves in terms of the ability to interact positively with others, including your speaking ability, including how you project yourself, how you dress.
So, spend time and resources on yourself and network with the right people who can have a positive influence on you. Most of the time, I spend time with people who are older than me. I am naturally inclined to them because I perceive that I can learn a lot from them. At the same time, I interact with peers as it helps us to benchmark and check ourselves to see if we are derailing. It is also good to relate with the next generation because they are the people we can influence and also pull up the ladder. Every woman needs to have strong relationships with people across all these three layers. These are some recommendations.
Do you have a mentorship programme for women?
I am involved in mentoring on several levels. Maybe I should start with what I do in church. I am an area pastor who started her ministerial life as a leader of the women’s group in church and it was a fantastic platform for me to encourage younger women who are coming behind positively
In the workplace, I have been involved in the workplace mentorship scheme. Beyond the workplace, I have worked with the Fate Foundation at one time; currently, I am one of the mentors with the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP).
I have had the privilege of mentoring five successful entrepreneurs in that programme directly. I also recognize that I cannot possibly have enough time and opportunity to interact with people on One on One basis for all the people I would love to mentor. So, I use the social media platforms; I have my Word for the day series that I send out every day with a view to inspiring and encouraging young and upcoming women. I try also to be as responsive as I can to all the questions I get across the social media platforms. My book is also an instrument to mentor as well.
I will also not forget to mention that I have had leadership positions in the industry through the association of corporate trustees and we have been able, through that group, to mentor and bring up young and upcoming leaders within the financial sector and today you can see that most of the managing directors of the trust companies are females. And many of them either worked directly under me or worked with me in the leadership of the association of corporate trustees
Recently, I was also instrumental to the establishment of The Women in Finance Nigeria. The whole intention is not only to engage, network and advocate but also to mentor women in different stages of their career development. We are able to bring together older women who have recorded clear accomplishments and women in the mid-level of their careers and some who are just entering the industry. So we intend to pair these women under this platform.
What would you regard as the peak of your achievements?
That is a tough question to answer. I am yet to reach the peak of my achievement and I am being honest with you because I don’t see any singular accomplishment as being the peak. On a personal level, for example, I would say my role as a wife and mother is the peak of my accomplishment. On a professional level, I will say being Group CEO of a leading public company and a leading investment banking institution and also being nominated twice into the top 25 CEO in the Nigerian Stock Exchange is my peak, so it depends. I am a multi-dimensional individual; I have never seen myself completely represented by any of the single role of the various ones I play.
Anything you would have done differently given another chance?
Yes, sure. In everyone’s life, there are things one would have loved to do differently. But, if you take it, on the whole, the choice of my career, marital partner and ministerial life, I wouldn’t change anything.
What is the secret behind the rise of United Capital Plc?
First of all, we have four internal values that we hold very dear and we ensure that it is present in the United Capital person and we will continue to develop it in our people. The first one is professionalism, which every United Capital person will aspire to be at the topmost level of professionalism. Secondly, we are innovating, and I am pleased to announce to you that earlier this year we won the Businessday Award as the most innovative investment bank in Nigeria. It is an award we are very excited to receive because it spoke of a strategic intent that we have already formulated internally. We are confident about what we do, we are knowledgeable, we are an intensely and consistently learning organisation, we prioritize learning on the job, training and internal knowledge of development in the industry. Right now, we are learning new languages; right now every staff at United Capital has the opportunity to learn a second language at the expense of the organisation.
We are constantly developing our people in technical skills. We have a collegiate environment and that means that every United Capital person can speak freely without the fear of censure on ideas that they think can move the organisation forward.
I personally operate an open-door policy, those are some of the things we do. But, if it comes to how we manage our business specifically, we are constantly interested in the leading initiative in all areas of our business. We are market leaders, so we are constantly introducing new products, constantly broadening the market. We have been part of major initiatives as an issuing house, as trustees, as assets managers and at the same time, we pride ourselves in not just being effective but being efficient in all our operations. It is one of the things that have helped us in this era. So, in spite of inflation, if you compare our Q3 results this year with that of last year, we were able to achieve even better results. Our cost to income ratio dropped from 43 to 30 percent and most people have been wondering how we were able to achieve this.
With your experience, which way do you think the country should go to get us out of recession?
I would support the drive to diversify our revenue sources; I will support the drive to look inward in terms of domestic alternatives, to input into the manufacturing process as well as look into domestic products to replace our craze for foreign and imported products.
I am definitely in favour of an investor-friendly environment and also very much in favour of all initiatives that will give international investors confidence to reach out to Nigeria.
That includes transparent policies that are in line with global best practices. That includes a smoother and fairly predictable entry and exit of foreign investors. That includes a judicial system that can be seen not only to be incorruptible but also perceived to dispense justice speedily, freely and fairly. I am in support of all that the government is doing in terms of improving the security environment and significant progress has been made in the North-East. We are also advocating that government should address the issues that have to do with the safety of lives and properties in regards to the elimination of kidnapping and armed robberies.
I am also in favour of supporting agriculture because I think that is one sector that is capable of making the significant impact in growing our food security which is a big factor in economic stability. And it will also speak to some other issues. We talked about the challenges the girl-child is facing, we have been able to link some of the abuses the girl-child faces to lack of food security and we also need to work on being less import-dependent and supporting the micro, small and medium scale enterprises which are major drivers of economic growth in all the major economies of the world.
Do you have any tailored products for agriculture and MSME’s?
Of course, we do have a structured finance desk that also addresses the needs of MSME’s. We are actually strengthening and beefing up the activities of that desk. We have specialized funds and are partnering with development banks to target MSME’s and we have some ongoing initiatives that we will soon be announcing. We are also taking a lot of the inputs from the supports that we are getting from the TEEP across Africa which is giving us some ideas on how we can catalyse growth and development at the MSME level.
