TheCable

Ibukun Awosika, managing director of The Chair Centre, has been announced as the first female chairman of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN).

According to the announcement by First Bank of Nigeria Holdings (FBNH), the appointments, which will see the current chairman of First Bank, Ajibola Afonja, retire as the chairman of the bank, are effective from January 1, 2016.

The parent company’s statement revealed that Bello Maccido, the pioneer group CEO, will step down to become the pioneer chairman of the newly-licensed FBN Merchant Bank Limited; while Urum Eke, current executive director, south, FBN limited, will replace Bello as group managing director-designate, FBNH.

Adesola Adeduntan, chief financial officer, emerged managing director designate, taking over from the current GMD, Bisi Onasanya; while Gbenga Shobo, executive director Lagos & West, becomes his deputy.

Awosika’s emergence as the bank’s first female chairman marks the latest feat in a career that began on a topsy-turvy note, but has turned out exceptionally successful.

EDUCATION

She studied chemistry at Obafemi Awolowo University, but it wasn’t because she loved the subject? She had passed very well in secondary school; she passed the sciences, she loved arts and she could draw. Initially, she wanted architecture, but somehow, she ended up with chemistry.

“Did I enjoy my university days? No, because I didn’t even like Chemistry,” she would later say in her address as guest lecturer at the second convocation ceremony of the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of Pan-Atlantic University in November 2009.

“In-between that, I wanted to be a lawyer. I put in a lot of effort to see the Dean of Law to accept me into Faculty of Law. But I have to fail the chemistry for chemistry to release me to Law and Law wanted me to pass with the best result in order to accept me into Law. It was all confusing. By the end of that year, I changed my mind about wanting to become a lawyer. I decided I wanted to be an Accountant. So, I started taking a lot of electives in the Department of Accounting.”

EARLY CAREER

Awosika took elective courses in accounting from Part Two to Part Four, making sure she underwent the national youth service scheme at Akintola Williams & Co (now Delloitte). She also did that so she could take her accounting exams with the hope of just going to work in a bank later. But she soon made some interesting discoveries.

“Like many young people, I thought it was a good idea. When I got into Akintola Williams, within the one year of my service, I discovered that I hated Accounting. I was good at the figures but I hated the idea of moving from one company to the other going through old dusty files. I didn’t need anybody to tell me this.

“I was too restless to just keep following some certain procedures that are laid down. I was so restless and I needed to be able to express myself as there was no room within auditing to do that. At the end of my service year, even though they offered me permanent employment, I turned it down; I served in Kano and I came back home.

“My parents were wondering what to do with me. I wanted any job, anything I could do. But the first job I found was with a furniture company and I didn’t care. I took the job because I just wanted to be busy and I only lasted three and a half months with that company. But it was three and a half life defining months for me. Within those months, I discovered why I wanted to study architecture in the first place. Within the context of furniture, I discovered I could play around with space. I loved the process of creating and designing furniture. I could turn this place around but, I hated that because they were Lebanese and their values were quite warped. And without thinking much, I said to myself I could do this, and I could do it right, and I left that company to start a manufacturing company.”

THE REWARD

The ups and downs of that decision were numerous, but although she herself has never described it this way, it is arguably the best decision she has made, because two decades later, Awosika’s furniture companies – the Chair Centre and Sokoa Chair Centre Limited – boasts of many firsts and many bests. She is the CEO of TCC Security Systems as well.

Back in 2009, she said: “It will be 21 years in January since that 25-year-old-girl started her entrepreneurship. As at today, the company I run makes turnover in hundreds of millions of naira.

“We have the largest office furniture factory in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa set up with the largest French furniture manufacturing company here in Nigeria. The factory is at Ileje in Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos. Our second factory is at PUNCH premises in Ikeja here. I have an expatriate as factory manager. Apart from him, every other person is Nigerian.

“On Monday, I will be jetting out to sign a strategic partnership agreement with one of the top three furniture companies in the world. They came to the West coast of Africa to look for us. It’s an American company, a big player in the global furniture market. I know them by reputation and name. It’s an awesome deal, I tell you. Your starting point is irrelevant. If you insist on doing the right things and doing it well.”

VORACIOUS LEARNER

“I’m always going to school,” she says.

True. In 2000, she enrolled for a chief executive programme at Lagos Business School. After about three years, knowing that there were new things to learn and having just had a baby, she took off to Barcelona, Spain, to do an MBA global executive programme.

“People thought I was crazy. They said, ‘What do you need all these for? You are already successful. What do you need all these degrees for?’ Success is left to the person interpreting. What others consider success, for you, it might be the beginning.

“I don’t give myself out for people to measure. I will be the one that is measuring. Every year, I must go for at least a brief course. The world is changing so rapidly and you must give yourself up to new things so that the world would not leave you behind. Knowledge rules this world. Whatever, business you go into, learn how you can do yours differently to make you stand out.”

TO GOD BE THE GLORY

It is not only in furniture-making that Awosika has excelled. She is a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a multiple award-winning entrepreneur. She is also the promoter and investor of Furniture Manufacturers Mart, which provides furniture processing service for various categories of furniture manufacturers.

She is currently setting up SCC ALGON, providing metal-based component for the furniture manufacturing and related industries; and The Furniture Village Cluster, a joint venture with the Ogun state government, to provide infrastructure, skills and support to a cluster of SME firms with similar raw material requirements. She sits on a number of boards, including Cadbury Nigeria Plc.

She has founded and she supports many non-profit institutions. She is a board member of Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ) and Convention on Business Integrity. She also serves as a pastor at the Fountain of Life Church and Hosts a popular TV programme, Business His Way. She is the chairperson and promoter of After School Graduate Development Centre (AGDC), a social enterprise set up to address Employability and Enterprise development among young Nigerians.

Reacting to her latest appointment, she wrote on Twitter: “Thank you for all your best wishes on my new assignment. To God alone be all the glory. Be a part of the great things God will do with FBN.”