TheCable

Chinedum Okereke, the Managing Director of The La Casera Company (TLCC) has been honoured with the National Productivity Order of Merit Award (NPOM) for his three decades of illustrious service to the food and beverage industry at a ceremony chaired by Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday.

The award was classified under the employers of labour category.

At the event which was held at the Banquet hall in the State House, Abuja, President Buhari admonished all awardees to see their recognition as a call for more hard work and commitment to the development of human resources that are needed to maintain socio-economic growth and development in Nigeria urging them to make productivity their watchword, saying ‘‘this award should spur you to greater heights.’’

The National Productivity Order of Merit Award is an award of honour and dignity instituted by the Government to recognize hard work and excellence.

The recognition of the Awardees was completed after a rigorous process of assessment of individuals and institutions that were nominated.

In his remarks, Chris Ngige, minister of labour and employment, said since the inception of the award in 1991, 382 individuals and 97 organisations have been honoured with the NPOM.

Speaking on his award, Okereke thanked the federal government and the ministry of labour and employment for identifying his efforts at The La Casera Company. He dedicated the award to the management and members of staff of the company who have supported his efforts at growing the company.

“This is an award that I will always cherish in my life. It is an award for excellence which is not in any way easy to achieve particularly in a challenging economy. However, despite the challenges, we have strived to do our best to be a good employer of labour by providing a conducive atmosphere as much as we can for our employees to excel. We are getting this award because those fantastic outputs of our collective responsibilities have been noticed. I sincerely thank the Government and the Ministry for this recognition”.

“At The La Casera company, we will continue to do our best to develop the capacity of our employees and motivate them to do more because we believe that every drop of water counts as we seek to grow the big ocean of economic viability of our great company. We will not relent in our effort no matter the challenges,” Okereke added.

The La Casera Company appointed Okereke a top supply chain and operations expert as the Managing Director of the Company effective November 2018. Okereke was the former Managing Director at Suntory Foods and Beverages Nigeria and also a General Manager at GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria Plc.

Chinedum’s leadership acumen and business prowess earned him the award of the Best FMCG CEO back to back in the year 2020 and 2021. He has led The La Casera Company to win several awards, growing the business volume by over 500% in 4 years making TLCC the 3rd biggest soft drink company in the country.