“I Enjoy my stay in Nigeria”- Charles Kie, MD/CEO, Ecobank Nigeria

One of the amazing things first-time visitors (tourists or working professionals) notice about Nigeria is the vast potential the nation offers. Nigeria’s huge population, estimated to be 190 million, the diversity of cultures and peoples, the vast array of natural resources, among others, make Africa’s most populous nation to be highly attractive to foreigners. But unfortunately, many Nigerians hardly see and harness these God-given opportunities. A lot of Nigerians see problems while expatriates or tourists see opportunities. We see challenges and difficulties, and continuously complain, but “outsiders” would want us to roll up our sleeves, get down to work and transform our nation to a First World Nation that we have the capacity to be.

Out-going managing director / chief executive officer of Ecobank Nigeria Plc, Mr. Charles Kie (his three-year tenure as Md/Ceo ends in late August 2018), is an Ivorian. He sees Nigeria’s potential and recognizes the nation’s capacity to be great. Unlike many Nigerians, he hardly complains and points accusing fingers at others. Rather, he believes in teamwork or consensus building, pooling resources of every worker of Ecobank Nigeria together to create a growing and reputable brand in the nation’s banking sector. In his three years as Ecobank Nigeria’s helmsman man, Kie has impressive results to justify his leadership, not only as md/ceo, but also as a well-respected expatriate professional who has contributed (even more than some Nigerians) to re-building Nigeria’s economy.
Kie arrived Nigeria in January 2016 amidst economic recession. For lily-livered leaders, they would have shunned the offer to come work in a recessed economy. But it is not so for Kie. The first task on his hand was to restore the accounts of Ecobank Nigeria, the largest subsidiary of Ecobank group, which is first international bank in Africa as well as being the sixth largest bank in Nigeria. The bank then had a total balance sheet of about 10 billion dollars, a workforce of about 10, 000 employees and a network of 500 branches. Ecobank Nigeria’s recently released 2017 accounts shows a balance sheet total of approximately 6 billion dollars, a cost income ratio of 51% and a profitability recovered of about 67 million dollars ( it was 19 million dollars in 2016 when Kie assumed office). In order to maintain a strong operational efficiency and manage cost, the bank’s workforce has been reduced to 6,800 while its branch network cut to 430. The simple reasons are that each branch should be able to sustain itself as a profit , not cost, centre. Today’s Ecobank Nigeria is a leaner, more efficient and innovative, strongly focused bank which offers quality services and innovative products. In May 2018, the bank unveiled an innovative, multi-layered digital payment solution called Ecobank Pay. The product is designed to deliver unified and instant self-service across a range of interconnected payment solutions.

Ecobank Pay can be used by all businesses, from small, informal micro merchants to large corperates as well as governments, allowing each user to offer easy and convenient payment options to his customer in-store or on-line. As a payment solution channel, Ecobank Pay is not only faster, convenient and more secure, it is also superior to the present payment channels offered by other banks.

Read also: Save cost by switching to gas, oil regulator tells hotels, banks, others
The product includes a rebrand of the Ecobank Scan + Pay QR offering, which allows customers to pay in-store via the Ecobank mobile app. Merchants can also speedily sign up for their QR merchant code via the Master pass QR for merchant functionality or Facebook Messenger. Indeed, constant and on-going innovation has been one of the competitive strategies which Ecobank Nigeria, under Kie, pushes in order to be one of the best three Nigerian banks. The quest for more customers, and more accounts by banks is a very serious one, but only the discerning bank managing directors like Kie recognize that innovation (leading to innovative products) is the key to winning or getting more customers, especially satisfied and happy customers. Kie recognizes innovation as a key strategy and Ecobank Pay is one of the legacies he will be bequeathing as he leaves the bank soon. So far, the responses by customers to Ecobank Pay has been very encouraging, prompting other bank managing directors and their product department managers to study Ecobank Pay with a view upgrading their own payment channels.
For a second-generation bank, Ecobank Nigeria (established in 1986) is rising to further fulfill its potential by expanding its vision. In this pursuit, Ecobank group (the parent company) has set a 100 million customers target in the next five years while Ecobank Nigeria mapped out a 40- million customers goal. Nothing is impossible to those who can dream audacious visions and then set out to strategically and systematically actualize those visions. In this modern age, digitization is key to realization of huge visions. Kie, in an interview he granted the Business Year journal early this year, acknowledged this fact, “We have made that (digitalization) clear. It is not just about digitizing our customers, it is also about digitizing ourselves. It is important that the way we interact with our customers and optimize our business are linked, and communication between external and internal parties is flawless. We are not only looking at our own internal processes in order to automate and digitize as much as we can, but we are also making sure that our customers have access to the digital channels-mobile, internet banking, QR code payment and POS. All of these are now made available to facilitate communication with our customers.”
It is not all about technology at Ecobank Nigeria. The bank takes keen interest in and explores ways to promote African culture. Very recently, it was a major sponsor of the Season of African cultures, which is an initiative of French President Mr. Emmanuel Macron, and which event was held at the Africa shrine on July 3, 2018. In an interview with BusinessDay, Kie explained the reason the bank got involved in sponsoring the event: “I am sure you all know that Nollywood (Nigerian film industry) is the second largest film industry in the world with about 2,000 films made and which generates about 4 billion dollars. What that means is that the arts and culture industry should not be sidelined, it should be strategic to Nigeria’s economic growth. The diversification of Nigerian economy from oil should not be into agriculture alone.And Africans must not also neglect our cultures, leaving it in the hands of other people to do the promotion. So we (Ecobank Nigeria) felt that as a pan-Africa bank, we should play an important role in supporting cultural activities across Africa, including Nigeria. When we knew that the Season of African Cultures event will be launched in Nigeria, we felt that it was the right thing to do to sponsor the event, and thereby sent a strong message that Africans must take ownership and promotion of their cultures.”
The Season of African Cultures brought hundreds of African arts and pop culture celebrities to the shrine, with youthful Macron present throughout the event. One of the event’s highlight was the discovery and sponsorship of eleven year old Warris Kareem Olanrewaju, who drew the portrait of Macron in just two hours. It was Ecobank who discovered and brought the boy in order to demonstrate the fact that Nigeria,and indeed Africa,has huge talents waiting to be discovered and empowered.
When asked his experiences working in Nigeria, Kie beamed a smile and said emphatically, “I enjoy my stay in Nigeria. So far, it has been a great experience and I am happy that the team I work with has been supportive in our efforts to reposition the bank. I love what I am doing here” A widely travelled banker, bespectacled Kie offered his views on leadership thus, “We all have to be humble when we come to the issue of leadership. One of the questions that I think everyone who finds himself in a leadership position should always ask is, ‘Why should I be led by you?’ I always ask myself that question. So, if you are a leader and you cannot respond well to that question, then you are probably not fit for leadership. Leadership is not just a function of myself or what you want to achieve; it is about people accepting to be led by you and abiding by the vision you put forward. For me, you are what your team wants you to be. It is as simple as that.Leadership is a team effort, it is not an individual thing. But obviously, leadership matters, and what I mean by this is that as a leader, you need to create a culture, a set of values that people know you live by, and you also have to make sure that there are certain behaviours you do that speak to those values. It is a combination of values and those behaviours that create a unique culture in an organization. Once you have all these in place, the outcome can only be good result.”
Under Kie’s leadership, Ecobank Nigeria is back to profitability and has outlined a five-year strategic plan of being one of Nigeria’s top three banks in the next five years. Before his appointment as managing director, Ecobank Nigeria, Kie served as Group Executive,Corporate and Investment Bank, Ecobank Transnational since July 2014; he had previously served as Head of CB unit of same bank. He joined Ecobank Transnational in October 2011 as its chief operating officer. He is a non-executive director of Africa Finance Corporation.His education trowerse institutions in the USA, the united Kingdom, Ivory coast and France.
Incorporated as a public limited liability company in October 1986, Ecobank Nigeria is a key subsidiary of Africa’s leading independent banking group – Ecobank Transnational. Following the successful acquisition of Oceanic Bank in 2011 Ecobank Nigeria has become a top tier bank in terms of assets, customers base, deposits and branches. The bank had also acquired deposit liabilities and customers of the defund All States Trust Bank, Hallmark Bank and African International Bank.