This edition of My Family, My Business, features an interview with Uzoma Dozie, CEO and Founder of Sparkle, first recorded as part of PwC Nigeria’s NextGen podcast series
PwC: Can you share your thoughts on the NextGen Talks nugget for today “A robust succession planning involves grooming that successor through the medium term which is the gap between now and the eventual changing of guard”?
Uzoma: I agree. You have to be deliberate and in life, there must be structure. I always say to be free you have to be disciplined, so when we say freedom, it doesn’t mean to do whatever you like. You must earn freedom; you have to be disciplined so there definitely has to be a structure. How that occurs is a different thing. When I think of my own life and how I was groomed, in those days it was a case of whether you were going to be a doctor, engineer or a lawyer and that’s how you are trained. Then again, my father was an economist and a hustler and an entrepreneur, so that whole idea of succession planning never crossed his mind. I mean, there was no “I am going to take over my father’s business” because he didn’t know. What is fundamental is the values that you learn, the foundation, and that is what is very key from a succession perspective. The values are what will keep you and give you the competitive advantage that you want.
PwC: What is your story as a NextGen transitioning into the family business?
Uzoma: Let me start with a little story to give some context. Exactly thirty years ago, my father started Diamond Bank and there were many banks around then. His focus was on the middle market, small businesses segment, using technology to create quick customer experience and provide services that were not available to that sector. Thirty years later, Uzoma started Sparkle. What do diamonds do? They sparkle. What is the focus? Small businesses, but we are not just providing banking services, we are also providing business support services using technology and using the same values. The legacy is not the physical structure. The legacy is not Diamond Bank, it is not a business. The legacy is the idea. When you think that there are five brothers as well, and we are doing the same thing, we are providing services in a particular area, we are using technology and we are trying to redefine how business is done. When I think of legacy, I think of “what have you achieved”, “what is going to be in people’s memories”. Diamond Bank is not the legacy, being able to say we are going to merge willingly to create a bigger institution that will impact more stakeholders is the legacy and then what you do after that, the continuous thing you do after, that is it. When I think of my transition, I’d say it was accidental. It has taken me 25 years to do what I want to do but it was also 25 years of learning, 25 years of experiences that I will take to the next level and 25 years of mentorship from my father as well. That for me, is the preparation, and it has allowed us to redefine what NextGen is. It means that, first, for us it is not the family business, it is the family values, it is the family name. The name is the currency, because tomorrow, it might not be naira or dollar. The name opens doors regardless of what you want to do. That is what my father has achieved – that we, the children, can walk in anywhere and they acknowledge our skills. There are some attributes that we have, we use technology, we know about banking services, but we also know about people and values and that is going to be key in the world we go into tomorrow.
PwC: Working in Diamond Bank and taking over from your father as a NextGen was clearly not a burden, but would you say that it was par for the course for you?
Uzoma: Definitely. I mean a burden is something that you don’t think you will benefit from, and I will tell you a little story. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my parents used to drag us to these parties whether we wanted to go or not. I remember one of such parties. I was sulking that I didn’t want to go. When they brought hot jollof rice and dodo, I did not eat it, I just denied myself even though I really wanted to eat it, but to eat it meant I was happy to be there. On our way home, my mother said to me, “you know Uzoma, once you have decided to go somewhere, commit to it and actually take from it”. Essentially, if I didn’t even want something, whether I agree or disagree, I should commit. Everything that I have done has been an education. There were good and bad moments but there were experiences that I am now beginning to benefit from. I worked in three organizations; my father did not want me to work in Diamond Bank first.
PwC: It wasn’t imposed on you?
Uzoma: It wasn’t imposed on me, but what I did learn was not about banking, it was about cultures. I worked in three different cultures, and I know how important culture is and the different types of cultures. There are people who work in different areas in one organization, and they only know one culture, but I know different cultures. If you read the story of Alexander the Great, you will see that his father trained him for succession and what was that? It wasn’t about sitting in the palace, it was working in the field, working with the soldiers, learning different things, that is the real preparation for succession because you don’t know how the world is going to be, but you want to equip your children or your people to be adaptable. The world is always changing. I want to make sure that I have equipped my children with the right skills and more importantly the right values that will take them through whatever comes.
PwC: There is diminishing interest of the younger generations in their family’s business. They appear to be more focused on making a difference and are more purposeful and more value driven. Some have cited that they did not have a choice, suggesting that they would have preferred to pursue a different path. What are the implications of this when you impose that option on your child?
Uzoma: I didn’t have a choice. Sometimes it is automatic in your brain because of your culture. You don’t see it as “I don’t want to do it”, you are like a robot, although you could also speak out, but you can also see that whatever the situation, the responsibility is yours and you can still make the best out of it. For me, I saw it as a platform. It is a family business, a bank to be precise, but it is a platform. How do I use this considering what I want to do in life? I want to make an impact and help people, and this is the hand that I have been dealt. How do I use it to achieve my goals? I was fortunate to seize the opportunity, understanding that it was a bank but there was also finance, business development, branding, marketing which are the things that you see in everyday life. For me it was great. I decided to turn what seemed like a challenge upside down by seeing it as a platform and understanding that I could do a myriad of things with it. I spent a lot of time on the marketing and retail side. We focused on being transformative and innovative, which was at the heart of retail. We leveraged the use of technology, which is how the business started.
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PwC: Is the purpose of a family business the transmission of values which should transcend generations? Is it the same values you had from Diamond Bank that your father has passed on that you have brought into your business “Sparkle”?
Uzoma: With “Sparkle”, if you asked me what my values were four years ago, I would talk about it in a very roundabout way without clarity. However, in starting Sparkle, I was thinking about what values we want to have. Looking at how Diamond Bank started, the culture of my family and how we were brought up, it was very easy to come up with our values. First one was Freedom – it was what we had in the family, we were free to express ourselves, we were on first name terms. Trust was very key, coming from a banking background, and trust was not just trusting people but trusting the system, the process. Transparency is one of the things that is difficult to describe or to give an example of, but at Sparkle, one of the things we intend to do is publish our operating system 24/7, so every day you can see what is up, what is down at any given time. Transparency was from my mother. For her, if somebody did something bad, she won’t hide it. She will say “my son failed his exam” so it was no rumour. Then Inclusive. In my family we are very inclusive of people, we don’t care what your background is or your social status. Everyone is different, that is personalization. The last one is Simplicity; my father is a paragon of simplicity. I know that when he started Diamond Bank, his car was eight years old before he changed it and while everyone else was driving Mercedes and Hondas, he was driving his beat-up Peugeot. Those are the values I am taking from 20 years of working in Diamond Bank and then 40 years of my life living with my parents and engaging with my brothers.
PwC: We find that there is a link between succession planning and good governance and our 2021 Family Business Survey shows that the relationship that makes a family business strong can also hold it back. What is your impression of the succession process in your family business and were there any issues encountered in this succession planning?
Uzoma: I mean it is still a work in progress because things change, people change. My father’s idea of succession planning was more rooted in tradition but also a bit dynamic and trying to allow for the modern age. We have always had an egalitarian spirit, I am the eldest, but we are all equal and we have respect. We have structured meetings because we have family assets which can be leveraged to achieve what we want. For us, the family legacy is how we continue to ensure that the Dozie name is a great name in society and to do that – first, we ensure that education is key. Education, from school education to life education. We do not know how the world is going to be in 20 years’ time, but we do know that we have to equip them with the values of the family and skills that will allow them to adapt, to ensure that the legacy continues. We are in the “Name” business, enhancing the family name, making the family name stronger. What’s the idea of success? It’s that our name would be a bigger name on the African continent and in the world in context. That is what I will describe as my legacy.
PwC: Where does good governance come in within the structure of your family business?
Uzoma: Good governance is your values and your behaviour. The governance structure we have is that we are going to meet a minimum four times a year.
PwC: It’s your values that uphold that. If we say we are going to meet four times in a year, are we committed to that?
Uzoma: Yes, we are going to meet four times a year. We are going to discuss 3 things – financial, non-financial and giving back. That is our governance structure. It is how you behave with your values and in what spirit. We are going to make sure that it is in the full spirit of transparency, simplicity, trust, freedom and being inclusive of people’s ideas. I was born ten years before my last brother and that’s a big difference. My journey and his journey are completely different. The fact that my parents were probably economically better off ten years after, meant he was born in a world of generators while I was born in the world of tales by moonlight. You have to be inclusive; you have to understand people’s journeys and accommodate for that; and know that Chijioke is going to behave this particular way, or Chikezie is going to behave in a particular way, and allow for that. Your governance structures at the end are just a guide, they are not rules, we don’t live by rules. If we live by rules, then we become rigid.
PwC: At PwC, we find that the NextGens see themselves and their roles in the family business as different. We described four distinct NextGen personas. The Transformers who are self-confident and future leaders, the Intrapreneurs who prove themselves by running ventures under the family’s wing and we have the Entrepreneurs who follow their own path outside the family business and then we have the Stewards who keep to tradition and existing networks. What is your persona and how has that played out with working in the family business?
Uzoma: I think I have been all four, but the strongest will be the entrepreneur. When I was working in the family business, I was still doing things differently. Now I am interested in different things. I want to be part of transformation, making impact in different things and I believe now, with technology and the way businesses are run today in a less restrictive manner, you can do many things. I look at things from a platform perspective. At Sparkle, yes, we are a bank, a digital bank, but our ethos is what do you want to do today. People don’t want to do banking services. People typically say, I want to be happy, so I am going to buy ice cream, I want security, so I am going to get insurance. It’s about the lifestyle so how do we connect to that “you think it and you do it” without leaving that spot. I am engaged now in many initiatives with different people and in a way, everything comes together, because in the end, it is all about lifestyle and how you can help people achieve their lifestyle.
PwC: Which of those personas do you think is best suited to a family business or which is the best?
Uzoma: An entrepreneur. We are in the world of entrepreneurs, and I believe that, even for all businesses to transform, they have to have an entrepreneurial spirit and mind-set. When I look at my fellow Bankers now, you have to change the pay structure, you have to be hungry, hunger and passion is what drives entrepreneurs. When you look at traditional businesses, you must really dig deep to find that hunger and passion. It is only about a few people, about 1 or 2 percent of the organization that have that hunger. Entrepreneurship is going to be big; it is going to be key to survival.
PwC: Can you share your two top recommendations that you think are key to fostering succession planning?
Uzoma: The first one is education. Education is going to be very big because the world is changing, people will have to learn new stuff. In the last two years, I have gone through learning how to run a small business or start a business, it is different from running an established business.
PwC: When you say education, I am thinking, people may think “oh it is going to school” but education is an ongoing process.
Uzoma: Yes, education is an ongoing process but when I say education, I talk about it from moving people from physical to digital, about moving people from cash to cashless; that is education, because it is like changing the mind-set, even businesses go through another education. The second one is trying different things, when you try different things, you get new skills because lateral thinking is going to be very key, being able to take from this field and apply it to another field. When you look at how the vaccine for Covid was discovered, you will find that it was from a different field. So, it’s the ability to take from different fields.
PwC: Your two recommendations are therefore education and open mindedness?
Uzoma: Yes.
PwC: Thank you for your time today Uzoma.
