Driving The Family Legacy - Course or Burden?- Episode 1

Transcript

PwC: Welcome Uzoma and thank you for being our pioneer guest on NextGen Talks.

Uzoma: Thanks Chinasa, great to be here.

PwC:  I will like you to share your thoughts very quickly 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”. What do you think about this? 

Uzoma: I totally agree. I mean 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, freedom doesn’t mean do whatever you like. You have to earn freedom; you have to be disciplined so there definitely has to be a structure. Now, how that occurs is a different thing. When I think of my own life and how I was groomed, first of all, in those days it was a case of you are either going to be a doctor, engineer or a lawyer and so that’s how you are trained but then again my father was an economist and also 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, he was hustling and so for him it was “do something structured, be a lawyer or so”. Then I ended up not being any of those things, but I think what is fundamental and key is just the values that you learn, the foundation, and that is what is actually very key from a succession perspective. The values are what will keep you, and give you the competitive advantage that you want, the networking, regardless of wherever you end up being. 

PwC: What is your story as a NextGen transitioning into the family business?

Uzoma: Let me start with a little story to just give some context. Thirty years exactly, my father started a business called Diamond Bank and there were many banks around then, but his focus was in the middle market, small businesses, 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 actually 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. 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 of all, 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 whether it is banking, oil and gas, retail etc. 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. I donʼt know what banking is going to be like or oil and gas, but I do know that if you have a great name, you are rounded and you have tried many things, that is the preparation for the NextGen.

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 more a course for you to follow into doing your own thing?

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 this parties whether we wanted to go or not. I remember one party I went for; I was sulking that I didn’t want to go, so when they brought hot jollof rice and dodo, (rice and plantain – local Nigerian dish) I did not eat it, I just denied myself, 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. So, everything that I have done has been an education. There were good moments, there were bad moments but there were experiences that I am now beginning to benefit from. I worked in three organizations, PGD (my father) did not want me to work in Diamond Bank first.

PwC: So, 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 because I worked in three different cultures and so I know culture is important, I know 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, I have gone to different schools, so I have done different things. If you read the story of Alexander the Great, you will see that his father trained him for succession and what was that? First of all, it wasn’t 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, the world in thirty years’ time I donʼt even know what it will be like but 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 and their focus on making a difference and being more purposeful and as you talked about values now, they are more value driven. Some have cited that they did not have a choice, suggesting that they would have preferred to pursue a different path. So, what are the implications of this when you more or less impose that option on your child? I was previously under the impression that you did not have a choice, from a cultural perspective and your position as a first son.

Uzoma: I didn’t have a choice; you know 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 is you, can still make the best out of it. For me, I saw it as a platform, yes, it is a family business, it is a bank, but it is a platform. How do I use this in light of 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 goal. I was fortunate to seize the opportunity, understanding that it was a bank but there was also finance, business development, branding, marketing etc, which are the things that you see in everyday life, so for me it was great. I decided to turn it upside down by seeing it as a platform and understanding that I could do a myriad of things. So, I spent a lot of time on the marketing and retail side. I didn’t like corporate banking, I found it very traditional and not really making an impact, so I knew someone else would handle it, while we focus on being transformative and innovative, which was at the heart of retail. We leveraged the use technology, which is how the business started. 

PwC: Is the purpose of a family business transmission of values which should transcend generations. With your business “Sparkle, is it the same values you had from Diamond Bank that your father has passed on that you have brought into this business and you are going to then transmit to your children who are the NextGen for your business? 

Uzoma: Very good question. With “Sparkle”, if you asked me what my values were four years ago, I probably would talk about it in a very roundabout way without clarity. However, in starting Sparkle, I was thinking what values do we want to have and looking at how Diamond Bank started, the culture at the end, the culture of my family and how we were brought up, it was very easy to actually 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, very good one, it is actually one of the things that is very 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 wouldn’t hide it, she will go out and shout it. She will say “my son failed his exam” so it was no rumour, that was transparency. Then Inclusive, in my family we are very inclusive of people, we don’t care what your background is or your social status but everyone is different, that is personalization, everyone has to come from different backgrounds, visit different experiences so even though you are inclusive, you also allow for that. The last one is Simplicity; my father was a paragon of simplicity, he is very content. 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 505 (Peugeot car brand); and 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 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 work in progress and it has to be 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 modern age. We have always had an egalitarian spirit, like 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 do 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 for not only for us, but for our siblings and people after, setting up that continuity. Education, from school education to life education - let’s not forget that, 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. Nobody has talked about whether you are going to be a teacher, whether you are going to be in the family business, we are in the “Name” business, enhancing the family name, making the family name stronger. So, 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 that is what I want my legacy to be.

PwC: I talked about the link between succession planning and good governance where does good governance come in within the structure of your family business? 

Uzoma: I think good governance is your values, your value and your behaviour. So, the governance structure we have is that we are going to meet minimum four times a year.

PwC: And it’s your values that uphold that, so 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 things that are financial, non-financial and giving back as well, so you have three things and those are your governance structure. It is how you behave with your values, how do you behave, in what spirit. We are going to make sure that it is a full spirit of transparency, simplicity, trust, freedom and also 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. So, 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 so 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, so in 2017, 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 actually, but the strongest will probably 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 think 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, less physical manner, you can actually do many things, you can actually connect platforms. I look at things from a platform perspective, so at Sparkle, what we are doing is - 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, they donʼt want to wake up and say, “I am going to transfer 500 naira to Chinasa”.  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 actually leaving that spot. For me, when I think about it, 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. Why stick to one platform when you can do it on many platforms, and the more things that you do, the more you discover about yourself and the more things you can do and that’s what discovering yourself is about. You wonʼt know yourself until you have tried many things, my job is to try as many things as possible as long as I can, as long as I live. 

PwC: Which of those personas do you think is best suited to a family business or which is the best? 

Uzoma: Definitely 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, first of all 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 have to 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 and business continuity on the continent?

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 have to go through another education. The second one is trying different things, when you try different things you get new skill 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 and not just your field only. I have a brother who is a physicist, speaks a language, he is an accountant, he is a computer scientist, he is a salsa dancer and has climbed the mountains. He has done that in the same space of time that I was going to night clubs and doing other things, I envy him because he is very dynamic.

PwC: So, your two recommendations are education, and should I say open mindedness?

Uzoma: Yes.

PwC: Thank you very much and we have come to the end of this episode of NextGen Talks so before I go, here is a quick note to all family business owners, “remember your family is unique and so are your children. If you are curious to know the NextGen path your child may be on and to explore case studies and tailored recommendations for the incumbent and next generation, please visit www.pwc.com and search for the NextGen survey 2019 quiz to help you achieve this. 

Thank you for listening.