My ‘date’ for this week is someone I have known for a while now and I met him again recently at a program organised at the Lagos Business School where he spoke astutely and with poise on a panel that came up before mine. It was easy to tell he knew his onions and indeed we were all inspired.
With extensive experience in global oil & gas exploration, development and production, he was the commercial advisor in corporate business development for Chevron Corporation at their San Ramon, California Global Corporate Headquarters until his recent deployment to Nigeria in September 2014 to develop and manage gas strategy for Chevron Nigeria & Mid-Africa strategic business unit. Prior to this, he worked in Chevron’s global upstream strategy & planning team, supporting top-level executives in managing the corporation’s global upstream development strategies. Previously, he was advisor/special assistant to the Chairman/Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria & Mid-Africa and also the business manager for Policy Government & Public Affairs for Chevron’s Nigeria/Mid-Africa Business Unit.
Earlier in his career, he was a field engineer for Schlumberger Oilfield Services and interface manager for Acergy Group on Oil & Gas Deep-water facilities development.
He also serves currently as Co-Country Chair for Nigeria in the “Africa 2.0 Organization”, a Pan-African Civil Society Organization (CSO) that consists of emerging leaders from Africa and the Diaspora, who share a collective vision for Africa and a commitment to finding and implementing sustainable solutions that will in turn leapfrog the development of the continent. An Electrical/Electronics Engineer by training, with an M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Debo Lukanmbi is my ‘date’ for this week.
Debo Lukanmbi
Debo grew up in a relatively small and pretty close-knit family. His late father was a medical lab scientist with very conservative behavioural values and his mother a banker who was a little more ebullient. “I think I took on a lot of my father’s behaviour patterns including his somewhat curly hair, while taking my mother’s nice dark skin complexion. I was always interested in things to do with international business and activities of large corporations. At the same time, I was really interested in computers and electronics – my favourite subject in high school was mathematics. I loved Maths at that time, mennn! My father’s guidance then was for me to be an Engineer first, then look to doing an MBA later, and that’s how the jelly set….” Debo says and I couldn’t help but baulk when he said he loves Maths..Maths? really?? Now I understand the cliché “one man’s meat is another man’s ‘poison’”.
As advisor in corporate business development at the corporation headquarters, Debo helps to ensure there is support for senior corporation executives in evaluating new initiatives on regional and global levels to support informed decision-making that help optimize value to the company and their partners.
Debo’s job requires him working outside the country and within but he has managed this well and he tells me how. “I consider every form of travel an educational experience. In travel you learn about people, places and the different elements that make them who or what they are. Very importantly, you learn that people do not differ by the colour of their skin or by the fluency of familiar language. People differ by culture, which is specifically defined by family, society and environment. Within cultures, further, you find that people differ by personal attitude and decisions they have made.”
“At a time when I was transferred on the job from the United States to France for a couple of years, I found the cultural differences quite phenomenal. But working in certain other places like Gabon and Indonesia at another point in time was a different kind of experience. Once we recognize that we actually shouldn’t bury our differences, but we should learn to appreciate those differences, life becomes happier and the world a better place.” Debo admits.
Debo’s biggest personal and professional challenges are those he finds that pertain to attaining and exceeding goals which he has set, how to reach his goals and exceed it. He adds “I have however learnt that in life, truly, except the Lord builds that house, you are just going to be spinning around in vain, achieving nothing real. The right things have to be done the right way at the right time and for the right reasons to get the right results” He admonishes.
I decided to take Debo down memory lane and inquired from him what his most dangerous encounter was and how he came out of it and his response was indeed mind blowing. Hear him “There have been a good number of instances but they all had a good element of thrill in them, so it added to fantastic experiences. In one instance, several years ago, when I worked in another company (in the oil services sector of the industry), I had to go to a rig in a central African country by boat. After 8 hours on this open boat, I had to be hoisted on to the rig floor by something called a rope basket, which is basically a rope contraption which is hooked on to the end of the hook of a crane which you hang onto. So here was I, several hundred miles offshore of the Atlantic, at 2:00 a.m. in pitch darkness being pulled and the crane got stuck!”
“There I was, dangling a few hundred feet in the air over pitch dark waves, from where I could see the crane operator on the platform in the distance beckoning for assistance to get the crane running again. In that instance, there is really nothing you can do – you cannot shout, you were too far up and too far out for any shouting to make a difference. I could imagine the barracudas in the water which would be having a nice early-morning meal if I lost my hold and fell into the water. At the same time, it was somewhat of a thrill so I hung in there, literarily, till I was hoisted onto the platform and into safety”. Didn’t that sound like a ‘horror’ movie? I captured the scene in my mind as Debo shared his experience with me, now that is one ‘adventure’ trip I am NOT looking forward to.
Chevron Companies partner with governments and people in the communities where they work. They pride themselves in promoting and measuring positive social impact in the communities where they work and in helping to enhance the quality of life of people in those communities. “Every year, we support those communities with millions of Naira worth of investments in infrastructure, skill development, scholarships & education, health care development and the eradication of commutable diseases. Our GMOU community development model in Nigeria has become a flagship process for companies in our line of business for supporting communities in areas where we operate.” Debo informs me.
The usage of domestic gas is being encouraged in homes in Nigeria today and Debo has his views on this. Again, he speaks “The Federal Government of Nigeria has been doing a great job in working to help the industry and people optimize the nation’s gas resources. A lot of great work has been done, but the activities and action required to get us where we need to be are highly complex, while consuming a lot of resources. I believe the government is on the right path so far, but there are still ways to get where we would all like to be.” He says.
Chevron is currently the highest supplier of gas to the power sector and Debo shares with me how Chevron has been able to maintain this feat. “The NNPC/Chevron Nigeria Limited joint venture started looking at alternatives to harness gas production very early in the development of the global gas business. A lot of investment dollars have gone into large, multi-year projects such as the Escravos Gas plant (EGP) trains 1 & 2, EGP 3A & B and several gas gathering projects to put out flares. Between 1999 and the present, we have increased production of high-quality, pipeline-spec from 50MM SCF per day to up to 550MM SCF per day. By the end of 2015, we only expect to still be flaring less than 2percent of associated gas produced in our operational areas.” He reveals.
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Africa 2.0 is an initiative-driven advocacy group that brings together emerging leaders representing African countries, in Africa and the African diaspora, who share a common vision of the continent’s future. In 4 years of existence Africa 2.0 has grown into an organization with a global footprint in 32 countries and rallied some of the most influential continental and global leaders. Debo as co-chair, updates me on latest happenings “In starting Africa 2.0, at the Mombasa Conference in 2011, we looked one another in the eyes and said, ‘look, everyone has a plan for Africa – the Americans, the Chinese, the Russians, the corporations, the intelligence agencies, the “Aid” agencies, the World Bank, the WHO, FIFA and so on, the only group that doesn’t seem to have a clear, well-understood and communicated vision backed by a plan for Africa are we Africans ourselves. There shouldn’t be 54 separate visions and developmental frameworks; we must have a coherent vision, a focused framework, a plan and a roadmap.”
“It should be a common outlook that will cross-fertilize respective skills and knowledge to work for the good of all. Most importantly, we should have the strength, the will and the influence to implement the plan. We need to transform all of Africa’s touted ‘hope’ and ‘potential’ into action. The manifesto we produced was quickly adopted by the AU. Last year in Addis Ababa, we came up with a ‘business plan’ for Africa. This month in Accra, we will be putting together the specific steps to implement that plan. Our participation in the US-Africa leaders’ Summit in Washington D.C. in August further helped extend our capabilities. We are making good progress towards the year 2020, with support from several African business leaders, Heads of State (past & present) and institutional leaders who sit on our Advisory Board or support us in several other ways.” Debo informs me.
We all have experiences that we are not too quick to forget and as we brought the gist to an end, I asked Debo to share his own unforgettable experience with me and all I could say was…Whao! Hear him “There was once I was travelling and had to come to Lagos the next day for my sister’s wedding. On the day before flying to Lagos, my plans and schedule during the day kept changing due to weird changes in circumstances throughout the day, and I found myself at 10:30 p.m. on the platform of a deserted train station I hadn’t planned to be at. As I hurried towards the exit, I noticed a man standing precariously close to the edge of the rail line and at first I thought to mind my business (I didn’t have time to be distracted, anyway!), however, I decided to go over and pull the man away from the edge, because I assumed he was drunk.”
“It turned out that he had planned to commit suicide – he had positioned himself to fall onto the rail line as the next train was coming! He told me his story – he was about my age – and he felt he was such a failure and a disappointment to himself and his upper middle-class family that he had reached the end of his line. We talked about it, shared a prayer and he made a complete turn-around in his countenance. He walked out of the station a lot more confident and got on a bus to go home. That was quite an experience!” I couldn’t agree less, an experience indeed!
KEMI AJUMOBI