Elder Urum Kalu Eke, popularly known as UK Eke, is a household name in Nigeria’s corporate circles. Aside seating atop FBN Holdings Plc, the parent company of the banking behemoth that shares a common history and destiny with Nigeria – the 127-year-old First Bank of Nigeria Limited – as the former’s Group Managing Director since 1st January 2016, UK Eke has had a sterling career covering financial services, strategy, auditing, consulting, taxation, process re-engineering and capital market operations over the last 35 years. More than a third of these have been at board levels where his widely sought-after expertise and experience have been critical in developing and executing corporate strategies, especially in the financial sector.
It all began in the year 1986. That was the year that marked the beginning of the shining career journey embarked upon by the young Eke, who started out with Deloitte Haskins and Sells International, a firm of chartered accountants. Only the year before he had bagged his first degree – a Bachelor’s in political science – from the prestigious University of Lagos and commenced his one-year mandatory national service (NYSC) at the same company. He spent five years with the company, rising to the position of Audit Senior.
The next 19 years saw him working at Diamond Bank. While at the bank, Eke, as if foreseeing a future where he would manage very large projects, undertook and completed an MBA programme in project management technology at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) in 2008. He rose to become branch manager, regional manager, divisional head and then executive director at the same Diamond Bank, and also served on the boards of Diamond Bank du Benin and Diamond Capital.
It was at the executive director stage of his career that Eke moved his services to the largest organisation anywhere in Nigeria’s financial sector at the time, joining FirstBank in May 2011 as Executive Director, Public Sector (South). In this new role he assumed responsibility for FirstBank’s relationship with states and the federal government as well as all tertiary and health institutions in the south of Nigeria. He was later named Executive Director, South, with oversight of all South-South- and South-East-domiciled retail, commercial and government accounts, as well as concurrent responsibility for Private Banking and Wealth Management.
Eke leveraged his sound managerial and motivational skills and vast experience to help develop the bank’s businesses within the Public Sector, Retail and Private Banking Groups. And as though his hands were not already full, he was assigned the additional responsibility of championing learning in the bank following his appointment as FirstBank’s Chief Knowledge Officer in 2013. Three years later, he became only the second person to assume the position of Group Managing Director (GMD), FBN Holdings Plc.
At the same time, UK Eke was being charged with various challenging responsibilities within the FBN Holdings Group he was also assuming other challenging ones elsewhere. One of these followed his 2017 appointment to the board of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA – Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund). He was tasked with chairing the Externally Managed Investment Committee among a number of critical assignments, including helping the Authority to drive capital raise and other capital market engagements. His involvement with NSIA did not diminish his roles on the boards of other institutions where he was still serving or had served, such as First Bank of Nigeria Limited, FBN Bank (UK) Limited, FBNQuest Merchant Bank Limited and First Pension Custodian Limited.
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UK Eke has chaired and served on various board committees over this period, including human capital, governance, audit, risk management, credit, strategy and finance, compensations and investment committee. He has also chaired several committees for the Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN) and the Institute of Directors (IoD). As a champion of learning he has not stopped learning himself. To learn, he has attended several executive management and board training programmes at Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, IESE Barcelona, China European International Business School, Shanghai, China, International Institute for Management and Development Lausanne, Switzerland, Wharton Business School and Lagos Business School, among others.
It is to the credit of the leadership team under UK Eke and the committed staff in the Group that effective implementation of defined strategies, have resulted in a significant decline in credit losses
Eke’s time as FBN Holdings’ Group CEO has been one of steadying the ship and preparing it for unimpaired growth by building sustainable synergies across the Group. When he became the GMD in 2016, the leadership team of the Group decided their strategic focus would be to restore shareholder value, and they identified clear strategies for achieving this.
It is to the credit of the leadership team under UK Eke and the committed staff in the Group that effective implementation of defined strategies, have resulted in a significant decline in credit losses, as the best-in-class risk management practices were sustained. It also ensured reduction in foreign currency (FCY) loans from 54% in 2014 to 46% in 2019, as well as significant improvement in the quality and mitigation of FCY loan book. Furthermore, it secured portfolio diversification, leading to a reduction in oil and gas exposure from a high of 41.8% at some point down to 34.3% in 2018 and less than 1% non-performing loans (NPL) for loans originated from 2016 till 2019, with nil loan advancement to upstream oil and gas.
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Observers and other stakeholders who have been pleased with the positive outcomes that have followed UK Eke’s tenure as GMD have registered their approval through nominations and votes at various awards organised by different awarding organisations and platforms. These have resulted in the Group, companies in the Group and UK Eke himself carting away multiple awards from the awarding organisations since 2016. FBN Holdings has consistently won the Holding Company of the Year award at the annual BusinessDay’s BAFI (Banks and other Financial Institutions) Awards. It holds the award for 2018, 2019 and 2020, and is a top contender for the award at the 2021 BAFI Awards, where it is also a top contender for the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Company of the Year award at the same 2021 Awards.
Another award the Group has won in a row, unsurprisingly, given the Group’s foremost position when the subject matter is discussed in Nigeria’s corporate circles, is Best in Corporate Governance, Nigeria. Awarded by World Finance Magazine, FBN Holdings claimed the global award in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The Great Place to Work is another organisation that has been very pleased with the excellent work culture the Group, under UK Eke, has sustained. In 2019, the organisation recognised the Group as: Best in Learning and Development; Best Workplace for Women; gave the Group Certification as a Great Place to Work and an Overall Ranking as the 5th Best Place to Work in Africa. A year after, in 2020, the organisation celebrated the Group with more awards: Great Place to Work Certification – Platinum; Best Workplace for Women (back-to-back award); Best in Learning and Development (second year in a row); Best Workplace for the Millennial Generation; Best in Organisational and Workplace Leadership; and Overall Ranking as the 2nd Best Workplace. In the forthcoming 2021 awards, FBN Holdings is a top contender to win again in multiple categories.
At the 2021 Nigerian Investors Award by BusinessDay/NGX (Nigeria Exchange Limited), FBN Holdings was honoured with Listed Company of the Year 2 award. At the forthcoming International Finance’s Awards, FBN Holdings is already a top contender in two award categories: Best Investor Relations – Banking – Nigeria and the Most Diversified Financial Portfolio Services – Nigeria. These recognitions attest to the fact that UK Eke and his leadership team have stayed the course on their strategic focus of restoring shareholder value since 2016.
In terms of individual awards, especially one received of recent in recognition of his strides over the years, UK Eke, already a recipient of the Deloitte Distinguished Alumni Award and Nigeria’s national honour of Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR), has also become a recipient of the highly-acclaimed Zik Prize in Professional Leadership.
This latest honour was given to him by the Public Policy Research and Analysis Centre only a few days ago. It is another feather in the cap of Eke, who is Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, as well as a Patron, Lagos State Council, Boys’ Brigade Nigeria and Chairman, Advisory Board, Lifeforte International High School, Ibadan.
Eke has been described as “one of the finest titans of the Nigerian banking sector” by Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a fellow alumnus of FUTO, foremost scholar, business analyst and thought leader on tech, entrepreneurship and business education, among others. This was in the latter’s congratulatory message to the former on his retirement as the Group Managing Director of FBN Holdings Plc, posted on the professor’s popular Tekedia blog.
So, how will history judge UK Eke? How will his time as Group Managing Director at FBN Holdings be assessed? If history traditionally makes its infallible assessment on the basis of facts on the ground, evidenced by empirical numbers, then looking at the numbers posted by the Group at the start and towards the end of his term may be one way to read how history will assess Eke’s tenure as GMD.
According to a statement put out by the Group while announcing his retirement, effective 31st December 2021: “[UK Eke] has spent almost 11 years in the FBNHoldings Group, serving meritoriously in the last six years as Group Managing Director. He has been able to build sustainable synergies across the FBNHoldings Group, fostering collaborations to maximise business development opportunities with diverse stakeholders globally.”
The Group’s statement went on to provide substantiation so the basis for all the ovation can be seen in irrefutable numbers.
“[UK Eke’s] tenure has witnessed an upsurge in value creation for shareholders and other stakeholders, with a diversified and healthier portfolio. Remarkably, as at January 01, 2016, FBNHoldings share price was N5.13 and market capitalisation of N175 [billion]…whereas comparatively as at October 26, 2021, the price was N12.40, with market capitalisation of nearly N445 [billion]….” The statement says it all: UK Eke is leaving the ship better than how he met it and he is leaving when the ovation is loudest!
