Babs Olugbemi is the Chief Vision Officer of Mentoras Leadership Limited, an executive and leadership coach, and a keynote speaker, author, and organisational transformation expert; he was awarded a PhD in philosophy (honoris causa); he is also United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Ambassador for Africa. In this interview with KENNETH ATHEKAME, he spoke about how implementing a leadership culture can create sustainable momentum in every setting of human endeavours. Excerpts:
Please walk us through your career journey, highlighting your experience in areas of business growth consulting?
My career journey is a multifaceted journey to fulfilment. I started as an accountant, practised with a firm and joined the banking industry after my youth corps year. I gained experience in financial control, internal controls, credit risk management, retail and corporate banking, sales and marketing, product development and performance management. At a time, in search of purpose, I relocated abroad. While in Europe, I worked in a consulting firm, practised as a public accountant in the United Kingdom, and worked in the banking sector, where I developed my expertise in credit cards and credit analysis at the Capital One Bank in the United Kingdom.
On my return to Nigeria, I rejoined the banking industry, where I furthered my career in risk management and got deployed to other departments like credit card risk, retail lending, collection management, value chain management and business development. While in employment and still searching for fulfilment, I volunteered to support a consulting outfit and was exposed to sectors like outsourcing, telecommunications, education, and manufacturing, including public sector organisations.
Eventually, I found my actual career calling in leadership—or, let me say, leadership called me. I have always seen everything from a leadership perspective, right from childhood. I want to make a sustainable impact on people and the environment. I remember founding an academic club while in school, which has existed for twenty-seven years.
As an employee, I was known for challenging uncivilised behaviour in organisations and developing people. I eventually settled for a career in leadership development and consulting with nation-building activities covering youth empowerment and social enterprise through public speaking, mentoring and writing to invoke change and positively impact society. I have authored seven books that cut across various spectrums of society- students, teachers, employees, and children, and I am currently working on a leadership book. The Nigerian financial sector has provided me with experience helping me support businesses in other sectors.
Kindly elaborate on your specific expertise in business banking, account management, and product development? What are some key projects or achievements you’re most proud of?
Banking gave me an entrepreneurial platform. I worked in the back offices for about 14 years before the crave to be in business. I have garnered experience in almost every area except sales and marketing. I noticed that a top CEO in the bank who grew as a marketer would always redeploy and encourage people; he picked interest in marketing. I did reflective thinking and concluded that he meant good for them. I have adopted the concept of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, so I pushed myself into the marketing and business development role.
My first role in business development was as the divisional head of value chain banking. That was the first time I had a bottom-line responsibility for collections, enlistment of customers and extending credit facilities to SMEs. The role exposed me to the engagement and management of ecosystems of corporate organisations, distributors, suppliers, employers and government entities. That role brought out the best of ecosystem’s stakeholders management in me, including public speaking and presentations.
Later, I became a business banking branch manager and then an acting regional manager, where I managed many branches and multinational companies, with responsibility for their export and import business lines, corporate finance, asset, and fund management.
One of my key achievements was developing collection platforms and processes. We started collections for one of my clients and grew it to a substantial amount in six months, leveraging my relationship and advisory skills in engaging the distributors and contractors. The major achievement in my role is implementing a leadership culture in my team, which helped us deliver results above all expectations.
What are your core strengths when it comes to understanding and navigating the unique challenges and opportunities faced by businesses in Nigeria?
You are right. Nigerian businesses faced unique challenges amid opportunities. Aside from the industry and environmental factors, people’s attitudes and mindsets are a significant challenge. People are critical to the success of every human endeavour. So, my leadership knowledge, skills and attitude are my key strengths. Every leadership ideology I teach and coach executives on, I have practically implemented them in my roles as Chief Executive Officer, consultant or as non-executive director of organisations. Many businesses are having problems because of the wrong leadership perspective and people’s mindset toward their involvement in the business and society. Everyone is looking for an undue advantage. No one wants to grow gradually.
An example is in the political space. A few want to serve, and the majority want to be served as they see appointments as opportunities to get wealthy. The people who are criticising others today are waiting for their time and will commit more atrocity than those currently in office. Whatever attitude that is rewarded or not punished will be replicated massively.
A major challenge I was set to solve for businesses is leadership and structural challenges, which enable the people’s challenges I mentioned earlier. When business owners believe they can do whatever they want, they disrupt structures and put personal interests above the interests of the business they create. The people under them began to think of immediate gratification, making it a race to get what they could get now. That is why many businesses are struggling and failing despite tremendous opportunities. This differs from the government’s failure to create an enabling business environment and the wrong focus on things that don’t aid development. An example is the sponsorship and subsidisation of the yearly pilgrimage, which neither adds value to the majority nor contributes to the society’s economic or physical development.
So, in our clients’ organisations, we are developing and implementing a leadership culture to address people’s challenges and create a workplace environment for engagement and sustainability. Everything must start with people, who are the agents of civilization.
Describe your experience working with different sizes of businesses in Nigeria, from SMEs to large corporations. How do you tailor your approach to each segment?
My team and I at Mentoras Limited have worked with organisations of different sizes in Nigeria, Senegal, Rwanda and the United Kingdom. As a form of a paradigm shift, we don’t call small businesses SMEs in my team; we call them growing businesses because the success of every nation is the growth and sustainability of the SMEs. In 2023, there was 5.51m SMEs in the United Kingdom, representing over 95% of the businesses in a population of 68.3m. Suppose you compared this to Nigeria with 170,098 according to the 2023 Social Statistics Report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), indicating a decline of 45% and supporting a population of 250 million. You can see the gaps and the effects. With a teeming youth population (70% under 30), we need thriving SMEs to support large corporations. Unfortunately, businesses of bigger sizes face challenges regarding people and leadership, with a few exceptions.
Our tailored solutions go beyond staff training. We always start by ascertaining the dominant culture in our clients’ workplaces, the level of civility and toxicity in the environment, the workforce’s demography, and the reality ratio compared with the project business aspirations for three to five years.
Let me give an analogy to clarify my point. If your organisation’s dominant culture is a hierarchy, the staff strata show more of Gen Z, and the workplace climate is medium or low; we can ascertain that business objectives will be challenging to meet. This is simple. The workforce with Gen Z wants collaboration. They would thrive more under a culture like Clan, Market or Adhocracy, not Hierarchy. If the misalignment of culture and leadership style is incorrect, there will be high attrition rates and high level of staff disengagement.
We do implement leadership and structural changes by stablishing a leadership culture to correct the misalignment. Our implementation modules are change management focused and could be through programmes like culture alignment, attitudinal change, and institutional legacy projects.
Describe how you transited from banking into leadership development and consulting role?
I started by looking inward and discovering my strength zone. I said earlier that my search for career fulfilment led me to various things, including relocating to the United Kingdom. I was tired of being an auditor in the banking industry in 2006 and started querying myself. I want to be fulfilled. My focus is fulfilment, not just earning income or climbing the corporate ladder. In my fourth book, Take the Lead, I wrote about finding your strength zone and having psychological capital as an employee. On my return to Nigeria in 2008, I found myself in a dynamic organisation where I had the opportunity to volunteer my strengths outside my core functions. I started writing for the organisation’s magazine, mentoring young colleagues and became known as an inspirational speaker. I authored my first book in 2012 and wrote six books before quitting my employment to follow my leadership development, coaching, and consulting career.
My transit, therefore, started with identifying that writing, speaking, and coaching people are part of my strength zone. I volunteered those strengths for my employer aside from being known for performing on the job and someone who could challenge anyone for anything against the company and the people. Before my exit, I equally volunteered for some business owners, using my weekends and private time to support their businesses. They formed my first set of clients when I started fully. The first lesson in my transition story is that people should volunteer their skills and strengths to the organisations in which they are working. Do beyond your core duty and build your skills. You will find fulfilment and create a personal brand image in the process.
What are the challenges you faced as a consultant with working with SMEs in Nigeria?
Before my unplanned exit as an employee, I had been helping some business owners with my time and expertise. I was lucky to have a few people who knew what I could do and were willing to pay me. I also have six published books available when I exited paid employment. That psychological capital helped me navigate the initial challenges of finding businesses to replace my employment income.
In Nigeria, consulting, especially in leadership, is not popularly acceptable to SME owners. Many business owners believe they know their businesses and do not need consultants. They want to buy tangible service they can see its immediate effects. I faced the challenge of convincing the SMEs of the value I could add. In the initial stage, people easily categorise me as a motivational speaker and a trainer. My banking skills and training as a chartered accountant helped me add initial value to SMEs’ business decisions.
Working with SMEs in Nigeria is complex and has to be value oriented. It is also a knowledge-driven relationship. I once had a client who believed she knew everything in her industry. She is a very industrious and a knowledgeable CEO. It was tough to secure her patronage until she became convinced that I knew my stuff in leadership and organisational development. The turning point was when she saw me on television analysing employee engagement and how to create a sustainable workplace environment.
Another challenge is the implementation of what is ideal for the SME business. People always want to be at the centre of the picture of the team rather than be an enabler. Convincing many SME owners to have a structure, delegate authority and focus on strategic aspects of the business is often challenging.
DO you have any start-up experience?
I have experience as a consultant with many startups. We have helped some diaspora clients start businesses in Africa, and I have advised many new businesses.
I was an outsourcing company’s CEO from December 2020 until March 2025. I joined the team at the formation stage, which allowed me to start with the implementation of a leadership culture. One of my thriving moments in every engagement is when I start leading a new team. The time I takes to get to know people, their strengths, their roles, the policies and procedures, and to make changes to align people, processes, methods, and services with the expectations is crucial to me. I love everyone to understand what is expected of them and bring excellence and energy to their expectation. I am naturally an inspirational leader, and I always look for new challenges.
While working as a remote CEO of the outsourcing company, we introduced coaching and wellbeing engagement, which was said to be the first in the industry in Nigeria. After nearly five years, I stepped down voluntarily to allow a new Managing Director to continue where I stopped. I am still on the company’s board as a director.
What methodologies do you employ to assess a business’s growth potential and identify key areas for improvement in the Nigerian market?
Every sector or industry has peculiarities, but standard business sustainability factors exist. If we analyse the performance position of any organisation, we can identify the entity’s income drivers and financial stability. The sector or industry analysis will aid in determining how sustainable the product or service offering to the market is, as well as the market share and growth potential. The growth parameters and potential differ from sector to sector and its sub-sectors.
Whether the growth potential is positive or not, one common denominator to the sustainability of every endeavour is the people. I mean the leadership. A flourishing company in a growing sector will fail if the people’s management skills of the leaders are poor. Just like no individual, no matter how brilliant, can defeat a team, no one leader or set of leaders can achieve any sustainable growth without people. Therefore, the challenge is always how to lead people and create momentum for business sustainability.
There is a company in the downstream sector with a strong first-mover advantage and high growth potential that failed to manifest its industry leadership. This is because of the abusive nature of the founder, who can tell his executive directors in a meeting to shut up. The attrition rate of experienced staff was a sign. In Jack Ma’s words, no matter how brilliant you are, your dream will remain a dream if you cannot work with people.
So, the key improvement area is leading the dynamic resource in navigating other resources. People are the only resources that can withstand changes in business and environmental landscape. I have visited Dr Christopher Kolade and Elder Felix Ohiwerei to learn how they led people to be committed and resourceful during their time as corporate leaders. I am a big fan of Mrs Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru for her transformational skills that came to bear at the Federal Inland Revenue Service. My next book, Uplifting Leadership, will feature a few of what I have gathered about their leadership values.
How do you help businesses develop and implement effective growth strategies that align with the specific dynamics of the Nigerian economy?
I have been radical in my advice to clients and business organisations. The workplace has changed and so has the context of leadership. Jack Welsh was popular for his style of exiting 10% bottom performers during his time at General Electric. The context has changed. I have been helping some teams and organisations to transform low-performing staff into high-performing team members through the coach. Jack’s approach of treating people as numbers will affect other staff who see the exit of their colleagues as a signal. I am not condoning non-performance; the process has changed. The new workforce places their wellness and well-being as priorities. An inspirational workplace where personal and collective aspirations are aligned will deliver the numbers.
The first growth strategy is to focus on your people. The first leader’s role is to look after the people who deliver the result.
I have also been discouraging organisations from focusing on being number one in the industry they operate. When I was in an organisation, we used three days to focus on being number one by analysing competitors’ figures. One day, I took the microphone and challenged everyone. Rather than focusing on stale figures without considering in depth the strategies that birthed those figures, why can’t we develop our strategy and see them through to manifest the desired figure? I started a riot at that meeting. Chasing competitor’s number without adequate consideration for strategy formulation and implementation is fluid and unsustainable. It is an extreme Red Ocean strategy. It is best to focus on your customers, grow through their value chain and develop a valuable ecosystem with an inclusive stakeholder. That combines the Red and Blue Ocean strategies to create a loyal and sustainable partnership at all levels.
The Nigerian economy is not the only volatile economy in the world. Any business can survive in any environment with internal cohesion. Internal cohesion is the alignment of people, processes, services and customers’ needs with the collective outcome where there are beneficial rewards for all the parties.
What is your nation building activities and what impact have you achieved?
I have been involved in many nation building activities using my writing and speaking skills. I am the founder of Positive Growth Africa, a not-for-profit organisation known for taking leadership, strength-based and patriotic education to schools and to the youths.
In 2016, we organised the Students’ Fortress Conference, gathering five thousand students and two hundred teachers from the ninety-nine public secondary schools in Agege. We used my second book, the Students’ Fortress, as a workbook to inspire the students and started the Students’ Fortress Club, an academic club where students teach one another after school hours. The district’s pass rate improved from 39% to 71% within one year, and the district has been number one in Lagos from number five since 2016. I have engaged many teachers and spoken at many teachers’ conferences on the leverage of my third book, The Teachers’ Fortress. I am an SDG ambassador for the Canadian Embassy in Nigeria, among other nation-building roles. I have spoken at the Nigerian Bar Association Conference and ICAN Canada District Conference, sharing my leadership experience to make a positive impact in society.
How can Nigeria build capacity and maximise the benefit of having a huge population as the giant of Africa?
Nigeria can be significant in the committee of nations if right corrective steps are taken. We have problems with our leadership selection process, value system, and, more importantly, how we are politically structured. If we judge past leaders by the results, there is no need to eulogise any Nigerian leaders, including the so-called founding fathers, with the results we have. If you compare Nigeria with Singapore, you will realise that leadership is our problem. Nigeria’s problem is not unity. If people from all the regions and tribes in Nigeria are gathered and their personal interests are met, there won’t be any complaints of unity. Lack of unity is pronounced among the majority because we have failed to build the commonwealth for all.
Equally, Nigeria’s problem is not religion. The same religion is being practised in Dubai and Kano. I once wrote an article comparing Dubai with my Kano. If you compare Marrakech with any northern state in Nigeria, they have the same weather, but Marrakech is a holiday haven for Europeans while Nigeria is battling insecurity. It is a problem of leadership, QED.
Changing our current values is the only way to build sustainable and beneficial youth capacity. We need attitudinal change in all people, both at the leadership and followership levels. The followers are watching the bad leaders of today and will become dangerously flawed leaders of tomorrow.
Investing in people’s values, attitudes, and skills will help us maximise the benefits of our population. There is no doubt we have talented people in Nigeria; however, creating more skillful youth who can produce and deliver benefits beyond the voting value will increase our gross domestic product and per capital income.
What are the key considerations for developing and launching successful youth empowerment programmes?
I will answer the question from my experience. We need more empowerment programmes. I appreciate those who are giving food items, but empowerment is teaching people to fish, not to eat fish. We need to do more to create skill-oriented empowerment and an enabling environment for prosperity.
The starting point is the need for analysis beyond stomach infrastructure. People should be empowered in areas of need like health, work, and support to earn income repeatedly and become independent. That focus will ensure empowerment is not manipulating people to gain public recognition.
Anyone launching an empowerment programme should consider it a gift to the beneficiaries of something permanent, usable, and sustainable.
I like what Dr Stephen Akintayo is doing in mentoring people along business lines. His analogy about the efficacy on mentoring in the church and lack of it in businesses was spot. You can mention many successful pastors with mentors, but a few successful entrepreneurs with mentors. Or is it that people don’t acknowledge the seat that sat on in businesses unlike in the church?
How can government support youth and achieve the sustainable development goals?
Nigeria’s prosperity was bastardised by the military’s incursion into politics. We were ruled by force. The military stopped democratic dialogues among the constituent nations making up Nigeria. The government should be truthful to itself. Is the structure working for the people or for a few people in power?
Government needs to put the people’s interests first by putting in place the right structure, giving equal opportunity to deserving Nigerians, improving the value system by being accountable, and building commonwealths for all through people and infrastructural development.
What is your book Uplifting Leadership is about and how will this help to building sustainable organisations?
I will publish the book in October 2025. I wrote it in response to my career call. Many of us have been craving leadership benefits, but we are creating more followers. I once worked with a general manager in an organisation and changed my department. I did this because I realised that he was producing another follower in me. Everyone wants someone who will advance their leadership capabilities.
Uplifting leadership identifies six levels of leadership and their attributable values for success at each level. The radical departure I brought to the body of knowledge in leadership is to focus on the values for success, not the levels.
The book will uplift leadership in organisations of all sizes and sectors. It aims to take readers and participants at the various change programmes on a journey of self-discovery and positively impact others by increasing their leadership views, capacity, and influence.
