MUTIU SUNMONU, before retirement, was the managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria where he worked for 36 years. He was also the Country Chair of the Shell companies. A first-class graduate of Mathematics and Computer Science, Sunmonu has served as chairman of boards of many companies, including Julius Berger, Coronation Insurance, among others. He is the current Board Chairman of Alpha Mead Group. In this interview with CHUKA UROKO, Assistant Editor, he shares deep insights on his work life, family, and life in retirement, disclosing that he has found a new career for himself with the establishment of The SAGE Centre—an initiative for institutionalising leadership excellence. He also speaks on his unique ability to turn around businesses that are struggling, and those that want to scale. Excerpts:
Many people out there do not know who you are. The few that do may not know you beyond your name. So, let us know who you are and what you do.
My name is Mutiu Sunmonu, and I’m very proud to say I’m a 70-year-old man. My professional life was mainly with Shell. I spent 36 years working for Shell. Those were the days when people would just do like 5, 6, 7 years and move on. But I was there for 36 years. I started as a computer programmer and moved all the way to become the managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. I was also the country chair for Shell companies in Nigeria. I was educated at University of Lagos. I studied Mathematics and Computer science.
I’m always proud to say I had a first class, which was what, I believe, really gave me access to the company as big as Shell. They really like to have people with good academic achievement. I must say that joining Shell was accidental. This was because I didn’t want to work in the industry. I wanted to be an academic. And it’s interesting that Shell was the only company I applied to after graduation. My focus was to go aboard, take a PHD and then come back to the classroom.
But fate had another plan for me. When I joined Shell, I was also thinking I would probably do no more than five years here and move. And I remember when I joined Shell, about eight of us joined that year. And only two of us stayed on. So, I really enjoyed my work in Shell. I have four children. All of them are married. They are in different walks of life.
Retirement for some people is a challenging period because it is a test of their strength of character. Some people give up shortly after. Others see it as the beginning of a new phase of life. What has been your experience as a retiree?
In retirement, I have found a new career for myself. I must say this is the time I realized that there is more to life than what most of us are struggling to achieve. I started writing my biography before I left Shell. And when the book was already in draft, I read it again and realised that the book was just about my life. This was about two years after I had left Shell. I realised that one had been completely shielded from the intrigues of the world. Then I put a pause on the book to get more experience elsewhere and then bring it in.
When I was leaving Shell, people were asking me what I was going to do next. I said, one thing I know is that I’m not going into another paid employment. I’m not going to establish another oil company and try to grow it, manage staff and all that. My desire was to look for businesses that are struggling and those that want to scale. My reason for that was that I had seen my trajectory in Shell. And I felt that God had deposited in me a very unique ability to turn things around, even when I’m not an expert in that area. So, I felt that is my calling.
I’m not really looking for big businesses. But if they are struggling and they are looking for a turnaround manager, I can do that. So, since I left Shell, I’ve been doing things like that. But more from the board level. So, when I’m in any board, I’m interested more in other things than in the traditional board policy. I’m always interested more in the strategy, in the performance management, in how you stay, how you make a difference. I’m always interested in the people aspect of the business, the human development. So, it has been 10 years now since I left Shell. And I’ve served on different boards of companies. And all in different sectors. I served on the board of Julius Berger (JB) for 10 years.
I’ve also served on the board of a big insurance company, Coronation Insurance. I’ve served on the board of an indigenous oil and gas company as chairman. I’ve served on the board of banks as chairman. I’ve served on the board of one or two smaller construction companies. I’m still on the board of Alpha Media Group. I have just realised that there is a lot of companies that really need help. On the surface of it, you might think, oh this company is big, this company is doing very well, but if you go in, you will get a different insight into what is happening. So that has been my journey so far—from an oil company executive into blue chip companies’ boards.
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Now let’s look at the new initiative you have just birthed, and we are talking about the SAGE Centre. Tell us about this Centre and what it seeks to achieve.
Before I answer that question, let me give you my own personal context of the SAGE Centre. I’ve had like 46 going to 50 years of corporate life now. I am a father. I am a grandfather. And I take interest in people and how people impact the society. Over the years, I have found out that you need more than just conventional wisdom to be truly successful. A lot of people put emphasis on textbook and attributes of excellence. But I have found out that those are conventional wisdom.
What actually makes the biggest difference is how you are able to marry conventional wisdom with unconventional wisdom. This is because unconventional wisdom is not taught in school. I have been seeing examples of people who are very bright academic leaders. But they fall by the wayside outside the school. Even when they start to work, they might be doing well. But you can see that there is a gap between what they have been able to achieve and what their potential is.
And that gap is usually due to a lack of unconventional wisdom, character flaws, and how they treat others. This is because the potential that God has given us is not just for ourselves. It’s for you to use it to advance other people. Most people are blindsided to that fact. And that, for me, is what makes me very much interested in this SAGE Centre. But I must say that the idea of the SAGE Centre is actually the brave child of my wife and that was based on the kind of conversation she and I have always had.
What then followed after the idea was realised. What did you do next to concretise the idea?
When my 70th birthday was approaching, I said to her, I’m really struggling to understand what I should be doing after the celebration. I’m struggling to understand what exactly is my purpose. And she laughed at me and said, how can you say what is your purpose? Look at what you have done; how you have raised and mentored people. Look at how many people that have passed through you and have become even greater than yourself. That’s your purpose. I agreed with her.
Then one day I was trying to describe what I think my legacy should be. And I was just using different words here and there. And she said that was leadership. And I said, you got it. So, I’m sure that was a good subject in her mind. And so, on 25th of May, she brought me to this Centre and said, ‘this is my gift for you for your 70th birthday. I’ve rented this flat. I will equip it. And I’m calling it the SAGE Centre. I expect you to propagate your wisdom from here to the larger society.
We have seen Centres like this before now. There are several of them out there, and you have come up with this one. What difference are you out to make?
I’m not going to blow my own trumpet. But I would like to acknowledge that we have just started. So, there is no track record. However, my vision about what would make this Centre unique is how we bring in practical experience, real-life case studies to help aspiring leaders and equip them beyond what can be taught in the classroom.
I would also like this Centre to incorporate character building into our leadership skills portfolio. This is because people don’t pay attention to character building. But from my own experience, without character, we will be nowhere. So, character building is going to be a very key element in this Centre. And we are not going to be teaching character building as a topic; we will just incorporate it. We will show people that without a good character, leadership is empty.
Whatever you are building today can disappear in the next minute without good character. So, that for me, will be a major differentiating factor. The second thing that I think will be a differentiator is that, in this Centre, I will be making myself a lot more available to have laboratory sessions with people.
A cursory look at Nigerian society shows that leadership failure is more pronounced in the public sector than in the private. But this Centre is focusing on the private sector or corporate world. Why not the public where there are challenges?
My response to that is that our initial focus will be on the private sector. And why? Because I believe that the private sector is where the engine of growth in the country resides. The public sector also has a role to play. But I think the private sector has more needs. And they are likely to be a lot more committed to this purpose. So, we will start there. We recognize that there is an interface or interaction between the private and public sectors. And therefore, it’s just a question of time. This is because we have seen a lot of good private sector people who, when they get into the public sector, they miss it. So, I recognize your point. But we are not going to solve all the problems at once. So, we start from the private sector, gain momentum, have a track record, and then start to penetrate.
The vision of this Centre is to empower leaders with skills and knowledge and to drive progress. How are you going to do this and how will the skills help?
Well, it will be a number of approaches. It will be a push and a pull. And I think we’re going to change the word from ‘empower’ to ‘equip.’ We’ve also added character. So, this Centre is going to have 10 tables with industries, corporate organizations, academia. My role as the originator is to make sure that I use my influence to ensure we can attract expertise.
We are starting with four programmes. Number one is what we call the Vanguard Masterclass. And people will have to apply for it. They have to also describe what problems they want to solve in their businesses. We will make a selection and take them through this masterclass. And it will be for people who are already in business and who are already in some kind of leadership position who have an opportunity to really impact on the company.
The second aspect of how we tend to equip the leaders is what we call the Enterprise Turnaround Clinic or Labs. There will be regular turnaround labs for executives or leaders of companies that are struggling in their businesses. They may be struggling in terms of delivering on their targets. People have different issues to solve and we will hold a lab for them where they will also be able to benefit from the insights of other participants who may not even be in their own business space at all.
We also have what we call Leadership in Action Labs. This is really helping people to fill the gap between their strategy and their execution, because that is where a lot of things fail. People have good strategies, but their execution is a problem.
The fourth element is also very important to me. That is the Board Excellence Academy. I have said that one of the things that is driving capital away from businesses in Nigeria is poor corporate governance. So, I want to spend some time to be able to share my own experience and knowledge and expertise on how to change the dynamics of the board. So, it will be a very key element. You can see that we have programmes that will cover individual leadership skills, and also some collective leadership skills, especially at the board level.
