When Kennedy Uzoka was appointed to succeed Philips Oduoza as Group Managing Director of United Bank for Africa Plc, the Chairman Sir Tony Elumelu made a striking statement in his speech. “Kennedy brings an extremely strong skill set and is ideally positioned to lead UBA in its next phase of growth,” Elumelu said.
In the last 5 years, this strong skill set has repeatedly manifested itself in the impressive numbers the bank continues to turn out year after year, despite having to deal with the challenges of two recessions, and the fallouts of an unprecedented Coronavirus pandemic. Among other striking growth indices, Uzoka’s tenure saw the bank’s gross earnings grow by 71.6% from N383.64 billion in 2016 to N658.29 billion in 2021.
And very recently too, Uzoka’s successor has been announced. You might find yourself positively puzzled by his consistently good results when you consider that Uzoka did not originally set out to be a banker.
The man who is now Group MD of one of Africa’s biggest banks bagged his first degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Benin, the best Mechanical Engineering student in the 1987 graduating class. He later obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria.
He has an MBA from the University of Lagos, and much later in his career, he also attended the Harvard Business School in Boston USA, the International Institute of Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland and the London Business School, United Kingdom.
His sojourn across the various business schools has him educated and certified in The Advanced Management Program, Leadership in Financial Institutions Europe, Strategic HR in Transforming Organisations Course including Competition and Strategy.
The banking career
Uzoka worked with the Standard Trust Bank (STB) as the Regional Director-South East, Vice President-Northern Nigeria, Chief Marketing Officer – Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Marketing Officer, Lagos and later, the Managing Executive Officer at STB. When STB merged with UBA in 2005, he then joined the new UBA. He served as the General Manager and Head of UBA Group South Bank covering the Eastern, Southern, Mid-Western and Western States of Nigeria.
He rose through the ranks, showing his strong skill set in corporate banking all the way up. He held various positions including Group Director, Resources, Group Human Resources Director, Executive Director, Resources, Deputy Managing Director UBA Bank for Africa, and Deputy Managing Director/CEO UBA Africa managing the subsidiaries across 18 countries on the continent. Uzoka provided strategic support on several levels, supervising 3 key strategic support areas in Digital Banking, Information Technology and Personal Banking; and also overseeing the Bank’s businesses in New York and London.
His responsibilities covered a number of critical business functions including Group Treasury, International Financial Institutions & Transaction Banking, e-Banking, UBA Pensions Custodians, Consumer Banking and Cash Management Services.
In 2016, he became the Group Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of UBA, having gathered in his pouch, a rich experience in core banking, corporate marketing, strategic business advisory services and resources management for over 2 decades. The baton recently changed hands again, as Alawuba Oliver was announced as Uzoka’s successor.
Memberships, Fellowships & Awards
In 2019, Kennedy Uzoka won the ‘BusinessDay’s Bank CEO’ of the year award, an award that was very much tied to the impressive financial performances of the bank, appreciation of shareholders’ investment, and the introduction of UBA’s chatbot, LEO – first of its kind in any financial institution in Africa.
Kennedy Uzoka served as a Board Member of Central Securities Clearing System(CSCS) Limited; Fellow of Chartered Institute of Credit Administration(ICA); Director in Financial Institutions Training Center (FiTC); Registered Professional of Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria; Member of Institute of Directors (IoD).
Uzoka is a member of the MasterCard Advisory Board Middle East & Africa (MEA). He also served on the Nigerian Economic Summit Group as Director.
Net worth
While it is not easy to put a figure to his net worth, Kennedy Uzoka is certainly retiring comfortably. According to the Market screener, Uzoka owns millions of units of the United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) shares. This is quite an asset that many would give an arm and leg for.
Good one. But why is it that all successor have been Igbos?