July - September 2017 •
The Lion King
• 35
for it, but he wanted it and the uni-
verse was going to make that happen
because Tony wanted it. ‘Impossible
is only in your mind. Always have an
open mind; apply tenacity and the
chances are that it will work’; a learn-
ing point he wanted the audience to
know.
It was already beginning to work for
young Tony. His branch made more
money than 34 other branches of the
bank put together, in just a few short
months.
‘You must visualize success’ said
Elumelu as he continued to lecture.
‘You must say to yourself that you will
succeed and this will keep you going
when you encounter challenges and
difficulties.’
One of the questions he would be
asked later on by a member of the
audience is just how does he get
these things done. How can he have
so much energy to keep going? In his
20s, he is expected to have a lot of
energy, but in his mid 50s, Tony Elumelu
gets off his jet at 4.30 am after a long
haul flight, goes home for a wee nap,
wakes up at 7am to do some yoga
with his wife Awele and is at the office
shortly after 8am. That same day, yes-
terday, he delivered a speech that
lasted for 4 hours on his feet.
‘Always immerse yourself completely’
he advised. ‘Body, mind and soul.
Not one leg in and one leg out’. Tony
had immersed himself completely
into his job as branch manager in
Port Harcourt. He had just before that
appointment, rented a new apart-
ment in Lagos. He had bought a stun-
ning red carpet for his living room. He
was fiercely happy with his new lodg-
ings but he would leave and move to
Port Harcourt and be completely in
the zone, leaving everything behind
in Lagos.
The young Elumelu was fired up to
succeed and he was already a win-
ner even though the journey had only
just begun.
Tony Elumelu became the youngest
bank CEO in Nigeria when at the age
of 34, he led Standard Trust Bank(STB).
‘It was a little odd going into all those
meetings with older men because the
bank CEOs at that time were older
than I was’. That didn’t stop Tony from
achieving milestones. STB became
one of the top banks in Nigeria in a
very short time. Elumelu was perform-
ing miracles again and continuing
to set the pace. ‘People think Tony
Elumelu is a whizkid. They don’t know
that he surrounds himself by brilliant
and competent people’ he said of his
successes.
Tony taught us at the Tony O. Elumelu
amphitheatre yesterday, that people
give their best to leaders they like.
‘As a leader, don’t be far from your
people. Your people must connect
with you and you must understand
them very well’.
Elumelu really does immerse himself in
his work. His best friends are people he
works with. And a lot of these people
have been with him along this journey
for many decades.
‘There is a need for us to have high
Emotional Intelligence. This is impor-
tant as we need to be cognizant of
how others feel’ he continued.
Tony has very high EQ. He knows
how to make the people around him
work to their best capacity. He invests
in them, training, exposing and giv-
ing them opportunities to themselves
become leaders. ‘You cannot be a
successful leader if you don’t know
how manage people well. How to
motivate them. How to make them
happy’.
There are testimonies to the fact that
Tony is a great champion of the peo-
ple he works with. They in turn cham-
pion his causes and were there for
him when in 2010, he was a casu-
alty of the then new Central Bank
of Nigeria(CBN) regulation that set
a timeline of a maximum of 10 years
for any person to be at the helm of
affairs(CEO) of any Nigerian bank.
Five years before this time on August 1,
2005, Elumelu had made another win-
ning streak when he led the successful
merger of STB with the United Bank for
Africa. This size of merger was a first
in the history of banking in Nigeria.
He went into a meeting at the CBN
as the CEO of UBA and came out of
the same meeting with news that he
would have to step down due to the
time he had spent in his career as a
bank CEO.
Where most people would have
shrank into panic mode and spread
that panic around them, the leader
in Elumelu took this as a challenge.
His words about this: ‘every phase
in one’s life requires adjustments’.
This was just another phase for Tony
Elumelu. He would adjust. His people
had no reason to fear. For him the
corporate interest was first and it was
not about him but about building a
lasting institution.
It made him think of the important
things he needed to do. He woke up
the next morning and decided he
would be giving back and at a scale
of lasting legacy. The Tony Elumelu
Foundation was borne from that
thought and today, has empowered
over 3000 entrepreneurs across Africa
and counting.
The journey is far from over for the
Group Chairman of UBA and Founder
of the Tony Elumelu Foundation. It is
no surprise when you listen to his story,
that he has been so successful in his
endeavours.
Elumelu is generous to a fault. He
doesn’t wish to journey alone and
dreams of making many billionaires
across the continent. He wants to help
people become the best leaders that
they can be. He wants to continue
to play a role in alleviating poverty in
Africa.
Tony Elumelu shared his own leader-
ship journey as he continues to build
on his legacy. He ends the lecture by
telling those in the room and the many
watching online across the continent,
‘Don’t’ jettison what you are doing
that helps you to succeed. Leave this
room with an agenda. A resolution.
And know your limitations’.
I left with an agenda and a reso-
lution, having learnt some poignant
lessons from a great leader. I left ener-
gized and motivated. I know that I will
remember a lot of what Elumelu had
taught in the amphitheatre along my
own journey.
