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and motivate or demotivate. As someone who started from the lower rung I can see how certain corporate nuances, actions or idiosyncrasy affect or shape an organisation. So growing up I resolved that when I got to the top I would guide against those things that can negatively affect the company’.
Tony often wears a steeled image in the board room. ‘I can be friendly with people I work with but I always drop unnecessary sentiments and emotions to save the corporation. I try to be extremely dispassionate when it comes to making decisions.’
He once went out to dinner over the weekend with a very good friend of his with whom he worked. The friend was an Executive Director. They had a really good time together that weekend. But on Monday, the ED received an official query from Tony. “He could only have described me as mean person but I did what I did because I am able to separate things and deal with issues with the heart and mind that I think it deserves or requires’.
It can be very difficult to understand Tony Elumelu. He himself realises this. ‘When I was leaving UBA as the CEO, it would have been assumed that the closest persons to me would become my successors. But I knew that it was best to assess the phase of the organisation and the attributes that the incoming lead- ership should have. I will always make objective decisions that are good for the business. An eye that is not exposed to the depth of the decisions must think I am odd because the ordi- nary course of action you expect to see may not be the case’.
I have often heard people say in the board room though that he got softer over the years. This makes him laugh as he says ‘As CEO, there were decisions I could take on the spot that as
Tony with his mother, wife and children
Chairman I am not able to do. So if people say I am softer, it’s because I have to balance actions with the personality and character of leadership either current or past and make sure that there is synthesis in the actions that I take or the chair might inadvertently default to the CEO position’.
‘With time, both age and experience make you become more analytical and more far reaching and deliberate in your deci- sions. Spontaneity in leadership begins to give way. I don’t know if this is good or bad. Great CEOs need adrenalin and they need to take some decisions based on gut feelings’.
In the board room, Tony Elumelu occupies a certain seat that nobody else sits on when he is chairing a meeting. At home, his second daughter Ogo, walks into the room and sits where her dad often installs himself to have meetings. He asks her naturally to move up a little and she responds that he could sit some- where else. Tony obliges.
It’s a demonstration of the love he has for his family.
I want to know when the board room guru first felt real love. His eyes light up as he tells me the story of his first love interest. ‘I was a young banker and an analyst in a role that was quite senior. I was in charge of multinational corporations and in those days they would always have cocktail parties. Everyone at the cocktail party would attend with their girlfriends or wives. I had neither. I knew I needed one to take to these events. I started hunting for a girlfriend and one of my colleagues match made me with a young lady.’
‘I was a young banker living in the hood (in Surulere in Lagos). I had no car. The girl I was dating came from a wealthy family, lived across the bridge in Ikoyi and had a fancy car. After we met each time and attended the cocktails which were always on the island, across the bridge from where I lived, I would feel bad about her having to drop me off at home. It wasn’t safe
Young Tony at STB
Tony with his wife, Awele
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