Tag: Sekibo

HerItage Bank Managing  Director/Chief Executive Mr. Ifie Sekibo has called for appropriate legislation that will enhance flow of funds to the creative industry   and help maximise the potentials of operators.

Sekibo made this call while speaking on the contributions of Heritage Bank  to the creative industry.

He said: “Financial institutions will be able to invest more if there is a proper law militating against piracy, there will be value for your money and creativity and thereby making the banks to want to invest more in the creativity industry.”

He noted that collaboration between the government and banks is needed to maximise the potential of the creative industry, saying, “We need to push government to be able to create legislations, policies that will enhance this seeming passion and turn it into business opportunities and by so doing, it will turn to economic and empowerment of our people.  There is a lot we need to do as banks and government so that we can enhance creativity in terms of culture.

“Government policies are extremely important in achieving this. If there are no proper policies, funding becomes a problem. And the collaboration between banks and government is needed to define what kind of policy and what kind of funding needs to applied. These and many more are things to look at critically. Take for example, Nollywood script writer that has no proper propriety or intellectual property law protecting his script, he is unable to monetise it but if there is proper government policy, then he is able to take it to the bank and monetise it and he is able to grow the industry. This cuts across, even if it is an artist and there is no law or policies guarding artworks, anybody can steal and sell his ideas anytime.”

Managing Director/Chief Executive Heritage Bank Limited Mr. Ifie Sekibo has counselled aspiring leaders to be open and teachable to access fresh insight to overcome challenges of leadership.

He gave this advice at the Emerging Leaders Forum in Owerri, the Imo State capital.

“Somebody just asked me how do you get victory over yourself as a leader because we keep talking about change of mindset as a leader. I said from what I know, the place of leadership is in the classroom and you will never graduate from that classroom,” he said.

He listed the principles of successful leadership to include personal commitment, conviction,  partnership and focus on the future, saying “there is no economic growth without partnership.  That is key to success.

“Also, there must be personal commitment to success. Rigorous commitment has to be personal in achieving leadership. When you are committed and you are able to get others to be committed with you, that is leadership,” he added.

Sekibo said in  learning these leadership styles, “you must remain open and teachable, remove obstacles from the past and recognise the key factors that make you a leader, stressing, you must have personal conviction if you want to be a leader and in the midst of that conviction, you must be able to attract other people to join”.

He stressed the need for communication in leadership, saying that most dreams of leaders die  because they are not ready to share their visions with their follower-ship, “but what we don’t understand is that we need to get the negative responses, you need to see through the negativity  on why you may not succeed as a leader, this enables you to prepare ahead and find a way around to succeed in the midst of those negativity. As a leader, you need to leave the past and focus on the future to enable you succeed”.

The Managing Director/CEO, Heritage Bank Limited,  Ifie Sekibo, has called for innovation in the agricultural sector so as to maximise the sector’s contributions to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Sekibo, who made the call while speaking to a group of investors, said innovation is necessary to tackle the challenges to productivity in the agricultural sector.

He said: “Statistically, we are about 198 million people as nation, though we believe we are about 210 million, GDP growth 1.5 per cent. Before recession, we were doing about six per cent and we were at 11.28 per cent inflation, but still hoping it comes down. Agriculture is 22.86 per cent, Industry 23.18per cent and services at 53.97 per cent. Essentially, we will say our economy is driven by services.

He said Nigeria has a very large market, with plenty labour force and waterways because almost every part of Nigeria has waterways and enough land to feed the populace and nearly half the world, because we truly have a land fertile for Agriculture, pointing out that we have only utilised 40 per cent, while the rest is waisted.

He said Nigeria should be producing about 6.3 metric tonnes of rice, wonder why “we are poor as a nation if we have such opportunities. Instead we are doing about 2.3 metric tonnes and you can see the gap of about four million metric tonnes that we could have produced but we are importing.

“That is a negative for our economy,” he said adding that a lot of other gaps in the agric sector showed that we have a lot of room for investments, wondering why we are not making progress as a nation especially in agriculture.

He listed some of the challenges militating against the sector to include the nation’s  imput supplies, production, processing and trade which are components of agriculture.

He said: “The vulnerability shocks we have out there can be dealt with if we put in place innovations platform, strategies and the likely outcomes. These are essentially what we need to do. If we can achieve some of these innovations in Agriculture, we will turn our country around.

“We need to look at the issue of climate change; we need to look at why we have been unable to create inventions and innovations that make our work in the Agricultural space.”

Heritage Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Ifie Sekibo has advised entrepreneurs and youths to embrace partnerships in their quest to succeed in business

To Sekibo, who spoke  to a group of youths and entrepreneurs in Lagos, partnership is key to a successful enterprise because others might have information you don’t have access to. He said: “Learning from people and forming partnerships is one the keys to achieving success in any business enterprise. Trying to do things alone, or hiding your vision from others might not give adequate results in any given enterprise.

“As a person, I have never done things on my own. Though I have my ideas at every point in time in life but I have always done partnerships because most times, other people are privy to information you do not have. Partnerships have also helped in my propelling my visions and aspirations in life. So, I am urging entrepreneurs not to keep their visions to themselves” he stated.

He said  after working in the oil industry for years,” I was bored and I feel like doing something else. So I saw an insurance company and I decided to buy it. As at the time I was buying the insurance company, it was   located somewhere in Ikeja in one office, no window, no toilet and the company was  owing about N150 million. I said to myself if we buy this business, we will be able to employ people and give them a life. I went ahead to borrow money, N7 million from my brother’s friend and went to the bank to borrow another N7 million and bought the insurance company. And holding on to God and with the help of other people I shared my aspiration and visions with, within a year and half, we were able to grow the company to a tune of N12 billion”.

Sekibo also advised the youths to brace up for the challenges of life early enough just as he asked them not to allow poverty mentality deter them from making headway.

“I am an accountant, I did not study banking and finance in school but I stumbled into banking. I termed such as “you fail to succeed”. It is about preparation, you have to prepare early enough because it is what you do with your wilderness days that makes the difference, those periods that you can hardly feed, and those are the days that will determine what your future will be”, he said.

Financial institutions should support agriculture and Small and Medium Scale businesses to fast-track the nation’s anti-poverty battle, the Managing Director/CEO of Heritage Bank,  Ifie Sekibo, has said.

He said  evidence has shown that countries that support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME’s), are successful in reducing poverty.

Speaking on the sidelines  of the just concluded 24th Nigerian Economic Summit which was co-sponsored by Heritage Bank and tagged “Poverty to Prosperity: Making Governance and Institutions work”, Sekibo said more needs to be done by the government and financial institutions in the areas of entrepreneurship because it is an agent of development.

According to him, “We in Heritage Bank have been supporting various small scale businesses especially through our reality show, “The Next Titan”, which is driven by our faith to give young entrepreneurs the opportunity to contribute to the economic growth of the country”.

“One of our major cardinal points as a bank, is supporting micro, small and medium scale businesses, and our strong desire to see young men and women succeed in the any area of their business. This will help the society and economy to grow, thereby moving the nation from poverty to prosperity,  he added.

“One of the areas where government and financial institutions can move this nation from poverty to prosperity is through the development of agriculture.”

He said one of the cardinal points to economic growth of the nation, is through mechanised farming, saying government and financial institutions must do everything they can to support the growth of the sector.

“We cannot talk about moving from poverty to prosperity without taking agriculture every seriously in this country. We must support the agriculture sector reform through providing infrastructure, providing loans to farmers and ensuring interest rate loans is a single digit” Sekibo said.

He however said moving Nigeria out of poverty to prosperity cannot be done by the government and financial institutions alone,  stating that all other sectors must contribute their quota to ensure Nigeria is rid of poverty.

The Institute of Credit Administration has set machinery in motion to organise the 2016 edition of the Nigerian Credit Industry Awards.

The award ceremony scheduled for Saturday December 3rd, 2016, will be chaired by the President of the Institute and Chairman of Council, Dr. Adetunji Oyebanji and wil be supported by other Council members, namely: Akinsola Akinfemiwa, Chairman Heritage Bank Ltd, Amaka Onwughalu, former DMD, Skye Bank Ltd, Andy Ojei, Executive Director, Zenith Bank Plc, Thomas Imokhai, MD/CEO, Standard Alliance, and Segun Ogunsanya, MD/CEO, Airtel Nigeria.

Among those to be awarded include: Mrs Abimbola Shukrat Umar, Accountant-General, Lagos State, Hon Kingsley Eze, Commissioner for Economic Planning & Development, Delta State, Hon. Stella Odua, Akin Akinfemiwa, Dr. Ifiesimama Sekibo, MD/CEO, Heritage Bank Ltd, Mrs Tomi Shomefu,FICA- MD/ CEO Unity Bank Plc, Kennedy Uzoka,FICA- GMD/CEO United Bank for Africa, Ahmadu Kida Musa,FICA, DMD Total E& P Nig Ltd, Aminu Haque Bhuiya, Managing Director, Asha Micro Finance Bank Ltd, Tijjani Mohammed Abdullahi, Director General, Budget Office, Sir Ndukwe Osogho-Ajala, Chairman/CEO Soulmate Industries Ltd.

Besides, other awards for grabs are in the following categories including: Credit Risk Management Director of the Year, Credit Recovery Professional of The Year and Provider of Credit to SMEs of the Year.

Other award categories are: Corporate Credit Provider of the Year, Customer Credit Integrity of the Year, Credit Relationship Manager of the Year, to mention just a few.