HALF TIME

I’m not a “birthday person”. In my view, birthdays were normal days like any other. Yes, you’re one year older and should celebrate, but it is like any other day with 24 hours embedded in it. Soi used to treat it as such. On the other hand, my wife would take a day off, some years, a week, just to reflect, thank God, re-strategize and refocus – she would say. I was confused.

However, she has won the battle (as they always do). This year, I decided to take a step back, meditate, reflect and count the many blessings that God has bestowed on me and do an audit of my life since I had a sense of knowing (and I encourage everyone to do the same).

In doing that, I realized how incredibly blessed I have been; and how the grace of God has carried me through different twists, turns, paths and alleys. How he put different people in my life who have mentored, tutored, walked alongside me, inspired, taught and helped me to where I am now.

I reflected on my career path. From my choice of Banking and Finance as a discipline in University (It was a nudge inspired by my elder sister); to the first time I came across a financial statement, to the first time I heard of the stock market and bought my first stock. I reflected on how I got an opportunity to interview with Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) as an intern (NYSC) more than 22 years ago, and how I was the first set of youth corp members retained in the then start-up international bank in Nigeria. I reflected on how I was the best student in their maiden graduate trainee program and went on to work in financial control, domestic operations, clearing, international operations, etc. After my time in operations, ?I got my dream job in the bank as a credit analyst. At the time, that was all I ever wanted from a career. Scouring through financial statements, analyzing company performances and deciding whether to lend or not, or how to mitigate the risk. I had a brilliant team of senior analysts and relations managers who helped me along the way. I worked on large transactions running into millions of dollars and I worked on smaller transactions to microfinance banks and smaller companies. I had the opportunity to work in South Africa and London in risk and Corporate Finance.

Then, through another chance meeting, I got the opportunity to serve as an adviser to Nigeria’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment. It was an honour working on policies and strategies to unlock finance for Nigerian businesses. Again, I worked with a team of committed advisers to achieve this. After that experience, the entrepreneurship bug bit me and I ventured out to work with a start-up alternative investment company/prop-tech company. That was an interesting experience to witness how local companies start and grow. After this experience, an Israeli VC company approached me to lead their entry into the Nigerian market.

Then Nigeria’s pension industry came knocking and I became the first CEO of the industry association, helping to lead an advocacy-based organization that helps to build the market, organize the industry to be more visible, engage better with the government and work with the financial market stakeholders to create products and explore how the industry could positively affect society more.

As I turn a year older and reach a “half-time” moment in my life, I reflect on my life’s journey and career path and I am immensely grateful to God for his numerous blessings now more than ever, I’m more committed to building individuals, building teams and organizations, working with regulators and legislators to positively affect policy and engaging stakeholders for the greater good. I’m more committed to working with organizations and industries to posture for impact; ?working to channel funds from institutional investors to impactful sectors and projects through various structures that guarantee returns, safety and a “reward’ for all stakeholders. I’m also committing to helping others to build this impact mindset. I’m more committed to using all I’ve learned from the blend of the social impact objective I gleaned while working in the government to the efficiency and commercial mindset working with an international bank and gleaned as an entrepreneur. This is my commitment as I turn a year older.

A commitment to Stop. Reflect. Be Grateful. Refocus. Commit to impact. And I urge you to do the same.

#reflections #birthday #gratitude #impact #industry #development #growth #inspiration #halftime