This weekend, Heirs Holdings Group’s senior management gathered.
We had one objective – strengthening our resilience, probing our own capacity to be resilient, testing our responses as individuals and as a business. We wanted to leave stronger, more certain, more sure of our ability to respond to all that a volatile environment can throw out us.
Resilience cuts across all that we do. Our systems need to be resilient, our processes, our products – and even more importantly our people.
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UBA operates in 24 countries – the politics of the US and the Gulf impact us, we deal in multiple currencies, compliance across hugely different jurisdiction, we are a multi-cultural, complex organization – resilience needs to be hardwired within our DNA.
The session also brought back to me an experience that demonstrated our corporate and my personal resilience.
In 2010, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) limited the tenure of bank CEOs to a maximum of 10 years. I had served as CEO of UBA for exactly that long. We had grown UBA from a single-country operation into a pan-African financial giant operating across 20 African countries. It was a deeply transformational period.
I could have resisted. But, I complied, confidently our capacity to demonstrate resilience. Our Group was ready, succession planning is critical to resilience, and we hardly skipped a beat.
It was a major shift, but it was also a practical exercise in resilience and leadership.
Here’s what I learned:
Resilience is not theoretical; it is practical
Resilience requires you accept reality early and respond pragmatically. I did not spend time trying to fight what could not be changed. Instead, I redirected my energy into defending and creating value.
In the years that followed, Heirs Holdings and the Tony Elumelu Foundation were founded. Today, our impact spans power, healthcare, financial services, hospitality, and most importantly, entrepreneurship, transforming lives and economies across Africa and beyond.
Leadership is about navigating constraints, not avoiding them
As leaders, we are constantly faced with pressures, some internal, others external.
What defines us is not the absence of challenge, but our ability to think critically, own our circumstances, and turn constraints into catalysts for growth.
The CBN directive was a constraint. But in business, constraints are normal, whether they are regulatory, financial, and even cultural. We can either allow them to block progress, or we can treat them as a framework within which innovation can still happen. In this case, the constraint created room for new leadership at UBA and gave me the space to think more broadly, catalysing long held place about how else I could contribute to Africa’s growth.
You must own the problem, even if you did not create it
Leadership is not business as usual. It is about evolving. It is about facing change with clarity and moving forward with purpose.
This was a key insight from the resilience training: true leadership means taking ownership. Whether it is a policy shift, a market decline, or an internal breakdown, leaders do not pass problems on. We look for the best course of action, communicate clearly, and move decisively.
Critical thinking is essential
Responding to pressure requires more than instinct. It requires deep thinking, questioning assumptions, looking at second- and third-order consequences, and making decisions with long-term implications.
Performance is not necessarily about doing more; it is about doing what matters
After leaving UBA, I had to reset priorities. What initiatives would make the most impact? Where could I create the most value?
Resilience is not just about absorbing change. It is about reorienting quickly and moving forward with clarity.
Resilience is not something you talk about. It is something you do, often quietly and under pressure. Face the situation, understand the context, and make a decision.
To every leader reading this: When you are confronted with tough choices, remember that resilience is not just about how long you endure. It is about what you choose to do with the pressure. Will you fold, or will you transform?
