A few weeks after receiving copies of his book, ‘From Storeroom to Boardroom,’ the Class of Phoenix officially met and engaged with Mr. Babatunde Omotowa today. Babs as he is fondly called, is the President, Nigeria University of Technology, and the former MD/CEO, Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Limited (NLNG).
His Excellency, Mallam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, was in attendance to welcome and introduce Mr. Omotowa to the Fellows. Mallam commended him on his career journey from a Procurement Officer in a storeroom in Shell Nigeria, to becoming the CEO of NLNG, and subsequently a member of Shell’s Global Upstream Leadership Team and Vice-President across 40 countries.
Mallam noted that the former NLNG boss represents his dream for his children and the Kashim Ibrahim Fellows and encouraged them to make the most of their session with him. He further thanked Babs for gifting him a copy of his ‘From Storeroom to Boardroom’ book and in turn presented a copy of ‘The Accidental Public Servant’ to Mr. Omotowa.
Babs then took Fellows through a topic, titled, “People make the Difference.”
He compared the culture of workplaces and the most valued companies in the past with our current reality. According to him, a lot of the high-valued companies today, many of which are technology-based, are more about people and not the ownership of resources . Thus, the difference between the past and the present top companies is that people are at the heart of the latter.
On the area of leadership, Mr. Omotowa advised Fellows to ensure that they have people skills as it determines how their followers would deliver on their responsibilities. He urged them to use both their heads and hearts when leading, adding that there must be a balance between the two.
The former NLNG Boss then listed the five Cs leaders need to make a difference;
Character: It speaks for you when you are not there.
Competence: It keeps you on top of your game.
Context: Always contextualise your solutions. What worked in a particular state might not work in another.
Community: Think beyond yourself.
Courage: Courage is not the absence of fear but doing the right thing despite fear. If you don’t have courage, you can’t do anything.
Fellows appreciated Mr. Omotowa for taking out time to share from his wealth of knowledge and for coming to Kaduna from Edinburgh because of his passion for the development of Nigeria and its youth at large.