Larry Ettah at UACN (1)

When I met Larry Ephraim Ettah for the first time in 2006, he was Head of Human Resources and Group Executive Director at UAC of Nigeria Plc, the storied conglomerate that mirrors the history of the Nigerian nation. UACN Plc is one of those businesses whose history and evolution can be used to tell the story of the countries they are associated with. Examples may include General Electric, Cocacola or AT & T in the United States of America or British Airways in the United Kingdom. A regional example may be Wema Bank in Western Nigeria.

At the time, what struck me about Larry was that he had spent his entire working career in the UACN Group, having joined as a management trainee in 1988. Yet he did not come across as the typical “closed company mind” you would find with such career trajectories. He was fresh, inquisitive, informed, engaging and intelligent. In 2006, even though Larry, as usual the consummate professional would not let go of any information, I suspected a transition was already in play in the diversified conglomerate and Larry was about to take over the helm of the organisation. Even though he didn’t explicitly or implicitly reveal anything to that effect, I reflected carefully on our conversation and concluded that he was “preparing” for an imminent future!

I had recently started my strategy consultancy firm, RTC Advisory Services Ltd (then known as Resources and Trust Company Ltd) and had sent out unsolicited proposals to several institutions including banks and publicly quoted firms. To my pleasant surprise, one of the early responses was from Larry Ettah who invited me to discuss the proposal. As the meeting progressed, it became clear we had a shared passion for conversations around business strategy and the meeting seemed to me to have gone well. Remember I had never met this guy and I had no clear affiliations with him, yet here he was in Nigeria’s oldest conglomerate appearing to be quite interested in my two year old strategy firm. Soon I received an invitation to make a presentation at the company’s group-wide strategy retreat at IITA Ibadan on the economy and UACN strategy. I did not realise at the time that this was some form of “interview” but fortunately my colleagues and I took the opportunity quite seriously. As we waited at the venue for our turn, we observed a notable consulting firm founded and headed by a leading economist preceded us, and realized we were participating in a “beauty parade”!

In the event, we had been overwhelmingly (better) prepared and the retreat participants (reportedly) unanimously adopted our presentation as a strategy template to proceed with in charting the group’s way forward. That encounter led to our receiving a retainer as strategy and economic advisers to the entire group which lasted the first eight (8) years of Larry’s tenure as Group CEO of UACN Plc! In spite of the effluxion of time, I have never ceased to be impressed by this initial set of circumstances, which are very uncommon in our clime-a CEO who appointed his firm’s advisers purely on merit and devoid of sentiments, “connections” or pay back! A few years later, in 2009 Larry Ettah was to propose my appointment as director to the UACN Plc board leading to my appointment as director of CAP Plc. Larry Ettah is an ethical, calm, sensible and professional guy who took decisions on merit and in the interest of the business, rather than based on personal calculations. There are not many like him in the Nigerian business environment!

When Larry Ettah eventually took over as UACN CEO in January 2007, a strategic transition was required in the business…UACN was a diversified conglomerate and there were limited commonalities in the wide range of businesses within the portfolio. Larry however saw a hint of an incipient and emerging food core within the disparate businesses in the group and sought to leverage that evolving trend. The company was also in need of more efficient business models and we continually examined strategic options for making the group more resourceful rather than consuming resources…we shared a strategic maxim, “resourcefulness not resources” and sought to make the UAC group more lean and agile! The group’s strategy however also had to take account of cash-rich subsidiaries which may not necessarily reside within the food core leading to a second corporate strategic transition in which the role of the UACN headquarters became like an investor, strategic orchestrator and manager of resources and outcomes.

Larry Ettah had been extremely well-prepared for the role of Group CEO-he had come into the company as management trainee straight out of MBA class and had worked across the group in sales and marketing, foods businesses and human resources; he had managed large parts of the group and had acquired extensive human capital management insights which had been significantly supplemented by his three-year stint as Group Human Resources Head immediately preceding his appointment as Group Managing Director. He had benefitted from extensive training through the UACN and Unilever management development process and had attended the highly-valued executive programme at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan where he had been exposed to some of the best thinking in strategy and management. And yet he was still relatively young, strong and vibrant as a 44-year old business executive. Few individuals have been better prepared for the CEO-Suite.

Opeyemi Agbaje