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Kayode Abe

Kayode Abe is an alumnus of the University of Ife (now called Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife where he finished top of his class with a first-class honors degree in social sciences, specializing in sociology and anthropology, in 1985, and a master’s degree in 1988.

He commenced his postgraduate work experience in 1986 as a university scholar and junior teaching assistant in the Department of Management and Accounting of the institution. He left after his postgraduate program in 1988 to join the management consulting arm of Coopers and Lybrand as a trainee consultant.

Before his present vocation, his job experience spanned about thirty-four years in well-reputed organizations within and outside Nigeria, including:

  • Coopers & Lybrand (now a member of PriceWaterhouse Coopers): He joined in 1988 and left in 1996 as Senior Consultant and Team Lead. While there, he participated in and led a couple of organization development engagements in organizations across different sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, banking and financial services, oil and gas, agriculture, trading and services, multi-sectoral conglomerates, the public sector, and UN-funded projects.
  • Michelin Group—Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Poitiers, France: left as Head, HR (Commerce and Service Groups) in March 2000. Aside from taking charge of eleven service groups in the multinational tire-producing company, he was a key member of the company’s Synergy project that led to the coalescence of the administration of the manufacturing arm, the plantations group, and the trading services arm of the company into one for improved efficiency in Nigeria.
  • New National Bank of Nigeria Ltd. – joined as the Pioneer Head of Human Resources. Working with Accenture, he led the setting up of the bank’s human resources, general administration, and internal services systems of the reengineered bank. He later became an Assistant General Manager of Corporate and Human Resources. He left post consolidation to join UBA Group in May 2006 as Group Head of HR Operations. 
  • UBA Group (left as Group Head of HR Operations in August 2006 to join Ecobank as Senior Assistant General Manager and Country Head of Human Resources.
  • Ecobank: Joined as Senior Assistant General Manager and Country Head of Human Resources. Played a leading role in establishing the HR systems for the enlarged entity after its acquisition and rescue of a number of banks that failed the CBN consolidation test post 2005. (Left as Deputy General Manager and Group Head of Cross Border Business in January 2010 to join ICAN as Director, HR and Admin.) 
  • ICAN (served as Director of HR & Administration from 2010 to 2019). Here he led the transformation and modernization of the institution’s human resources and internal administration systems and practices, leading to its present automation (end-to-end). He also played a key role in the development of the institution’s seven-year strategic plan—the bedrock of its present growth trajectory within and outside the country.
  • Kayode is a member of the Advisory Board of Rome Business School, Nigeria, and a faculty member of the school’s International Human Resource Management faculty (since the school’s inception in Nigeria).
  • He has received Rome Business School Nigeria’s award as Best Faculty of the Year twice (for the 2021/2022 and 2023/2024 academic sessions). 
  • Kayode also features as a facilitator on the programmes of a couple of well-reputed institutions such as IOD Nigeria,  CIBN, CBN Training School, NDIC Training Academy, The Chartered Institute of  Stockbrokers, Nigeria, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), C), Lagos (since 19 etc.
  • Kayode is the CEO of a consulting firm named Kingspride Consult Ltd and an associate director of Excel Professional Services Limited, Lagos. He consults in diverse organization development engagements. 
  • He is a member of both the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Nigeria (CIBN) and The Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPMN). He served as the chairman of the latter’s Research and Publications Committee from 2016 to 2018 after having served on the committee as a member and vice chairman for three years.. 
  • Kayode has authored a few publications, including Understanding Management Principles, in Essentials of Banking, pp. 533–583, in A Book of Readings, first published in 2013 and republished by FITC in 2022.
  • Kayode has attended several local and foreign executive education programs in reputable institutions. These include the prestigious Ross School of Executive Business Education of the University of Michigan, Michigan, USA; London Management Center, Surrey, United Kingdom; Wharton Executive Education of the University of Pennsylvania, USA; Lagos Business School, Nigeria to name a few etc

 Favourite Quotes

  • “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Sir Ricard Brandson
  • “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek
  • “You don’t build a business; you build people and then people build the business.” – Peter Drucker
  • Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt