The United Bank for Africa Plc. (UBA) in a bid to maintain its position as Africa’s global bank and remain competitive in the banking industry has carefully embarked on a restructuring exercise.
On January 6, 2020, Oliver Alawuba was appointed the new CEO of UBA Africa with the responsibility of overseeing the bank’s 20 African country operations, ex-Nigeria. Alawuba was once the CEO of UBA Ghana and rose to become Regional CEO, UBA Africa before returning to Nigeria to run UBA’s East Bank.
The new CEO of UBA Africa has close to three decades of banking industry experience in which under his leadership, UBA’s Nigerian East Bank division became the fastest growing regional bank in the Group.
Similarly, The UBA Group Board appointed several top officials that they believe will take the multi-national bank a step further. Abdoul-Aziz Dia of Senegalese national was appointed as the Executive Director for Treasury and International Banking. This appointment makes Aziz the first non-Nigerian Group Executive Director of the Bank, bringing a wealth of multi-geographical experience to the Group.
Also, the positions of the Executive Director of Retail and Payments, and the Executive Director & Group Chief Operating Officer were both occupied by Nigerians -Chukwuma Nweke and Chiugo Ndubisi respectively.
In line with UBA’s restructuring activity, the bank transformed its grading system in the last quarter of 2019. UBA crashed its grade levels from 16 levels to 12 levels which means that staff can now move up from entry-level to attaining top leadership management positions in the bank.
Additionally, over 4000 new UBA staff members resumed in the last week of December 2019 in Nigeria alone, as part of a massive recruitment drive. The bank currently stands as the highest employer of labour amongst Nigerian banks with a staff strength of close to 20,000.
According to a report by PremiumTimes, although this on-going restructuring has presented opportunities for some, hundreds of old UBA staff claim that they were asked to resign due to the mass recruitment. Nasir Ramon, UBA’s spokesperson told PremiumTimes that there was no lay-off in the bank. However, some staff who “underperformed” during the bank’s internal appraisal were advised to resign.
Ramon added that over 5,000 staff of UBA started the year 2020 in jubilation as the bank announced its promotion to new grades. The promotion which was backed up by salary upgrades will take immediate effect this January.
As Africa’s leading financial institution, UBA intends on remaining relevant while dominating the banking industry on the continent by constantly applying new strategies to beat down other competitors.
