UBA Restructures to Improve Operational Efficiency

In pursuit of its Project Alpha plans, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has announced key appointments to drive its quest for industry leadership by 2015.

UBA’s Project Alpha is a 3-year road map of key transformation initiatives, designed to reinforce the Group’s strategic positioning and leverage its huge Africa presence to fully exploit the burgeoning opportunities in Africa’s economic renaissance.

In order to accelerate the level of achievement of the Project Alpha objectives, the Group has announced the splitting of its operations into two broad divisions, UBA Africa and UBA Nigeria.

The UBA Africa Division will be made up of the 18 African country subsidiaries of the UBA Group outside Nigeria. UBA Africa will have a CEO supported by two Deputies along the Bank’s two core product lines: Wholesale Banking (comprising, Corporate Bank, Institutional Bank and Public Sector) and Retail Banking (comprising, Personal Banking and SME Banking).

Kennedy Uzoka, Deputy Managing Director, has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer, UBA Africa while Emeke Iweriebor, an Executive Director, has been appointed UBA Africa Deputy CEO, Retail Bank; and Oliver Alawuba is now UBA Africa Deputy CEO, Wholesale Bank.

According to Phillips Oduoza, Group Managing Director, “the newly created UBA Africa Division will grow and deepen the bank’s presence in member countries, optimise the synergies within the network, deepen service delivery excellence, and promote cultural integration and a high level of motivation in UBA staff in the different countries to foster one UBA Family”.

Also, the new UBA Nigeria Division of the Group which will be managed by Mr. Apollos Ikpobe, Deputy Managing Director, DMD, Domestic Bank, will consolidate all of UBA’s Nigerian businesses into a single division and will comprise all the Regional Banks in Nigeria, Corporate Bank, Energy Bank, and UBA Pensions.  The Nigeria division will intensify the bank’s focus on the Nigerian market, with the aim of expanding its market share, while deepening UBA’s wallet share of existing businesses.

Also in the announcement, Ms. Obi Ibekwe, formerly Executive Director, Human Resources and Customer Service is now the Executive Director, Resources overseeing Human Resources, Customer Service, Corporate Services and Procurement.

“These changes will have a strategic impact on our business as we take critical steps to fast track our Project Alpha initiatives and transformation process. Stakeholders will no doubt see significant results from the organisational and human capital repositioning we are making to enhance value creation in the Group’s operations” Oduoza said.

United Bank for Africa Plc is one of Africa's leading financial institutions offering banking services to more than 7 million customers across 700 branches in 19 African countries. With presence in New York, London and Paris, UBA is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail, commercial and corporate banking, innovative cross border payments, trade finance and investment banking.