Ex-KCB boss forms consultancy to advise on corporate leadership
What you need to know:
This is the latest board appointment for Mr Oduor-Otieno who recently took up the role of a non-executive director at South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, the largest lender on the continent by assets.
Former KCB chief executive has formed a consultancy firm specialising in corporate leadership advisory even as he picks up more boardroom appointments.
Mr Oduor-Otieno is offering leadership & governance, strategy development and execution through the Leadership Group Limited that was registered at the start of the year. The coaching is available to individuals as well as corporate teams.
The new venture comes amid increased boardroom appointments, with Mr Oduor-Otieno set to rejoin British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya as a non-executive director.
He had resigned from the tobacco firm’s board in July 2013 after serving in the position for six months.
The departure was meant to avoid a potential conflict of interest after he had been appointed as an executive of Deloitte East Africa, a firm that mainly takes consultancy jobs from listed companies.
Mr Oduor-Otieno however recently resigned as a senior advisor (financial services) at Deloitte, removing the potential conflicts of interests that has also seen him return to the board of East African Breweries Limited (EABL) which he had also quit in 2013 for similar reasons.
“I write to inform the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) that the board of BATK has appointed Dr Martin Oduor-Otieno as a non-executive director effective August 1, 2016,” the cigarette manufacturer said in a statement.
Corporate governance skills
“Dr Oduor-Otieno is no stranger to BATK having previously worked for the company and also served on the board as a non-executive director,” the company said, adding that it will benefit from his commercial and corporate governance skills.
This is the latest board appointment for Mr Oduor-Otieno who recently took up the role of a non-executive director at South Africa’s Standard Bank Group, the largest lender on the continent by assets.
These directorships add to the ones he already holds at GA Life Insurance Company and SOS Children’s Villages Kenya.
Companies are seeking to benefit from his decades of experience in the public and private sector.
Mr Oduor-Otieno, 59, holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting from the University of Nairobi and an Executive MBA from ESAMI/Maastricht Business School. He is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Programme and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Business Leadership from KCA University.
Mr Oduor-Otieno was part of the “Dream Team” appointed by president Moi in 1999 to help turn around the economy. While he has had a relatively quiet, behind-the-scenes tenure at Deloitte, it is at KCB that he was most successful, steering the bank to a dominant position in terms of balance sheet size and profits. When he took over as CEO in 2007, KCB posted a Sh2.9 billion net profit on a total asset base of Sh120.4 billion.
In 2012, his final year at KCB, the bank’s asset base had expanded to Sh368 billion and its profitability had more than quadrupled to Sh12.2 billion. That level of growth saw KCB knock Barclays off its perch as Kenya’s most profitable lender and East Africa’s biggest bank.
KCB’s performance over the years has been helped by the bank’s regional expansion strategy into which it has invested billions of shillings.
