New MD Arrives at Skye Bank Sierra Leone
At last a new Managing Director has arrived at Sierra Leone’s Skye Bank. Apparently arriving almost a week ago, the new Managing Director will be expected to exercise overall control and be responsible and accountable to the Board of Directors, including the banks owners in Nigeria.
From recent events which rapidly unfolded in the bank over the past year, it was obvious that control and supervision was inadequate in the struggling banking institution. It did not appear that the former bank leader had a recognizable business strategy, or was able to run the bank on sound commercial and professional principles.
As a media team we failed to see the long-term strategies which the bank was trying to pursue. Evidently, from the banks publicly perceived performance so far, its financial viability and cost structure were not regularly analyzed. It appeared in fact that the bank was regularly taking advice from its competitors, who were regularly misleading it.
Now that Skye Bank has seen it fit to replace the square peg called Olatunjie, the investing public is hopeful that the new leader will show adequate ability to plan and achieve performance targets relative to financial performance, quality, culture and legislative adherence.
Communication under the old guard was a bit too much, with overt interactions between men and women. It is hoped that the new team will display more professional communication skills.
Industry watchers hope this will signal the period of the banks extension into the provincial areas or at least into a branch network of some sort.
We hope that the overbearing influence of the Managing Director on all recruitment will now stop and the penchance for the MD to look to recruit mostly fine girls will now be called to order for the sake of the banking industry. The proper motivation of the staff should now be paramount in the minds of the new team members.
It will be interesting to see what the new team does with the Banks asset register, which surely will hold the records of all those deals done by the former MD and his partners, the Jarret-Popoolas.
The new team has a lot of work to do to repair Skye Banks torn image and its reputation in the market in the eyes of its different stakeholders. The Banks credit portfolio should now be thoroughly reviewed to attempt to maintain a lower level of delinquency, the safeguarding of depositors interests and the creation of a more diversified range of financial products.
Because of the strange history of the SL Bank, the board of directors should now insist on receiving regular reports on the current state of business and that board decisions are implemented in a timely manner.
Welcome to Freetown. Please ensure you go to the provinces.
Abdulai Kamara
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