The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Mr Kennedy Uzoka, has won the much-coveted ‘BusinessDay’s Bank CEO’ of the year 2019 award. Uzoka emerged tops based on his sterling achievements since he assumed the position of Group CEO at UBA three years ago.
Kennedy Uzoka has been successful in pulling increased financial performances and appreciation of shareholders’ investment. The Pan African bank CEO has ensured massive investment in the digitalisation of the bank’s activities and processes, particularly the introduction of UBA’s chatbot, LEO which is the first of its kind by any financial institutions in Africa.
Whilst presenting this award to the GMD, the management of BusinessDay Newspapers was quoted as saying, “The visionary leadership of the bank spearheaded by Uzoka has earned UBA the digital bank of the year consistently. The launch of LEO, an artificial intelligence chatbot in January of 2018 has witnessed UBA become the leader in artificial intelligence. Leo is available on different platforms including Whatsapp, Facebook and more recently on IOS, the mobile operating system of Apple Inc.” Following Uzoka’s appointment on August 1st, 2016, UBA’s customer deposit has grown by 19.4 per cent to N2.49tn away from the four per cent crunch which had been recorded the previous year, while net loans improved from a 3.3 per cent loss position recorded in 2015, to N1.51tn, representing a huge incline of 45.2 per cent.
The strong growth trajectory has continued, three years after Uzoka’s appointment, as seen by the 43 per cent growth in the bank’s shareholding fund to N5.01tn in the three –year period, as the bank has been enjoying excellent ratings from credible international financial rating agencies such as Fitch and Agusto and Co. Uzoka, who received and acknowledged the award with a keen sense of humility said the bank has been focused on putting the customer first in all its activities, adding that this has been the focal point and driving force of the bank in the past three years. “Our commitment to customer service excellence is translating to strong, operational and financial efficiency,” Uzoka said.