Lola Adekanye speaks on leading with integrity, empowering women

Lola Adekanye is the Deputy Regional Director for Africa, Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).

In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mrs Adekanye shares her journey from corporate law to international development, discusses how confidence, humility, and outcome-driven leadership shape her path.

PT: Can you tell us about your professional journey and how you became a CEO?

Mrs Adekanye: As one who is strongly driven by passion for what I would do professionally, I was drawn to study law after experiencing a traumatic event involving an old man being disrespected and assaulted by police officers during a road trip.

I had always enjoyed debating, reading and writing so expectedly, law seemed like the place to combine this talent with a passion to preserve and uphold rights and freedoms especially for the most vulnerable in our society.

For the most part, my option after graduation in England was either legal practice in terms of litigation or corporate practice. I ended up in corporate practice in fortune 250 floor manufacturing company as an Asst in-house Counsel and this is where my corporate governance schooling began.

As the junior counsel, I did all the grunt work research, analysis, updated legal briefs and opinions at a time that corporate governance frameworks and standards were evolving rapidly from King Code revisions to Sarbanes Oxley (Corporate Governance Law in the United States).

Then another interesting thing happened, the United States’s enforcement of the extraterritorial Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) led to a ripple effect in the corporate world, catalysing the growth of the compliance, risks management, and business ethics and integrity service sector.

This prepared me for a future in this career path, but I stayed well within the legal practice space, bagging two LL.Ms, getting called to the Nigeria and New York Bars.

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In this field, I was representing companies that had gotten in trouble for violating the law or advising them on how to just about operate at the boundaries which was not enough for me; I wanted to be able to empower companies to be forces for good, for sustainable growth and stability especially in emerging economies.

So, I had a choice to make stay in legal practice which came easily to me but be unfulfilled or pivot to public policy, International development or similar career paths that would be more fulfilling.

Of course, I went with the later, and my first experience in the international development world was working at the Integrity Compliance Office at the World Bank while I launched a blog and a platform to fill a gap in providing compliance and business integrity support to small and mid-sized businesses especially useful if they operate in emerging markets (Africa, Asia, and Latin America primarily).

The opportunity to have more impact was always something that attracted me to organisations and that is how I came to work at the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).

The receptiveness to innovative programme approaches and the focus on emerging economies made CIPE a very fulfilling place to work and over the years, I have had the good fortune of working with remarkably passionate and talented people, making it easy to achieve great strides.

PT: In your opinion, how do women leaders inspire and empower others around them, especially other women?

Mrs Adekanye: My answer is premised on two assumptions; first that we are talking about egalitarian leaders and second that any woman who is a leader has earned her stripes, and I bet must poses many of the very important leadership qualities so, I will emphasise these three qualities.

The first one is confidence, and I emphasise this one because women are given to second guessing themselves (imposter syndrome) or to fixating on their minority representation and often amplifying, making it a hindrance to finding out of the box ways to overcoming the immediate problem in the context.

Confidence allows a woman leader to lead without the encumbrance of self-doubt or the disappointments in the system or the society that would not be fixed by the agitation in that particular situation.

Confidence empowers the woman leader to stay focused on the goal, stay professional, be as dogged as she needs to be, makes calculated decisions, and not worry about being labelled “whatever” as long as she stays true to her values.

It is confidence that makes the woman leader capable of investing in the growth and progress of others around them, including other young women, giving them a chance to grow, fail, and try again, motivating them when they doubt themselves, encouraging them when they need it, and being frank and firm when they need some tough support to grow.

This selflessness is a very inspiring quality in a leader that cannot be achieved without confidence in oneself.

An outcome-oriented leader is an inspiring leader. Show me an outcome-oriented leader, and I will show you a leader who has earned their stripes in their industry or sphere with good results to show. Leaders who lead without a vision or plan are very hard to follow.

Sometimes the vision and plan are not fully formed or may go through several iterations but there must be a well thought through concept such that the leader, at the very least, is aware of all the domains of knowns and unknowns to anticipate.

Being outcome oriented is the reason leaders not only rally people around a vision but ensure that there is alignment across the team or organisation and importantly the shared values are not compromised in achieving the vision.

Finally, and foundationally, the most important qualities of an inspiring leader are the two peas in a pod – integrity and humility. These two should go together and are the qualities that all others are hinged on. Integrity in thought, speech, and action cannot be overemphasised.

People will never forget how your treat them and we are not perfect so the humility to recognise this, no matter how high achieving one is, is priceless.

PT: What challenges did you face as a woman in your industry, and how did you overcome them?

Mrs Adekanye: I have such a boring answer to this, but I hope it helps some other women leaders or aspiring leaders as it helped me. My career peaked right after I married my most inspiring mentor, my husband.
One day I was recounting my experience at work lamenting that because I was a minority (black woman in a White male dominated office), I was getting sidelined or given more grunt work than others.

ALSO READ: Bridging the values disconnect by emphasising the role of soft anti-corruption institutions, By Lola Adekanye

That week, I got lectures drawing from history and psychology on how that mindset must never be tolerated in my headspace and it ended in firm promises I had to make to him and myself to never see discrimination, never acknowledge it, never observe it, never label it or discuss it in the context of my career development.

13 years later, I can authoritatively say that this was the game changer for me with far reaching benefits. My kryptonite is going back on that promise.

PT: What advice would you give to young Nigerian women aspiring to become leaders in their fields?

Mrs Adekanye: Focus on solving problems, follow your passion, be kind and be sincere. Do not be afraid of hard work and please be as intellectually curious as ever. Make learning and innovation an exciting pass time and do not doubt yourself.

PT: How do you balance the demands of being a CEO with other aspects of your personal life?

Mrs Adekanye: Make them priority.

PT: This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Accelerate Action.” What does this theme mean to you and how does it reflect your leadership approach?

Mrs Adekanye: By intentionally, and to borrow from the Nike slogan, just do it. That thing you are hoping to accomplish, start now, start small but start.

This interview was conducted in partnership with Women in Management, Business, and Public Service (WIMBIZ), a Nigerian non-profit organisation committed to advancing and empowering women in leadership. Mrs Adekanye is also a member of WIMBIZ.