Karl Toriola : Empowering SMES Navigating The New World Of Business
The ancient city of Ile-Ife, in Osun state, 207km up north Lagos, holds a prominent place in the history of the Yoruba people. It is widely acclaimed as the origin of the Yorubas, the inhabitants of Nigeria’s southwest region with a population of about 30 million people.
It is in that city that Karl Olutokun Toriola was born about five decades ago.
Karl Toriola is the new CEO of MTN Nigeria, the largest corporate organisation by revenue outside of the oil industry and the second-largest entity listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Aside from his last and middle names that loudly announce his Yoruba origin, many would ordinarily subject Toriola’s origin to scrutiny by his looks.
Looks sure can be deceiving, that is why, on a first encounter, Toriola would immediately pass as a Northern African or from the Middleeast to anyone. Replace Karl’s last name – Toriola with say Richards or Samuel – and his origin would become more confusing because of his looks.
But no, he is a Nigerian, born in Ile-Ife, Osun state, and had his primary, secondary and university education within the walls of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).
“I was born and bred Nigerian,” he said at the closing gong ceremony of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in March 2021. “I was born at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Ile-Ife. I completed my Primary, Secondary, and first degree within the walls of OAU.”
After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical/Electronics from OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun state, where he spent the first two decades of his life living and schooling, he earned a Master of Science degree in Communication Systems from the University of Wales, the United Kingdom. He also completed several programmes at INSEAD, Singapore; Wharton Business School, USA; London Business School, UK; Harvard Business School, USA; and Institute of Management Development (IMD), Switzerland.
The Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE) as well as a member of the Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN) and the Institute of Directors (IoD), took over as MTN Nigeria’s CEO from Ferdi Moolman on March 1, 2021.
When he took over, he inherited an organisation on an aggressive growth path. The multinational telecommunication company announced a revenue of N1.3 trillion in December 2020.
As he steps in to manage the telecom giant with over 80 million subscribers as of July 2020 according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), a Network infrastructure value of N1.04trillion, and total assets valued at N1.74 trillion as of June 2020, there are high expectations and his intimidating credentials show he is up to the task.
The CEO of NSE, Oscar Onyema, described Toriola as “a versatile leader who comes with vast knowledge and relevant experience spanning over 25 years.”
These high expectations and the armoury in his arsenal to meet and surpass them are part of the objectives behind the Revv Programme.
“Through the Revv Programme, we created a structure to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to help them navigate the new digital reality,” he added.
Toriola didn’t just find himself at the top of the corporate ladder. Before joining MTN, he spent three years as ELS Manager at Ericsson, three years at Econet, which later metamorphosed into VMobile and Zain before he left in 2006 to join MTN.
At MTN, he spent five years as Chief Transformation Officer and later rose through different ranks as Non-Executive Director in Benin Republic, Cameroun, CEO MTN Congo, CEO MTN Cameroun, Group Operations Executive and Vice President, West and Central Africa until his appointment as CEO of MTN Nigeria in 2021.
What is he expected to achieve with this and how does he plan to raise a new generation of charismatic and visionary CEOs that would take on the Africa business world and break new grounds?
Toriola brings over 25 years of experience in Strategy and Management Consulting, Oil & Gas and the Telecommunications industry, garnered from work at Bain & Company Inc., South Africa, Mercer Management Consulting, San Francisco and Schlumberger in their Gabon, Nigeria and Indonesia offices.
As he takes the telecom giant in a bold, new direction, the world waits to see the fundamental business strategies he would deploy as a man who has travelled around West African countries managing the MTN business.
He is now tasked with sustaining the success he met at MTN Nigeria and taking the company to an even higher level.
He told the virtual gathering at the NSE closing gong event that he hopes to drive share price and doing this involves delivering a stronger and deeper stakeholder relationship.
The task ahead may look easy if the winning formula is followed, but Nigeria is a multi-dimensional society where market dynamics change almost daily. He would have to bring his A-game to the table and pundits say Toriola is up to the task.
The major goal he set for himself and his team at MTN is providing answers to one question: Have we made the lives of our customers brighter today?
He is committed not just to taking MTN higher, but also playing a crucial role as a corporate citizen in the recovery and growth of the Nigerian economy. A major step to achieving this goal is through the Revv programme which has continued to receive wide commendations from participants.
The Revv Programme is another initiative by MTN that brings SMEs together under the mentorship of top business executives and industry experts to relearn, rethink and retool their businesses for growth in the emerging digital economy.
The programme which commenced in September 2020 aims to reach and support 10,000 small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) across Nigeria.
