Uto Ukpanah: The Corporate Governance Guru Helping SMEs Forge A New Direction In Business
In her many years of overseeing the secretariat of MTN Nigeria and its subsidiaries, Uto Ukpanah has seen a lot.
Ukpanah, a corporate lawyer with extensive experience in company and commercial law, is MTN Nigeria’s Company Secretary.
In her 30 years of being called to the Nigerian Bar as a legal practitioner, a lot has changed in the legal and compliance system. But Ukpanah remains conversant and relevant to the changing faces of organisational laws and ethics.
An alumna of the University of Uyo where she bagged her bachelor’s degree in law, since Ukpanah was called to Bar in 1990, she has been actively involved in developing sustainable corporate governance structures in the private, public and not for profit sectors in Nigeria.
In the emerging digital business world, many of what used to be overlooked in corporate ethics 10 – 15 years ago, are now serious ethical issues that have brought down many top executives and sank many businesses.
Ukpanah has seen a lot of these changes and this puts her at a vantage position to share notes with the younger generation of business owners in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Only a few people at the multinational telco can have a detailed understanding of MTN’s legal and ethical framework as Ukpanah.
She has been part of MTN’s 20 years journey in Nigeria for 16 years and in these years, she has been at the forefront of reviewing and enforcing compliance with ethical rules that have continued to guide the company’s corporate governance and make it stronger.
In her 16 years at MTN Nigeria, she’s worked on all sides of its corporate governance, risk, and compliance fronts.
She spent seven years with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) as an Assistant Company Secretary from 1998 to 2005, before joining MTN Nigeria as Company Secretary in 2005. In that role, she has functioned as Chief Ethics and Governance Officer as well as the overseer of administration of the company secretariat of MTN Nigeria, MTN Foundation and subsidiaries.
Every organisation, either at the multinational or SMEs level, needs to function within the core principles of compliance and ethics enshrined in the corporate governance framework – they are the core principles that address the rights and equitable treatment of all as well as organisational behaviours that are just, fair and accountable.
As the torchbearer for MTN’s corporate governance which is crucial to business success, Ukpanah ensures the workforce policies of the telecom giant conforms to the laws of not just the country but also each of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. This is part of what she brings to the table in her conversation with SMEs on the Revv Programme.
With her experience and success in corporate governance, through the Revv Programme, she’s helping SMEs forge a new kind of direction in business to avoid legal and ethical pitfalls that may drown their businesses before it rises. What makes her a right fit for this role is, no doubt, her ability and experience in sustaining and managing the governance system of the largest telecom company in Africa’s most populous nation.
As the telecom giant grows in impact and size, so is her scope of corporate governance growing as she and her team analyses complex and mild ethical and legal issues involved in everything MTN does.
At a time when “Organisations are being evaluated on the basis of their impact on society — transforming them from business enterprises into social enterprises,“ according to the 2018 Global Human Capital Trends by accounting firm Deloitte, the essentiality of Ukpanah’s specialities in developing sustainable corporate governance systems; ethics and corporate social responsibility advisory services, to the survival of SMEs and even multinationals cannot be overemphasised.
The Revv Programme which consists of a series of business-related masterclasses, advisory services, marketing and technology support targeted at over 10,000 SMEs, was launched by MTN to address the critical needs of SMEs and proffer solutions to their many challenges as they struggle for balance as the COVID-19 induced storm gradually subsides.
With the Revv Programme, MTN Nigeria is further asserting itself as one of Nigeria’s most valuable social enterprises putting the people at the forefront of its business.
