Fola Adeola, Co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), has urged African entrepreneurs to build institutions that can outlive their founders, warning that businesses dependent on the personalities of their founders rarely achieve lasting impact.
Adeola said sustainable institutions require deliberate structures, strong governance, consistent standards and the continuous development of leaders capable of running organisations without their founders.
During his keynote speech to more than 1,200 founders, entrepreneurs and executives at the Building Beyond You Conference in Lagos on Friday, Adeola said the future of Africa’s business environment would depend on the ability of its leaders to transition from founder-dependent enterprises to enduring, self-sustaining institutions.
‘When people come to me to say, ‘Help me with this organisation I’m trying to put together,’ the first question I ask them is, ‘How long do you want the organisation to last?” he said.
‘When they say anything from five to 10 years, I tell them you don’t need me. Organisations will last five years and beyond, maybe up to 10.’
Adeola likened businesses without structures for longevity to people trapped under collapsed buildings, saying the human body can survive for days without food, but organisations similarly need structures that allow them to survive beyond the people who founded them.
He said legacy should therefore not be measured by personal fame, wealth or public recognition, but by the ability to create institutions and values that continue after the founder is gone.
According to him, legacy is the total devotion to an interest that is bigger than your own self-interest.
‘Legacy is a deep, unshakable commitment to a cause, to an institution, or a value system that does not depend on public praise, personal enrichment or executive applause,’ Adeola added.
Founders, according to him, should be willing to commit their intellect, energy and resources to building systems that can survive for generations rather than structures designed around their individual personalities.
‘Since’ is a testament to consistency
Adeola also used the word ‘since’ to illustrate the importance of institutional consistency, pointing to organisations that have survived for decades or centuries.
He cited examples including Coca-Cola, Barclays Bank, Oxford University and Cambridge University, arguing that the longevity of such institutions is evidence of their ability to maintain standards across generations.
‘Since is not a statement of age. Since is a testament to consistency,’ he said.
‘It tells the customer we have performed this service, maintained this standard and honoured this promise across decades to centuries, through booms and busts, through world wars, through presidential times, through generations. Guess what? We are still standing.’
Adeola said businesses seeking to build for centuries must therefore avoid short-term decision-making and resist compromising their standards for immediate gains.
He recalled telling colleagues at GTB that he wanted the bank to one day carry a sign stating ‘Since 1990’, with the hope that generations of Nigerians would still see the institution operating centuries later.
‘We are building an institution that must last at least two centuries, and if you are building for 200 years, your decisions today cannot be reckless. Shortcuts cannot be tolerated,’ he said.
He noted that several Nigerian businesses and institutions had also crossed major longevity milestones, citing the Church of Nigeria, House of Tara and the Dangote Group among organisations that had sustained operations over decades.
Succession is central to institutional survival
Adeola said one of the biggest requirements for institutional longevity is the ability of founders to deliberately raise leaders and embed a culture that does not depend on them.
‘Unless you intend to run a tiny one-man show until you die, there is a physical and intellectual limit to what one individual can accomplish,’ he said.
Adding that: ‘As a founder, if you have not raised leaders capable of executing without you, your organisation inevitably enters a phase of diminishing returns.’
He said founders who fail to develop successors risk seeing their businesses lose momentum as their energy declines and the organisations become increasingly dependent on them.
He pointed to the transition at House of Tara, founded by Tara Fela-Durotoye, as an example of deliberate succession planning.
He commended Durotoye for building the beauty business from her living room nearly three decades ago and eventually handing over executive leadership after 25 years to focus on developing the next generation of business leaders.
‘You have demonstrated that African excellence can be codified, can be scaled and can be sustained,’ Adeola said.
According to him, the responsibility of today’s entrepreneurs should extend beyond building successful businesses to creating institutions capable of sustaining their values, standards and impact long after they have left.