Boss Lady: When On-Site, You Don’t Know If I Am Male Or Female — Ibiene Ogolo

As comfortable in front of a payloader as she is in the boardroom, Ibiene Ogolo is one of the most versatile women in corporate Nigeria today.

 Best known for her role as Chief Responsibility Officer, CRO of Eko Development Company, the seasoned financial analyst and real estate consultant specialising in high net worth asset management and luxury real estate development, offers unique perspectives and roundly developed insights into the country’s entire town planning value chain.

In 2018, Ogolo was honoured as one of the Most Influential People of African Descent, (MIPAD), under the age of 40 years, in the Business and Entrepreneurship category.

As a top executive officer in the company that is developing the famous and fascinating Eko Atlantic City, you were required to use not only your brains but also your brawn. How tasking was this? What was your average day like?

As the Chief Responsibility Officer for Eko Development Company, I learnt early in the day that work doesn’t finish.

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You were sometimes required to do physical inspections of skyscrapers. How did this go? Did it always go right?

I was opportune to work with bright minds. My boss at the time- I called him a master builder- led me into his vision and dream and I bought into it. In order for me to understand, he exposed me to the physical things he was trying to create here in Nigeria.  So, I already had an idea of what we were looking at. It was also very important early on that we did appropriate studies, we understood what was required, the structures we were trying to create, the obstacles that could possibly come to play and mitigate against them.

Yes, there were at times when there were mistakes made and we caught on early in the day and we corrected the mistakes. There were some situations where we did some piling work and we would find cracks or clay between the piles, we would leave no stone unturned, abandon that pile and start afresh. When on-site, you don’t know if I am male or female- Ibiene Ogolo

As comfortable in front of a payloader as she is in the boardroom, Ibiene Ogolo is one of the most versatile women in corporate Nigeria today.

 Best known for her role as Chief Responsibility Officer, CRO of Eko Development Company, the seasoned financial analyst and real estate consultant specialising in high net worth asset management and luxury real estate development,  offers unique perspectives and roundly developed insights into the country’s entire town planning value chain.

In 2018, Ogolo was honoured as one of the Most Influential People of African Descent, (MIPAD), under the age of 40 years, in the Business and Entrepreneurship category.

As a top executive officer in the company that is developing the famous and fascinating Eko Atlantic City, you were required to use not only your brains but also your brawn. How tasking was this? What was your average day like?

As the Chief Responsibility Officer for Eko Development Company, I learnt early in the day that work doesn’t finish.

You were sometimes required to do physical inspections of skyscrapers. How did this go? Did it always go right?

I was opportuned to work with bright minds. My boss at the time- I called him a master builder- led me into his vision and dream and I bought into it. In order for me to understand, he exposed me to physical things he was trying to create here in Nigeria.  So, I already had an idea of what we were looking at. It was also very important early on that we did appropriate studies, we understood what was required, the structures we were trying to create, the obstacles that could possibly come to play and mitigate against them.

Yes, there were at times when there were mistakes made and we caught on early in the day and we corrected the mistakes. There were some situations where we did some piling work and we would find cracks or clay between the piles, we would leave no stone unturned, abandon that pile and start afresh.

We were very intentional about the quality of build, about procedure, about safety and all the work. It’s like building a Lego house in which you have to make sure your angles are right. Everything has to add up. Construction is a science and so there is a science to everything. There is no short cut.

Did you climb up the skyscrapers by yourself…..physically work with engineers?

I believe in “all hands are on deck”. We incorporated a lot of technology in it but also to give kudos to workmen, I would roll up my sleeves. Sometimes I wore my boots, my hat, my complete PPEs, to tell them, yes, I am a woman but we have to place the piles together.

Anybody who knows me privately knows I’m a tomboy. When I’m on site, you really don’t know if I’m a male or female. Most engineers at the site believe I’m an engineer, an architect or some work related individual. I am a computer scientist by training. I have a degree in Finance and in corporate governance, but I was raised a tom boy. Yes, I do go on construction lifts where I have to climb stairways that are not fully carved, where I have to use ropes and I totally enjoy it. It is me being free.

I love to be impactful. I believe we are in this together, making one beautiful cake that will be sumptuous to the general public and those engaged. I feel good when seeing something come to life.

With your wide expertise in Town Planning, spanning both public and private sectors, what are your ideas on the state of our cities’ infrastructure including housing, and what policies would be required to improve it?

Over the years, I don’t know why we threw implementations at the dogs. We all need to take this on together. When you find that someone has erred- for example, a setback of a street or a plot of land; or you find out that the owner has overstepped his bounds, you are not being a snitch, you can actually call the man to order and let him know there is a process on ground and that he is stealing government land by extending or encroaching onto the walkway. Government  also needs to get their enforcement agencies well equipped  because people are just developing haphazardly, causing issues with infrastructure that was built before and the ones that are coming in future.

At some point, when road construction needs to be done, they are going to break people’s homes, obstruct people’s livelihoods. Why? Because someone did not follow the rules. We should go back to the drawing board, buckle up on enforcement and implementation.

Climate change is increasingly becoming an issue for big cities around the world.  Should we be worried?

Climate change is real. If before we didn’t believe it, this year alone has shown us. The oceans are overflowing their bounds; the volume of water is getting more. The weather has changed. Where it is supposed to be raining, it is sunny, where it’s supposed to be sunny, it’s raining. So, I say yes. We should be worried.

 We need to all have a change. Let us learn to recycle, not to cut down trees because they are there to help us. We should be worried as a people.

Are there ways to avert doomsday? There are ways to stall it by our practices and our mindset. We have to adopt organic ways of doing things and reduce our plastics and our carbon waste across the globe. I am very passionate about the ocean because I am a scuba diver. When I go in the ocean, I am really saddened by what I see. The water is 70% of the earth and if you are throwing all sorts into the water, it means we ourselves are eating the same crap because we are getting fish and all sorts of seafood from there.

What has your experience been in real estate project finance in this country? As someone who has worked in the Financial sector, would you blame slow development in this area on the private financial sector or on the government?

The developer has his own portion there; the government has its own and our financial ecosystem has its own part to play.

For every development, the developer has to first understand what he is developing and who the end-user of that product is. Does it align with end users’ requirements, needs, and wants? Is the developer developing what he or she believes the end-user will want?  It is important because of acceptability and ownership. So if you build a project and nobody wants it, it is dead on arrival. When the developer is building, is there any adaptation? Without playing with quality, what are local alternatives he can use as against foreign goods? How adaptive is that product to technology?

Unfortunately, I believe we all need to come back to the table and discuss this Land Use Act. As far as I am concerned, it really adds no value because the developer is going to buy the same land that he wants to use to produce a product for a trillionaire, it’s the same process with the government as if he was doing a social project. There is a lacuna there. There are no benefits or incentives for the developer to do social projects.

We are still battling with identification. Here, you do biometrics for driver’s license, do for international passport, telephone lines, NIN. There is no single database of the same person. Without the depth of the market, unfortunately, mortgages cannot work here.

The financial economy also needs to understand that for us to progress, we have to look into and develop a product that can be a stop-gap for income-earning people first before we can now start thinking about the peripherals; non-documented income earners and the like.

A recent Brookings Institute study found 13% of women in sub-Saharan Africa owns the property,  as against 39% of men.  As an advocate for women, does this bother you? Do you have any suggestions on how to bridge the gap?

 I always like to dig a little deeper into those statistics. From experience, women who engage in real estate buy in their children’s names or in their brother’s name or company’s name for fear of stigmatization. I would liken it to the same statistics that says that Africans are not big luxury spenders abroad. However, if you look inwardly, you will find that until the advent of our local credit cards, the cards that were being used were American, Europeans cards. However, the owners were African.

We need to sanitize women, re-orientate them that it’s okay for a woman to own property in her name or in whatever name that she wants that property in. That it is okay and acceptable that you also give your property to your daughters or to your female siblings. Also, let us start keeping better statistics because I think that statistical number is faulty.

You are a fitness enthusiast and it shows. Is there a relationship between physical and mental fitness, particularly to do with the ability to make relevant decisions in the workplace?

 I have always been one to cater for my health and wellbeing. There is a correlation between physical health and mental health. With your physical exercises, you are sharpening your mental capability and your reaction time. Your decision-making and taking is more heightened; you are more alert, your reflexes are constantly on the row. You are energized. You are not feeling tired or disgusted. Exercise also enables and enhances your happy hormones. It stabilises your hormones. A happy person is a more apt person to deal with. I will encourage a lot more people to get on this physical ride. Don’t do it as a chore, do it as a lifestyle.

Quote: I am very passionate about the ocean because I am a scuba diver. When I go in the ocean, I am really saddened by what I see.

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