Dr Kimei aims higher after winning top award in banking leadership

ABDUEL ELINAZA

CRDB Managing Director Dr Charles Kimei

CRDB Bank Managing Director, Dr Charles Kimei, recently received East Africa Life Time Achievement Award in banking sector, in recognition of more than 30 years of outstanding contribution to the banking and financial sector in Tanzania and the region. Dr Kimei, the first Tanzanian to win the award, was also named as a visionary leader who spearheaded remarkable turn around of CRDB Bank from a loss making entity to become the biggest bank in Tanzania and East Africa. Our Staff Writer ABDUEL ELINAZA interviewed him on the significance of the awards to the banking industry.

QUESTION: You are the first Tanzanian to win the East Africa Life Achievement Award 2016. What does the award signify in the banking industry and the country?

Answer: This award sends a very good signal that in Tanzania there are people who can run banks successfully. There is a tendency to look at Tanzania that you cannot get good leaders. The fact is that there are leaders in Tanzania who are very good in running banks. Also it shows the support to our fellow countrymen that even at home one can perform better than those in foreign lands. Another important thing is that since CRDB Bank is a listed company, the award will build confidence to investors. It will attract more investors to buy shares from in and outside the country. At the moment a lot of buyers of our shares are foreign investors. The fact that the bank clinched these two awards [Life Time Achievement and the Best Retail Bank], I am confident it will attract more investors to look at our shares. The demand will increase thus pushing up price in the coming days, which is the expectation of our shareholders and the bank as well. Question: What does this award means to you, personally? Answer: I am very delighted. Also I am pleased to achieve this here at CRDB. But personally, I think this is the beginning of my career. Now is about passing the knowledge to others on banking process and growth. It means to mentor people to continue running the bank. But, of course, it also gives me a challenge on my remaining years before retirement—to maintain the achievement; that I should not mess up. It will be a shame to those who gave you the Life Time Achievement Award and to me too. Thus I want to perform better and even after my retirement the banking sector will look to you, Kimei, is our ambassador. To me it means a lot of things but not as much as to my colleagues at the bank. I have a team which is very creative, innovative and daring. Therefore, this award is dedicated to the team, which we have worked together and accomplished a number of things successfully. I have been working with this innovative management team for the last 15 to 16 years. I am not trying or directing something but I let the team to come up with own innovative products. That way, people are performing to their maximum skills. Some of them are even asking to be moved to other departments, temporarily, for exposure reasons—to give them the feel of other departments as well. This also helps on succession plan purpose.

Question: What is the secret of choosing the best team?

Answer: I think mainly is avoiding conflict of interest, because most of the time people are choosing staff members since they have interest in that particular person. Others put weak people and think since they are weak they will take advantage of their weakness and do what they want. Those people who are going to say ‘YES’ for everything, every time. Those staff who will not challenge the boss. That way you will never get the best winning team. The fact, however, is you want someone who will perform better irrespective of where he or she is coming from. The good team is the one that everyone has a chance into building the company. In CRDB if we are in management meeting you will think that there is no MD [Managing Director]. People are talking openly and criticising any plan on table. They’ll tell you critically if the plan is good or bad. Then you listen and engaging them and come up with a single voice in what you want to pursue. A good leader, I think, has to be able to accept opinions and fresh ideas of the others. The problem is you reject an idea and forcing yours and turn up to be wrong decision, how could you face the team? Listen to any idea floated around you, pick the best and reject the weak. That way you build a strong team. In CRDB we don’t only listen to our customers as our motto suggests but also to our staff in various ways.

Question: Now, what does the award means to CRDB’s customers?

Answer: First, from CRDB customers I have received a number of congratulatory calls, saying very nice words to me. award carries public confidence of the bank. If trust of the institutions goes down, then there are risks of creating a bank run. If there is a run, you can never mobilise deposits. This way you end up finding some people [banks] mobilise deposits at 17 per cent. Simply because depositors don’t have confidence, trust on them. Confidence is what drives the growth of a bank. In the bank business deposits are important than capital. The capital of the bank is about 14 per cent of source of bank’s fund—deposits are the key factor. To some people may think that this award is a small gesture and is for marketing purpose, but this raises customers’ trust and confidence. This gives us a lot of millage in various ways in marketing, sales, trust and so forth.

Question: What is your vision of CRDB in the next two to five years?

Answer: This is what I said earlier, the truth is this Life Time Achievement Award is a challenge. One can get a lot of awards from various institutions but the key issue is you have to live as a person who has received a Life Time Award. This award challenges me to be more or stay innovative in order to get another award like this. There are many things we will do in the next two to three years. God willing, you will see them and are not small but big ones.T he only thing challenging us are dramatically changing of macroeconomic policies, especially when a new government comes in. These policies can make, even, the best innovation fail. I don’t want to mention them but we have a new government, which has come up with policies that are very different with the past policies of previous governments. This is a challenge and risks to banks. Actually, one of the key risks to banks is the macroeconomic policy change—the major one, the government budget. This is the way the government wants to be innovative on increases taxes but is a challenge and risk to banks’ growth. The success of the banks depends very much how they copes with macroeconomic policy change.

Question: Where does CRDB go from here, expansion wise? Answer: We have a plan to cross more boarders. But of late we have been hesitating as there is a plan to create monetary union for East African Community. So, once the monetary union is created it is going to be easier to open a branch anywhere in the EAC member states, because they will harmonise banking regulations in the region. This will help us in doing business as instead of opening up a subsidiary, you open a branch. If I want to cross to Kenya, for example, I just open a branch like I open in Tanzania, because it will be supervised by Central Bank of Kenya like what our Central Bank does due to harmonisation of regulations— the same will apply to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and even South Sudan. Out of EAC we are trying to think of [DR] Congo, in Lubumbashi. There are a lot of businesses in Congo and our approach is to follow our customers and we have them already in Lubumbashi. Most of these customers are coming to Dar es Salaam carrying cash. This is not proper. This is too risky. So if we have a branch there will help them reducing this risk. I am told there some 1,500 very good [Tanzanian] businesspersons in Lubumbashi.