Prof Pat Utomi
(Vice-Chair)
He is a household name across Nigeria. Prof Utomi is a fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria and founding Senior Faculty of the prestigious Lagos Business School (LBS), also known as Pan African University. He is a renowned Professor of political economy. He has served in senior positions in government, as an Adviser to the President of Nigeria, the private sector as Chief Operating Officer for Volkswagen Nigeria, and in academia. Author of several books, one of which is titled “Why Nations Fail”. Prof Utomi has been a scholar-in-residence at the Harvard Business School and the American University in Washington DC. He is the founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL), based in Lagos.
He has served on the key apex private sector organizations, including the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, The National Council of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and the Nigerian Employers Consultative Association (NECA). He has been active on the international speaking circuit, especially on subjects relating to growth economics, comparative development economics, leadership, the curse of oil and China’s economic surge and growing influence in Africa.
As a multitasker, he has reached the top in several different endeavours, becoming one of Nigeria’s top managers in the “manufacturing sector” before his 33rd birthday, reaching a Presidential Advisory Position at age 27, earning two Masters Degrees and a PhD at age 26, a Professorship and Global Acknowledgement as a leading Scholar in Business, Political Economy and Media Studies in his Forties. His first publication in a referred international journal appeared in 1981 in a European Journal, “Gazette”. He is perhaps the first candidate for the President of Nigeria to be formally publicly endorsed by such renowned scholars as the Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka and Prof Sam Aluko, among others.
He has collaborated fairly frequently with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC and the Chatham House in the United Kingdom. He has also written commissioned papers for the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), including the latest collaboration with colleagues from the University of Oxford on the political economy of growth in Nigeria. He is a visiting Scholar at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
He has studied and written about the political economy of growth in Latin America and Asia, particularly Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, India and Hong Kong, countries in which he is much travelled. Utomi was voted one of the top 10 Nigerian Living Legends in the polls conducted in 2009 by the Vanguard Newspaper and Silver Bird Television.
Prof Utomi is honoured by so many professional bodies, as a distinguished fellow, including Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, the Institute of Directors (Nigeria), Institute of Strategic Management, Academic of Entrepreneurship Studies etc. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement (Nigeria) Hall of Fame. He is a recipient of several awards resulting in a collection of more than 700 plaques that mark a life of productive meritorious service to humanity. In 2012, he got awarded with a Honorary Doctor of Business Administration (DBA Honoris Causa) by the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).
As a Business Angel, he has helped found such companies as Linkserve (Nigeria’s first ISP), Socketworks (Pioneer e-government systems developer in Nigeria), and BusinessDay Newspaper (Nigeria’s first daily business newspaper). He created the iconic Lagos Business School (LBS) Monthly Executive Briefing Breakfast and hosted it for its first 10 years. Prof Utomi also inspired the founding of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Studies of Lagos Business School (LBS), which is now known as EDC. It was created after his visit to the Sole C.Snyder Centre at Wharton, in Philadelphia. His other books include Critical Perspectives in Political Economy and Managemet; To Serve is to Live; Business Angel as a Missionary; Managing Uncertainty: Competition and Strategy in Emerging Economies and several others.
He has written dozens of chapters in edited volumes. Conversations with him have also been published in various books. He has passionately pursued the building of a viable opposition political party in Nigeria. He is an advocate of good political leadership and accountable democracy in Nigeria. He was candidate for President of Nigeria in 2007 and 2011. He is a man of faith and family, who is widely travelled through all continents of the world. He has visited more than eighty countries.