Fola Adeola – The visionary who co-founded GTB with longtime friend

If Fola Adeola looked back to the event that led to the creation of Guaranty Trust Bank in 1990, it wouldn’t be out of place to find him teary eyed. And why not, he was only in his 30s when his dream to own one of Africa’s biggest banks began to materialise.

Having obtained a Diploma in Accounting from Yaba College of Technology in 1975 and a Chartered Accountant certificate in 1980 following his training with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells and D.O. Dafinone & Company, Adeola set his sights on creating a commercial bank that would serve millions of people in his home country.

This dream, he would achieve with his “teenage friend”, Tayo Aderinokun, in 1990.

Before Adeola and Aderinokun founded GTB, the pair who were both on the roster of Continental Merchant Bank in the mid 80s, had collaborated to solve a simple but rare problem for residents of Ikoyi.

“One of the challenges posed by living in Ikoyi in 1986 was that there were no barbers anywhere near-by! One, therefore, had to go to the Mainland for a simple haircut any time one was required. I was on one of these barber trips one Sunday when I saw a ghastly accident on Eko Bridge,” Adeola said in his tribute to Aderinokun following the latter’s sad passing in 2011.

“The only thing that came to my mind was whether the victim of that accident was also on his way to the barbers! I decided we would put barbers in Ikoyi. The only person I knew that would entertain such a fanciful thought was Tayo Aderinokun. We both dipped into our pockets, and thus Finishing Touches Barbing Salon was born.”

But just as the business of providing the people in the upscale Lagos community a haircut service started to boom, Adeola’s focus started to shift elsewhere.

“For me, the idea of a commercial bank never died. I revisited it with Tayo, and told him I was now prepared to go ahead, as I felt the window of opportunity for a licence was narrowing. This was in January 1989,” Adeola reminisced in 2011.

In his 2015 article titled ‘The Curious Case of Young Generations’, Femi Pedro, one of the founding members of the bank, said “As of 1988 when we began the journey, Fola was 34, Tayo was 33, Gbolly was 33, Bode was 33, Akin was 35 and I was 33. The objective: To own a BANK. It was a bold objective considering our respective ages at the time, but certainly not an impossible task in our eyes.”

On August 2, 1990, Adeola received a banking license No. 58, dated August 1, 1990 and signed by the Federal Minister for Finance, Chief Olu Falae, for Guaranty Trust Bank Limited. And the bank became listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1996.

Adeola would serve as the bank’s Managing Director for 12 years between 1990 and 2002, with Aderinokun right by his side as his able deputy and Femi Pedro, Gbolade Osibodu, Femi Akingbe, Akin Opeodu and others in tow. Aderinokun would later take over the reigns as MD of GTB after Adeola stepped down in 2002 and held the position until his death in 2011.

Today, GTB, which stands tall as Adeola and Aderinokun had envisioned, boasts of over 200 branches, 17 Cash Centres, 18 e-branches, 41 GTExpress locations and more than 1165 ATMs in Nigeria. In August 2021, the bank announced its transition from a Public Listed Company (GTBank Plc) to a Limited Liability Company (Guaranty Trust Bank Limited) with Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO Plc) as the parent company.

In Africa, the bank has expanded to Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, including the United Kingdom. The bank’s total assets are also estimated to be worth over ₦4 trillion, according to the bank’s Q1 2021 unaudited results released in April 2021.

Since vacating the seat as the MD of GTB, Adeola has served as the chairman of UTC, ARM, Lotus Capital, Eterna Oil, CardinalStone Partners Limited, Tafsan Breweries (board member), and Credit Registry Services.

As the chairman of Main One Cable Company Limited, Adeola oversaw the complete construction of an open access submarine cable system that spanned 14,000 kilometres in 2010.

He has also tested his feet in the public sector and in politics, serving as running mate to former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chairman (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu in the 2011 presidential elections.

Married with six children, Adeola was decorated as Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in December 2002 by President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Despite all of his achievements, Adeola has made it clear that his friendship with Aderinokun which was the bedrock of GTB’s birth is one he’ll forever hold dear, going on to say in his tribute to his deceased friend and partner in 2011, “I will always reserve for myself the credit for partnering with Tayo.”