Celebrating Dick Kramer, a legend in management

By ADEBAYO OBAJEMU

Mr. Dick Krammer, at 80, has been a popular name in Nigeria’s corporate environment for over forty years and has traversed the financial sector. To most people he has become a part of the country and even received a National Honour. But that association will soon come to an end as the grand old man is eventually returning to his father land, USA, to see off the rest of his very rich, fulfilled and eventful life. Dick, as he is popularly known by mentee and acquaintance, came to Nigeria, saw and conquered. Nigeria, which had been his adopted home for so long, will definitely miss his towering influence and presence.
Dick Kramer, former Managing Partner, Arthur Andersen & Co, is a legend of management and unarguably, patriarch of management consulting in Nigeria. In his more than fifty years career in the country, he succeeded in grooming generations of management consultants to world class standards, and in the process, has left an indelible mark in the sands of time.
Kramer was the Chairman of African Capital Alliance, an organization that has pioneered the management of private equity investments in high potential sectors of the Nigerian economy.
A trained accountant, he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School prior to joining Arthur Andersen in 1958 where he worked in all areas of the firm’s practice in the USA, Latin America, Middle East, Europe, India as well as Africa. He became the founding Managing Partner of the firm in Nigeria in 1978.
Upon his retirement in 1994, Dick remained in Nigeria to consult, invest and continue community service activities. He is a member of the Lagos Business School Advisory Board and the American Business Council. Mr. Dick Kramer joined the Board of Directors of Union Bank as a Non-Executive Director in 2012.
His other achievements include: Recipient, Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR); Founder and first Vice Chairman, Nigeria Economic Summit Group President, Harvard Business School Association of Nigeria (HBSAN); Head, Technical Team and Member of Vision 2010 Committee; Recipient, Zik Prize in Professional Leadership
Dick Kramer started the Nigerian practice of Arthur Andersen & Co in 1978. He has a nearly 40-year career with the firm, which started in 1958 and had been Managing Partner of the firm in Argentina, Uruguay and in the Benelux. He later established Andersen Consulting Nigeria, which morphed into Accenture Nigeria.
He managed both Arthur Andersen & Co. and Andersen Consulting until his retirement in 1996. He holds a Havard MBA (1958) and an Accounting degree from the University of Kansas, USA. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA – 1960) and became an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ACA) in 1979.
Dick even in his 90s is still actively involved in consulting , and his views are widely respected. As the Chairman of African Capital Alliance, the premier private equity firm, Dick raised the bar of management consulting in a way that has rubbed off on companies in the country. Over the years, his wealth of experience in building value driven and enduring institutions has never waned. He has been actively involved in over 10 organisations in Nigeria.’
Dick founded or has been actively involved in the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, the Enabling Environment Forum, Vision 2010, the Nigerian – American Chamber of Commerce, the Lagos Business School and Ikoyi Club 1938, amongst other organisations, where he was a trustee for several years. Dick holds a national honour. He is more committed to Nigeria than many Nigerian citizens. His work at professional and community levels has impacted positively so many people and institutions, as well as the country.
In a recent season of tribute tagged: ‘Brunch with Dick Kramer’, speaker after speaker paid homage to his charming personality and contribution to management practice. At the occasion where eulogies were poured on him, Dick revealed that he planned everything he did based on MOGOS: Mission, Objectives, Goals and Strategies.
He clearly advised all institutions and individuals to adopt and implement MOGOS. More interestingly, he said that he planned and reviewed everything – Annually, monthly, weekly and daily with Wanda under 5 headings: Personal, Family, Financial, Work and Community.
Dick has had a wonderful career and been an inspiration and a worthy example of leadership that can lead from the front and the rear. He has been on the Editorial Advisory Board, as well as the Board of Directors of BusinessDay, Nigeria premier business daily, for several years.
At several fora in the past, Dick has always highlighted the challenge facing nation building in Nigeria. He often says that the country is an underperforming nation largely because it is under managed. Recently, he stressed that we must ask ourselves three basic questions: Where are we now and why? What do we want to be? How do we get there?
Planning at the national level must be based on what is best for the country and not what is best for Government or a particular industry, he often says.
He believes Nigeria can be great by employing the best and adopting best practices, saying the great challenge facing the country is the failure of the system. At the occasion of tributes to him, he added that Nigerians are wonderful people. “You take the same people to a better environment and they perform excellently.” He advised Nigerians to focus on impacting their circle of influence – family, church, workplace, community and the nation.
Recently, he dropped a clinker : “There is no reason (other than leadership) for us not to be among the leading nations of the world – and certainly the driving force within Africa.” He emphasized that it will only take one deeply committed generation to transform this nation.
Mr. Dick Kramer, has said Nigeria will be great if persons such as the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; former Minister of Communications and Technology, Omobola Johnson; Executive Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Babatunde Fowler, among others exist throughout the entire public and private sectors.
Kramer disclosed this during his send-forth organised by Anderson Tax in Lagos. According to him, “Nigeria is not a great country right now, which is a great challenge. The wonderful thing is that, the people in this room and other Nigerians with similarity like theirs have the quality, capability and determination to build Nigeria into a great country.
“There are things which took the United States a lot of time to get right. The U.S. got its independence as far back as July 4, 1776, but in 1860, the country fought their civil war. “If you check the history of U.S, its economy did not proceed step by step like a staircase, it had its ups and down.
Nigeria has also, and it will continue, but if you can get the quality of leaders in this room throughout the entire public and private sectors and even the non-profit sectors, there will be no question of success.
“If there is a success story you should build in Nigeria on investment, Aliko Dangote can tell. The reason I am saying this is that, you do not need to chase all the multinational companies out of the country, all you have to do is to get up to their standard and you will build a great country.
“You have every capability that it takes to make Nigeria great, but you have to work together for the good of the nation for it to happen. It cannot be a selfish thing for me only; it has to be together building a great nation. Do not worry you have an economy today that is not in great shape, it is not bad as it was during the period of depression in the U.S, take the advantage and use this time to build a strong economy and build people who can run this country’s economy well, Nigeria will be great.”
The session for Dick was organised by the Apostles in the Marketplace, a network of professionals desiring transformation in the country and committed to making a lasting impact on society. A couple of the leaders of the AiMP are members of the top team of Dick’s Africa Capital Alliance.
Dick took invitees through a practical session on the impact of networking when he showed that half of the hall of invitees had come under his ‘circle of influence’ through organisations such as Arthur Andersen, Accenture, The Vision 2010 Committee and the Harvard Business School. It was amazing to note that half the hall had either worked with Dick at one time or the other or had been influenced positively by one organisation or the other that Dick founded or was actively involved.
Dick was one of the principal movers for the Vision 2010 project. One comment Dick made was on the tie between Vision 2010 and NEEDS (The National Economic Empowerment Development Scheme) formulated by the Nigerian Economic Team. The Vision 2010 was a great well-packaged home -grown document focused on sustainable growth. There is a big chunk of the recommendations of the Vision 2010 report in the NEEDS documents.
Like NEEDS, Vision 2010 advocated for a private-sector driven economy. This has not yet been achieved. Dick was honest to admit that the Vision 2010 report was at conceptualisation level, while the NEEDS document is at implementation or action level.
In a paper titled, Nigeria: The Role of the Private Sector in Accelerating Economic Growth,’ presented at the Attracting Capital to Africa Summit sponsored by Mobil Corporation, Dick said that though the Vision 2010 project was an ‘unfinished symphony’, the experience could be used to anticipate the likely outcome and to project the evolution of the public/private sector partnership. Dick predicted that with the growth oriented reforms envisaged in the report, the annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate ‘could move steadily upwards within the 6 to 10% range.
Dr. Olufemi Omoyele, who teaches management at Redeemer University told this magazine that “I came under his tutelage; he is without mincing word the patriarch of management in Nigeria, and has paid his due in a career spanning over 50 years. ” This position resonates with Abayomi Obabolujo, publisher of Stockswatch magazine who described Dick Kramer” as a treasure and an institution. ”
Dick is genius of management, one that will be missed by corporate Nigeria.