Leaders & Mentors

Victor Odozi
Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Former Chairman of FITC Board

I have known Lucy for over three decades now. In particular, I have worked closely with her during the last ten years as a member of a competence network under the auspices of the IFC/FITC. In that capacity, I served as an external reviewer of some FITC research publications and co-facilitated with her at several Corporate Governance and Board Leadership training sessions. Also, as a former Chairman of the FITC Board of Directors, I have been involved in conversations with her on the plans and programmes of the Centre and shared in its celebrations. These engagements and interactions afford me the confidence to assert that I know Dr. Lucy Newman well enough to be in a position to issue this testimonial.

Dr. Lucy Newman is a banker, certified performance technologist and an IFC-authorised board leadership and corporate governance trainer, with excellent interpersonal, facilitation, networking, negotiation and transformational change management skills. Over the years, particularly during her tenure as the Managing Director/CEO of FITC, she has been able to hone these skills. According to her resume, her core values include equity, integrity, Godliness, authenticity and continuous personal and organisational improvement.

Equipped with these capabilities, Lucy has excelled in leading FITC during the period, 2009 to 2019. Her outstanding achievements have been both quantitative and qualitative and include: the physical, institutional and qualitative transformation of the Centre; the doubling of its networth and training programme participation level; the extension of its footprints to West and East-African countries; enhanced corporate visibility and reputation; and winning numerous local and international corporate awards.

Her short to medium-term professional aspirations include: serving on Boards of multinationals deeply engaged in African development and renewal, where she could add strategic value; assessment, design and delivery of governance systems at local and international levels; orchestrating transformational leadership initiatives; and performance improvement advisory. I have no doubt that Lucy is eminently qualified and equipped to fulfill these aspirations and wish her every success in her endeavours.

Prof. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu
Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria; FITC Board Chairman; 2019 Nigeria Presidential Candidate, Former Chairman of FITC Board

I have known Lucy for 10 years now. For the first five years, she and I worked together in my role as Chairman of the FITC Board, by virtue of my portfolio as Deputy Governor (Financial System Stability) at the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2009 to 2014.

From the standpoint of this relationship, I have been impressed by Lucy’s style of leadership and sterling intelligence, laced with exceptional emotional intelligence and vision, demonstrated in her highly successful tenure as MD/CEO of the FITC, which serves the entire Nigerian Financial Services Sector. She successfully built on the progressive successes of past leaders to turn the FITC into a well-run, value-added contributor to the Nigerian Financial Services Sector. She also has increasingly done so across sub Saharan Africa, striking strategic collaborations with multilateral organizations, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IFC has had various collaborations with the FITC from Board Leadership and Corporate Governance Trainings for the Financial System to Workshops on Moveable Assets Financing, from 2011 to date.

Under Lucy’s leadership, FITC achieved quantum improvements in the institution’s three main KPIs: number of training participants, net-worth of FITC and its brand perception as demonstrated by several international and domestic recognitions, and partnerships with premium global organizations.

I can only wish her well into the future. A dynamic and innovative leader with a balanced personality, Lucy will add superior value to whatever she sets herself to do, after her tenure at FITC.

The Venerable Segun Agbetuyi, (FCIB, DSc)
CEO, Omega Bank Plc.; 1993-2005 & Foundation Chairman, Spring Bank Plc.

Dr Lucy Newman (then known as Mrs Lucy Mshelia) was one of our key Managers at Omega Bank from 1997 to 2000. She was Manager of Treasury Marketing responsible for directing a team of Officers engaged in developing, bringing to market & managing innovative banking products for our local & international markets, hiring, supervising & managing the performance of product specialists bank wide & working as part of the larger Strategy Group for the bank.

Lucy reported directly through the office of the Group Head & Vice President of Strategic Planning, Dr Rotimi Adelola who reported to my office as Chief Executive Officer. She was a focussed, results oriented & brilliant Manager, who led her team effectively & creatively. Lucy was courageous in mapping new frontiers & products such as our flagship O-WISE (a banking product designed for Women Entrepreneurs) & the HOME LINK account (a product empowering Nigerians in the diaspora to build up assets back home in Nigeria). She was personable & friendly in her relations. She was well liked across functions. I had no doubt that Lucy would succeed eminently in a broader management career & I am quite pleased with the brilliant accomplishments that she has achieved over time. She has more ground to cover & I would recommend her unreservedly for broader responsibility.

Tolu Peters
Deputy Chief & Leadership Coach at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Institute for Capacity Development.

Lucy Newman is a multi talented person whom I had the privilege to work with at FSB International Bank. At that time, she was responsible for training and development in the Human Resources Department, and she brought to bear her business experience in the implementation of her work. She is very strategic, result oriented, calm, attentive to details and has excellent inter personal skills. Lucy is a well-rounded person who has been on the two sides of business and this provides her with insights on the challenges faced by organizations. Her success is well deserved, and I wish her the best in all her endeavours.

Mr. Tunde O. Lemo, OFR
Independent Director on the Board of Glaxo Smikline Pharmaceuticals, Plc in Nigeria; Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),Former Chairman of FITC Board

Lucy is a very intelligent and brilliant person of profound soft and technical skills. Her approaches to getting things done at work for her employer and for her employer’s clients entail a profoundly collaborative, innovative and high impact orientation. Her broad experience and teachable personality endear her to colleagues, bosses, peers, clients and professional networks. These have been clearly demonstrated in all that FITC has so far been able to achieve, under her leadership. She drives performance by recognizing high value traditional issues, while assessing the system for impact and therein via engagement, negotiating a future that takes all along as stakeholders, in the new environment. This style of leadership has endeared her to her predecessors, leaders of organizations in the system, her colleagues and respective boards. She has successfully expanded FITC’s brand in Africa and beyond. She is potentially a high value leader and asset to any system she gets to commit to, as she has done to the Nigerian Financial system and beyond, which is visible from FITC’s expanding footprints in Africa, especially. I wish her well, as she closes on her 10-year tenure at FITC.

Dr. Rotimi Adelola
Former Vice President, Treasury & International Banking Network, Omegabank Plc.

I met Dr. Lucy Surhyel Newman in 1997 when she was employed as Manager, Treasury Marketing in the Treasury And International Banking Network of then Owena Bank Plc. (the bank later changed to Omegabank and subsequently merged with other banks to become Springbank which is the progenitor of the current Heritage Bank).  I was then the Vice-president of the Treasury and International Banking Network. Dr. Lucy Newman’s responsibility was to lead marketing activities to generate deposit for the bank. She interacted with both junior and senior members of the bank to identify performance issues; analyse such issues to unravel performance impediments and then designed appropriate interventions to improve treasury-marketing performance.

A case in point was the development of various deposit mobilisation products (QIMA, O-WISE, CATCH THEM YOUNG, HOME LINK ACCOUNT) when she was Leader of the New Product Development team. She also played lead role in the SALES CANVASSERS SCHEME designed to employ and train young graduates on retail selling of financial products.  Dr. Lucy Newman developed the performance metrics to track the performance of more than 100 Sales Canvassers nationwide. The efforts resulted in 75% improvement in performance within a year. Dr. Lucy Surhyel Newman was also a key member of the team that developed the bank’s international money transfer service. HomeAccess Money Transfer. The product focussed on transfer of foreign exchange to Nigeria by Nigerians in the USA and UK. Dr. Lucy Suryhel Newman left Omegabank in year 2000 as reputable, visionary, loyal, creative, open-minded, adaptable, detail-oriented Manager with team leadership quality and boundless enthusiasm.

Mr. Sulieman Barau
Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria.

Sometime in the year 2000, the MD/CE of the then FSB International Bank Pac called me to his office and presented me with a product paper titled FSB Partnership Account and informed me that the author wanted to join the FSB Treasury Team. That author was then Lucy Samson Mshelia (now Dr Lucy Surhyel Newman). This tendency summarizes the personality of Dr Newman: innovation and task driven personality. Indeed, we were happy to hire her and she distinguished herself in her new job. A few years later when an internal reorganization took place within the Bank, Dr Newman moved to a fitting role where creativity was desperately required – Human Resource Management where again, she distinguished herself in the Bank and the industry. Dr Newman is a hardworking, creative and task driven individual. I happened to later move to Central Bank of Nigeria, a major stakeholder in FITC and at the time of her being hired as the CEO, I told the then Chairman that they made the best hire. She has expectedly transformed FITC.

Judith Hale, PhD, CPT, CACP, CIDD
CEO, Institute for Performance Improvement; Founder, The Hale Associates Center; Past President of the International Society for Performance Improvement [ISPI]

Dr. Newman brings a unique combination of experience and expertise in applying the principles of performance improvement to the workplace. The principles focus on doing work in ways that produce meaningful results while being socially and environmentally responsible. The principles also demand a sensitivity to the organization’s culture and work practices, thoughtful engagement of stakeholders in identifying opportunities to improve productivity and earnings, and the application of a systematic process beginning with discovery and validation and ending with evaluation. It was Dr. Newman’s expertise in the application of the principles that led to her being elected to the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) Board of Directors. In that role, she successfully represented all of the members outside of the USA. She is a credit to the Society and to the principles on which it is based.