Mweheire leaves a legacy and winning lessons

Recently I read about Patrick Mweheire leaving Stanbic Bank Uganda (SBU) for a regional role (East African Region- Standard Bank CEO).

This is good and bad news to me. But let’s start with good news.

I worked with Patrick four for years which is not really important but the following made him one of the best African/Ugandan business leaders/managers.
From 2014 when he became the CEO-SBU, financial performances have been largely good but also the banks reputation. What could have contributed to this?

Cost saving initiatives
Year in year out, Patrick emphasized cutting cost. To drive this point for four years in a row, cost cutting initiatives have been part of every one’s score card irrespective of the role you play in the bank. Whether a driver, teller, payments officer, IT manager, HR director, Legal head name it, you have to save money, time, paper, utility cost or some sort of something.

In the same spirit, whenever one was/is preparing a project, plan, purchase, it had to clearly show the following, cost reduction, cost optimization, cost avoidance.
Should a plan fail to include one of the above, it wouldn’t qualify.

In Patrick’s meetings with staff – whether it was end of year party, department activity/meeting, EXCO meeting, board meeting, and annual shareholders meeting – be sure that in his speech, you will hear something to do with cost reduction.

Customer experience
Another area where Patrick couldn’t miss was customer experience. In fact an employee is likely to get problems if they didn’t serve a customer in time and well. It became part of the score card of every employee. Mystery shoppers were deployed from bank to bank and findings would be recorded and shared in all staff meetings.

It would be a shame for a staff to be video recorded not attending to customers well and in time. Therefore this drive enhanced customer’s experience which in turn led to customer retention.

Digitisation journey
Patrick superintended a digital journey and every department had to digitise some process. More critical business units like credit and payments had to digitize their process from being manual to automated (STP-Straight through processes) the digital journey.

Even internal process like procurement, per diem requisitions were all digitised. The digital initiative helped both staff and customers.

Turnaround time was cut by almost 80% in some process like loan processing. Digital channels like bulk note acceptors (BNAs) were introduced in almost all branches. One doesn’t need to enter a bank to deposit Shs300m. Therefore the digital push by Patrick yielded tremendous results in a short time.

Staff/customer training
One budget that Patrick approved without cutting is the development budget. Patrick supported every staff or customers to train at all costs. And there were results we all appreciated at both ends, the customer and staff.

Patrick personality
Certainly the game changer in all that I have mentioned is his personality. You don’t need to book Patrick’s calendar to meet him for official or personal duties. Whereas you would expect him to be a very busy person due to his role as a CEO of the bank, Patrick would always find time to attend to you whether you are on appointment or not.

All you had to do was walk to his office, knock and enter, if he was busy, he would ask you to take seat and hold on a little. Immediately after, he would join you and would listen to you attentively.

He is such a good listener, and certainly he will respond to all your issues. Patrick lives a very humble life. I even don’t think he has more than four pairs of office shoes. Not because he can’t not afford; I think he finds it extravagant. And certainly that’s why he so strict on cost and expenditure.

Then he is such an informal person. He could sign official documents while in the lift, in the car, at a café. He is not the come to my office guy. He will attend to you where you meet.

He is also a workaholic. Many times I would get his office door opening notifications on Sunday or public holidays. I would send security staff to check who is in office, the answer would be CEO. And he would stay for long like a normal working day.

He is the kind that would return every call and email sent to him including WhatsApp messages.
This is a big challenge for many Ugandan executives. Some don’t even want to receive calls from junior officers but it wasn’t the case with Patrick.

What’s lessons do I pick from Patrick’s leadership style and personality?
Patrick is sensitive to cost and his belief on cost is that, however much revenue one makes, as long as costs are not trimmed, profitability will be the thing of the past.

He believes that culture is important for any organisations growth. His culture was cost cutting, digitalizing every process and touching customers lives positively.

Patrick believes that Ugandans are in position to deal with leadership and management issues.

Most leadership positions are held by Ugandans. And this has been his agenda to recruit and empower young Ugandans in leadership positions.
And finally, the bad news! Uganda’s banking industry is going to miss such a leader in Patrick, but it is also fair to allow growth in his career.

In a brief
Patrick Mweheire is a Ugandan investment banker and bank executive. He is the regional group managing director and regional group chief executive of Standard Bank Group for Eastern Africa. He took up this position on 1 March 2020.

Before that, from January 2015, until February 2020, he served as the managing director and CEO of Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited.

The author is a former security officer of Stanbic Bank Uganda.