Theophilus Netufo: Collaboration Remains Key to Sustainable Business Growth

Collaboration remains the cornerstone of sustainable business growth, according to the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Ikeja Hotel Plc, Mr. Theophilus Eniola Netufo, who believes organisations achieve lasting success when leadership, employees, investors and other stakeholders work towards shared goals. Speaking on the company’s strong performance and rising investor confidence, he stressed that teamwork, sound corporate governance and strategic management are critical to building resilient and profitable businesses. Charles Ajunwa brings the excerpt:

Ikeja Hotel Plc is doing well on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. What do you attribute that to? 

It’s because of our strategic management and the focus of the board and management.

There is power in collaboration. You see, divided we fall. United we stand. So, what we are doing, our management style changed. We deliberately and consciously involved human relation management in the conduct of business. We carry everybody along and that’s why we are seeing this level of progress. If the hotel is making progress, then the company too will make progress because the hotel makes the money. The company manages the money and directs how the company will move forward. So, with the application of our public strategy and how we drive the company to promote profitability, to promote acceptability to promote positive perception of our business. 

 How do we achieve that? 

We achieve that by being a compliance-oriented organisation. When you comply with the rules of the game, then whatever you put to people, we are confident. Investors will have confidence. Above all, we are not slacking our management. Whatever we do, we take good care of all the stakeholders. We are paying tax to the government. We are promoting and looking to the welfare of our staff.

You held your AGM on Monday, how did this  positive outlook impact on your shareholders? 

You see, we’re also making good returns to our shareholders. For this year, at our AGM on Monday, July 20, we declared 30 Kobo dividends, and it was 15 Kobo last year. As of today, the price of the share in the market is 47 Naira per share. So as we are making progress, we are also taking care, guarantee returns to all the stakeholders. All these, will come together to promote the business, the acceptability of the business, the strength of the business. And the business has no other way than to respond by moving forward, and by making progress.

Why is Ikeja Hotel investing in sustainability, clean energy at this point in time?

You see, that is the way to go. Enough of pollution, enough of risk of health hazards, and you know we are in the hospitality industry, so we take care of human beings from across the globe. So we must move with time and ensure that we stop these destruction agents in the area of carbon and non-renewable energy facilities that we use. In Nigeria today, in the area of sustainability, our hotel is leading. And this can be testified to by the awards we have been winning as the best hotel in the area of sustainability in the past three years. We just collected one a few weeks ago. So we have no choice than to invest in sustainability to promote the good of the society and to make the environment a safe place for all.

 You inaugurated the first gas generator at Sheraton Lagos Hotel. Are there trained hands to maintain the facility considering its Hi-Tech demands? 

Yes. It requires a lot of skill and upgrade of technology. So, we are doing a lot of upskilling in our company, especially in our hotel. We have visited one abroad to participate in some discussions at the international level on sustainability. Currently, the owning company, Ikeja Hotel Plc is involved with the Republicans of Nigeria to go into voluntary adoption of sustainability in the conduct of our business.

Rather than for us to wait until the year 2028 that is prescribed by the statute. So, a lot of our staff are now getting certified and more will become certified. We are also building our engineering team to ensure that they can cope with the technology requirements of this process. And above all, it is our lifestyle in our hotel to go green and to do all that we can by way of training, by way of practice, to ensure that we become environmentally friendly. We want to be friends of the environment and promote the good of the environment and by extension, the well-being of human beings living in society.