Size matters.
Yes, size really, truly matters. But it depends on what size you are talking about. And that also depends on your own understanding of what size represents.
For one, people and objects come in different sizes. Dreams also come in sizes. So, no matter the size of a person or an object, what happens to them often tends to correlate with the size of their dreams; and once the size of your dream is small, you will sooner become history. With your name attached to nothing of substance, the bevy courting your adulation and patronage would sooner make a beeline to the person across the room with demonstrable big dreams that are deemed capable of changing lives and shifting the order of the world.
When people talk about size, make no mistake, they are talking about the size of your imagination and how much you can translate dreams into tangible reality that can be bought and sold. It is the size of your dream and your vision that the world cares about. Once your dream is small, people would soon disappear from your circles because you would be found not to inspire; you have to be a creator of value to be seen as big.
Jim Ovia does not possess impressive physical size. He is not big and does not command such an immense frame for presence. Only on very few occasions have people seen his full-length photographs in the media. Perhaps conscious of his physical attributes, he and his minders intentionally avoided photographing him in ways that showed his full physical appearance.
But he made up for all of that in the large dreams and visions that formed the DNA of his business – banking. Jim Ovia dreamt of building a bank that was going to end all banks – the zenith of banking in Nigeria.
Zenith Bank Plc was established in May 1990 and commenced operations in July of the same year as a commercial bank. The Bank became a public limited company on June 17, 2004 and was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on October 21, 2004, following a highly successful Initial Public Offering (IPO). Zenith Bank Plc currently has a shareholder base of more than half a million and is Nigeria’s biggest bank by tier-1 capital. In 2013, the Bank listed $850 million worth of its shares at $6.80 each on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, Zenith Bank Plc has over 500 branches and business offices in prime commercial centres in all states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). In March 2007, Zenith Bank was licensed by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of the United Kingdom to establish Zenith Bank (UK) Limited as the United Kingdom subsidiary of Zenith Bank Plc.
Other operational subsidiaries set up over the years are Zenith Bank (Ghana) Limited, Zenith Bank (Sierra Leone) Limited, Zenith Bank (The Gambia) Limited and the Bank’s representative offices in the United Arab Emirates and the People’s Republic of China. In 2024, the Bank commissioned Zenith Bank Paris, France, after receiving approval from the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR). Just this month, it berthed in Cote d’Ivoire, and it plans to take the Zenith brand to many other African countries, as well as the European and Asian markets.
The Zenith Bank Plc, founded by Jim Ovia in 1990, has since grown astronomically to become one of the leading financial institutions in Africa. It ranks as the 10th biggest bank on the continent.
Over the years, there have been many stories told and written about the bank’s origination, especially about the original people in the room when it was founded, but across its 36 years of existence the Jim Ovia story has been the dominant and lasting one, holding sway over distorted narratives.
Thus, unperturbed, and undistracted, Ovia soldiered on with his singular vision to build a big bank founded on the use of technology to deliver excellent service to Nigeria and Africa.
Ovia did not pretend to be building a bank for all comers. His vision, which he mostly accomplished, was to build a bank for the deep pockets. Back in the days, his dream Zenith Bank was not one where kobos and pennies would be flooding the banking halls, struggling for space, and all manner of people would be filling deposit slips to drop one or two naira into savings accounts. Minimum opening balance was kept steep, ensuring that traffic was open for only deep pockets.
Such standards have mostly been maintained to date, even though minimum entry deposits have been mostly democratised.
Zenith was crafted to appear aristocratic. The design of the branch buildings was psychologically made to discourage ordinary depositors from making an entry. The front glass panelling of the buildings gives the bank the impression of exclusivity, creating a trail of serious banking customers and dissuading the general public from deciding to enter without being physically gated out.
When one looks at the original head office building, the impression is a long monolithic building designed for serious bankers. But on close examination, one would discover that the head office was a series of buildings unified by the glass cladding that created the illusion of a single building, even when they were several different houses.
Before the main head office building was bought and constructed, Zenith Bank operated its head office from different houses owned by different people, many of whom, reports said, refused to sell to the bank.
But these little matters did not deter the determined diminutive giant. When purchase and assumption, mostly termed mergers, were the vogue between 2006 to 2010, Zenith stayed away, building with its own traditional DNA and rising organically as the years passed. The bank also pretended it was not crazy about expansion into Africa. Yes, it has outposts in some African countries, Europe and America today, but it was never bullish like its closest competition.
Today, the bank is one of the most profitable in the country. In 2025, for instance, the last year which had Ovia as chairman, it posted N1.26 trillion profit (before tax), returning as one of the most profitable banks in Nigeria for the year. First quarter 2026 profit stood at an impressive N360 billion, suggesting that the full year result was going to beat the N1.26 trillion mark at the very least.
No one can say what would have become of the bank if it had been in the hands of other people, but the world knows what it has become in the hands of Jim Ovia. The whole dream was as dreamt by Jim Ovia himself, and he was lucky to see it to fruition without dilution by any other person.
When ex-CBN Governor, Emir Lamido Sanusi, stopped managing directors of banks who had attained 10 years on the saddle from continuing in office, many thought the influence of Ovia on the bank had paled, until another window arrived to pave the way for them to return as chairmen.
As chairman of the Zenith Bank board, Jim sustained his focused creation of a bank anchored on the values of technology and service to the deep pockets. When he first left the bank as group managing director and CEO, he handed over to Godwin Emefiele, who would later move on to become the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Emefiele would later be succeeded by Peter Amangbo, who served for one term before he was replaced.
Amangbo was succeeded in 2025 by Dame Adaora Umeoji, who is well known as one of the fastest-rising bankers in Nigeria.
The Ovia regime at Zenith Bank has produced excellent homegrown talents, as it has selected all its managing directors from within its ranks so far, something that enables it to maintain the culture laid down by the bank’s founding father.
Jim Ovia has retired after successfully serving a 12-year mandatory tenure. He will mostly be remembered for building a bank that is excellent in service delivery. Zenith Bank is sitting pretty as one of the biggest and most profitable banks in Nigeria and Africa.
In choosing his successor, Jim went northwards, appointing the bank’s longest serving non-executive director, Mustafa Bello, an engineer, as the new Chairman. Bello’s appointment appears to serve both the need for political balancing and the retention of someone rich in both public and private sector backgrounds.
Bello was a former Nigeria minister of commerce and has measurable experience in corporate leadership. In him is envisioned the dream to drive the bank’s national outlook as well as to further deepen the roots in the northern part of Nigeria. He is also an insider, having served on the board of the bank since 2017.
He can be trusted to continue to drive Jim’s vision for the bank – a big vision – bigger than the man’s physical appearance.
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Ikem Okuhu, a journalist, author, PR professional, brand strategist and teacher, is the Executive Producer of C-Suite Cafe podcast as well as CEO of BRANDish, publishers of BRANDish, Nigeria’s first nationally circulating Brands and Marketing magazine. He has a career that has traversed print media, oil & gas, banking and entrepreneurship. Ikem is the author of the book, “PITCH: Debunking Marketing’s Strongest Myths”, a dispassionate exposition of the dos and don’ts of successful engagement in the marketplace, especially the Nigerian marketplace. He can be reached on + 234 8095121535 (text only) or brandishauthority@gmail.com
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