Quick Facts about Ikechukwu Innocent Kalu
Occupation: Value Creation Consultant
Education: Business Adminstrationch us.
Age: 59 years old
Spouse: 1 Wife
Children: 4 children
Ikechukwu Innocent Kalu
Ikechukwu Innocent Kalu is a veteran consultant with 36 years of professionalism demonstrated with various private enterprises in Nigeria and Africa, where he provided marketing and capabilities development solutions across manufacturing, telecommunication and financial services. He is currently the Lead Consultant at Customer Passion Point Limited, a firm of Value Creation Consultants that provides marketing and training solutions, an Adjunct Lecturer at the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria and a Resource Person at the Lagos Business School, working with the MBA Faculty. Ikechukwu teaches Brand Management & Communication as well as Experiential and Alternative Marketing at Masters (MSc) level.
He previously served as the Head of Consumer Marketing at Ecobank Nigeria, where he made remarkable achievements, which include the development of a route-to-market plan for the bank’s two major distribution-led technology platforms- Ecobank Rapid Transfer and Rafiki.
Being the professional that he is, he grew Brand Equity Index by 80% and TOMA by 150% within 8 months and also contributed to dropping dormancy by 15%. Other notable achievements were his ability to set up a viable Marketing Department, with appropriate resources in place within 6 months and provide adequate support to the sales and channel teams to make selling superflux.
With an academic background in Business Administration, Ikechukwu started his career at Guinness Nigeria PLC as a Production Hand at the age of 18 years and fresh from secondary school. He combined working with personal development and through hard work and tenacity grew to become a Brand Manager before he exited in 2002. He worked in Guinness Nigeria PLC for 19 years in different capacities: Production, Human Resources, Internal Audit, and Marketing.
Under his leadership, numerous outstanding goals were attained, some of which includes the launch and management of a lager portfolio of Guinness; market share grew for Harp Lager by 900%, that is, from 500 – 5000 hectoliters per week; he worked with the team that developed, launched and nurtured the brand, Gordon’s Spark (a gin- mixed drink that took the market by storm in 2001/2002, implemented cost effective consumer connection sponsorships like Satz N Jazz, Satz Challenge at the Yatch Club, Harp and Satzenbrau Golf tournaments at various clubs, amongst others.
In 2008, Ikechukwu in his quest to become truly rounded in the field of marketing pursued a career in Zain Nigeria (now Airtel, Nigeria). He was Head Churn and Retention, which saw him develop exciting and profitable churn management and customer value development initiatives that lead to a massive reduction in churn rate and an extension of the average customer lifecycle. He later managed the segments at Zain and launched some of the most profitable segment led products at the time.
Two years later, an opportunity for Ikechukwu to take his marketing career across Africa came and he took advantage of it. He joined Zanzibar Telecommunications (a part of Etisalat) in Tanzania as Marketing Director with end-to-end responsibility for managing the marketing and customer experience function of the 3rd largest telecommunication network in Tanzania at that time.
In 2014, Ikechukwu Innocent Kalu also served as the Head of Marketing and Communication (a Vice President role) at First City Monument Bank, one of the top financial institutions in Nigeria, with a clear goal to create quality awareness and drive their strategic efforts to achieving customer intimacy and loyalty (growing shares of wallet, reducing the rate of attrition and a better lifetime value) across segments.
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In 2002, he joined MTN Nigeria, the network with the largest subscriber base in Africa, as a Trade Marketing Manager. Ikechukwu recorded great success when he was there, developing and implementing integrated marketing plans to create customer and shareholder value.
In 2004, he was recognised by MTN Group for his outstanding performance while working with the Nigerian operation. He acquired one million customers in a month through a promotion called ‘Life is Beautiful’, surpassing the target set at 300,000 customers. While in MTN, he held several positions in which he proved himself as a quintessential marketing professional. These included Senior Manager, Mass Market, Acting General Manager – Consumer Market and Senior Manager, Regional Operations. He was fondly called ‘Trader’ at MTN due to the transformation and innovation he brought to the Trade Marketing role at that time.
Mr. Kalu has more than 30 years’ enviable work experience across various sectors, which include Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Telecoms, NGOs, Banking and Consulting. Several of the positions he held in these segments saw him develop strategic business models and implement business change programmes and systems for some of the world’s leading brands. This puts him in a good position to function as a marketing/business consultant and to facilitate training and capabilities development training programs across levels. He is for businesses looking for skills and insight led talents to lead strategic and board retreats for leading organizations.
Ikechukwu Innocent Kalu obtained a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Lagos in 1992, an MBA, Marketing Strategy, from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2005 and a PDG in Marketing from Leicester University, London in 2011. He has undertaken various trainings and executive management courses which includes the Senior Management Program (SMP) at Lagos Business School, Business-to-business Marketing Program in Harvard Business School (USA), and Retail Marketing Course from Wits Business School in South Africa. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, London (Dip.M FCIM) and a member of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (MNIMN).