Heritage Bank’s Next Titans to encourage young entrepreneurs —Sekibo

Heritage Bank said its sponsorship of Nigeria’s foremost entrepreneurial reality show, “The Next Titans” is driven by its faith in the ability and willingness of young entrepreneurs to contribute to Nigeria’s economic growth.

Managing Director of Heritage Bank, Mr Ifie Sekibo disclosed this while receiving a group of ‘Next Titan’  contestants on a courtesy visit to  bank’s  head office in Lagos, stressing that the bank  has a strong desire to see young men and women succeed in other areas other than what they study in school.

The Next Titan is Nigeria’s foremost entrepreneurial reality show headlined by Heritage Bank. It features   a 10 week entrepreneurial reality TV show geared towards igniting the entrepreneurial spirit of young Nigerians. It gives opportunity to young aspiring entrepreneurs to battle against one another for a grand prize of N5 million and a car to the winner.

Sekibo said: “I am particularly impressed by what I have seen and what touched me most is the diversity in your areas of competence. But the intriguing part is that many of you are not actually doing what you studied in the university. For the fact that most of you are doing something different from what you studied gives me hope for this country. It gives me hope to the extent that it shows it is not about what you study but about your passion. Your desire to succeed gives me hope for this country.

“One of the reasons why we chose as an organisation to support ‘The Next Titan’s’ is to see young men and women venture away from their seeming comfort zone after  five years of a particular study at the university. You abandon what you study and check what humanity needs and try to cover that gap for humanity by being the best in that field,” he stated.

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Speaking further, he said “In succeeding, one needs to dare in life and some of us have dared in the past, so it is left for the youths to dare as well. One of the things I want to advise is not just getting to the Next Titan show, it is about what you can achieve because from what I have seen, there are huge opportunities, huge potentials in each of the contestants but you must all come together with your ideas if you want to change the world.

“I do not believe this is just any reality show, you must bear in mind that there is competition and there is cooperation. I want you to compete healthy, effectively because unhealthy rivalry will only kill your dreams. Trying to be the best personality or trying to outsmart each other sometimes destroys dreams. I have been in interesting situations before and I can tell you that you can fail and still win. People will sometimes be wondering how you could fail and still succeed but it is the benchmark of most successful people. I don’t like to read about people’s successes, I prefer to read about their failures and the areas they stumbled. So, don’t try to say I like the success, try to know what my failures are. You succeed more when you learn from your failures and that you fail does not make you a failure.”

Speaking on the rationale behind the establishment of Heritage Bank, Sekibo said, “If you know the history of this bank, then you will understand where I am coming from. We bought a bank that was dead for 10 years; I can tell you that no bank anywhere in the world dies for 10 years and came back alive. Our dream was not limited to resuscitating the bank, but what is the future of the people whose monies were tied down for 10 years and could not get their monies. That was our goal, that was our vision and our dream and because we defined the conversation in terms of liberating people’s money, we were selling the story for investment, that was what we sold. We did not sell a banking license to people, we sell credible facts fact and not lies.”