IPDC Finance’s Managing Director and CEO Mominul Islam says while sharing his thoughts at The Daily Star’s The Chief Executive Show powered by Marico
Becoming a CEO is one of the highest forms of personal success in the corporate world. However, the important question is how to use this position to leave a lasting impact on the society.
“Only a few CEOs will be remembered for transforming their institution and that is called an achievement,” said Mominul Islam, CEO of IPDC Finance.
In any leadership position, one can only think to have achieved something big when he or she does really meaningful things for the society, added Islam, who has led the country’s first non-bank financial institution (NBFI) since January 2012.
Founded in 1981, IPDC began facing difficulties to sustain itself by 2008 and it was at this time when Islam came on as deputy managing director.
“I was the only one who believed that IPDC could be salvaged,” he said. “So I stayed back even though many others, including the CEO at the time, left,” Islam added.
IPDC’s loan portfolio stood at Tk 5,110 crore while its deposits totalled Tk 5,100 crore as of September this year.
Just like the book ‘Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results’ by Barry O’Reilly, Islam believes it is wrong to get hung up on past success, rather people should always aim to take on new challenges.
Since small local firms face different challenges compared to multinational corporations, IPDC introduced a few tech-based products to help address some of these issues.
Besides, firms should bring in new people from different industries and introduce new products to the market while creating a better business environment for the customers, Islam said.
“IPDC is working with a vision to become the most passionate financial brand in the country with a special focus on youth, women and underserved areas,” he added.
Financing for small and medium enterprises now also gets the utmost importance as all local lenders are now trying to reach people of this sector even though they traditionally never cared about these customers before.
And even though the financial sector has the power to mobilise resources required to change the economy of a country, the sector is mostly bureaucratic, traditional and considered as naysayers.
“There we saw an opportunity to break the traditional approach towards communication with our customers,” the CEO of IPDC said.
The NBFI has recently introduced a blockchain based digital supply chain finance platform and can now finance suppliers or distributors without collateral.
For any industry, the key factor for success is reaching the segments of customers that remain unserved.
To do so, Islam believes that one needs to collaborate with other market players so that it becomes a win-win situation for both firms.
While most financial institutions keep a watchful eye on loan disbursements, revenue and profit, IPDC is more customer-centric since its gauge for success is measured by the number of lives changed and employment generated.
“Once we started focusing on the number of customers served, the difference between large and small customers disappeared and everyone started getting equal importance,” Islam said.
IPDC also embraced magenta as its brand colour since it represents the company’s vibrant approach. Their brand tagline — Jago Ucchashe — is also quite unique.
During IPDC’s transition to its present day glory, the CEO had the all-important job of leading the institution from the front.
“Over the last four or five years, I always wore something magenta. People even started saying that I am a flamboyant person whose appearance is not like a financial institution’s CEO.”
Islam said he did this because he believes it is important for CEOs to take their brands to heart.
Islam went on to say that while teamwork is of paramount importance, the CEO needs to know how to lead in order to bring about bold transformations.
While recently conducting a course on design thinking at MIT, Islam and his team designed a product on an online mentorship programme.
To him, mentorship is very important at every step of a career.
Be it a young executive or the CEO, from the management to trainees need a supervising senior and separate mentor to help develop his vision, courage and mental fortitude.
Islam was born and brought up in Jhinaidah and completed his HSC from Jhinaidah Cadet College in 1994.
He then came to Dhaka and joined a coaching centre, where he met Shehzad Munim, managing director of British American Tobacco Bangladesh.
At the time, Munim was enrolled in the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) at the University of Dhaka while Islam was seeking admission to the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
However, Munim convinced Islam to join his IBA department instead.
After completing his BBA, Islam started an internship with American Express.
“As people say, a first job is like a first love. Truly American Express gave me a lot, took risks on me and even sent me to London for Six Simba Black Belt training in 2001 while they were having a hard time,” he said.
Later in 2006, when American Express was leaving Bangladesh, Islam decided to stay in the country and joined Standard Chartered Bangladesh as manager of operational risk and service quality but he served only six months in the position as the lender wanted to send him abroad.
Islam then joined IPDC as head of operations and technology in April 2006.
In 2008, when he was to lead IPDC, he did not have the 12 years of experience required and had to lead as deputy managing director until December 2011.
After becoming CEO, he had to complete his masters as new regulations strictly stated that a CEO must have a post-graduation degree. And so, he received a master degree in economics in 2017.
To him, in an industry like the financial sector, ethics is very important and long term sustainability is difficult if someone does not follow ethical culture within the institution.
“It’s always from the top. The CEO’s behavioural pattern, attitude and standard of ethics are always reflected within the institution,” he said.
“In IPDC, we successfully built a family like culture even though we’ve grown nine times bigger in the last five years. We are retaining our family like culture, no closed doors anywhere and zero tolerance in integrity.
“Sometimes you have to look forward. Small visibly harmless behaviour may create large problems and so, a CEO must remain aware,” he added.
