Ademola: Branch Nigeria Passionately Serving Customers

Dayo Ademola is the Managing Director, Branch Nigeria. In this interview, she speaks on the firm’s core values, principles and passion to serve customers while also highlighting the challenges, plans ahead and its milestones 

Tell us about yourself and your role at Branch?

For professional background, I have been at Branch since 2021 but prior to that I led a FinTech investment firm for a not for profit that was investing in FinTechs to increase financial inclusion in Nigeria, the company was called EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access) and I was with them for years. Prior to that I worked in Union Bank of Nigeria where I led the strategy team, I also worked for five years in retail. My experience prior to that is largely in technology and financial services where I worked in the US and here in Nigeria with a couple of other companies. Specifically, to my role as the Nigeria MD of Branch International, I lead country operations and that means everything that has to do with Branch’s operation in Nigeria. Also, managing our portfolio if we need to raise finances, growth, and overall business development. The other part of my role is I also lead Branch’s expansion efforts into other West-African countries given that our vision is to offer best in class financial services wherever people are on the continent.

Branch has been in Nigeria for over five years, could you tell us how you’ve been able to build your team locally?

We’ve been in Nigeria for over five years now, since 2017. So, we have the same principles of hiring wherever it is that we are, whether it is in Nigeria, Kenya, India or the US. We have three core values that drive our operations – we are fearless in the face of barriers, driven by data and we have a strong passion for our customers. These are the values that drive what we do at Branch. So, the first thing we do if you go through our interview process, is to seek individuals who are able, willing, and comfortable upholding those values. These are the things we look out for when we are hiring. We also look for individuals who are very passionate about what they are doing, who will easily key into Branch’s mission to provide tier 1 banking services to the mobile generation, to put financial services into the hands of people who have been traditionally excluded from certain aspects of financial services whether it is lending or investing or anything else for that matter.

So, we spend a lot of time testing and interviewing people to make sure that they will fit with those core values. One thing that has worked great for us is depending on employees’ referrals, like attracts like. If you have a group of people that you’ve tested and worked with for a set time and you know for a fact that they are very much part of the core values of an organization, then they will also be able to refer others to come into the organization. From the time in my career, particularly in Nigeria, typically in most organizations, the HMO that health insurance at an organization gives you as a right depends on how senior you are within the organization.

So, senior managers will have access to higher health packages unlike the entry level position, that is a lot more limited. For Branch, it is different. The health insurance package that I have is the same with the most junior entry level person in the organization from the first day they resume work. There is no lag time saying they must have been with us for a certain period of time before you have access to certain health insurance packages. It is valid from the first day they start work at Branch.

When we went into the lockdown in 2020, after a few months, we realized that people were having a lot of burnout because when you are working from home every day, the start and end time of your workday becomes very blurred, and you end up working many more hours than you normally would. One of the things we put in place is“Dolphin Day”, where at least one day per quarter, usually a Friday, the entire company has that day off so people can rest and recuperate. It doesn’t have to be a national holiday, that way if you have children at home and they are going to school, they will still go to school while you have the day off to rest. There are a lot of things that we do. We put a lot of work into bringing in the right kind of people and we also put in a lot of work into treating them well and treating them right, so we can get the best out of them.

Can you talk more about what powering inclusivity means for Branch and your own purpose as the Managing Director?

One of the things that we really try to adhere to is no bias in hiring particularly with most roles even with my role, we have to test your competency. It is not based on the certificate that you have that we would say we believe that you can do this. You have to do an entire project and present to people who are functionally knowledgeable about the work that you are being asked to do. What that tends to mean is that competence will trump certificates. So, if you are able to do the job and we can test that you can, we are more concerned about that than whatever certificate you present and say you have. The other thing is that our people operations and HR team is very self-aware and constantly tracking our diversity metrics. We have built dashboards to make sure we are balanced in terms of gender, depending on the country, we are balanced in terms of race, we are balanced in terms of generation. We have a team with a lot of young people, but we also have a team of people who have a lot of experience as well. So, we tend to make sure that we are always checking and making sure that we are balanced. We also have a dedicated ERG i.e. an Employee Resource Group on equity and inclusion in Branch. I am a member of the team where we are constantly having conversations on whether we are fostering an equitable environment and checking to ensure that we are as diverse as possible.

In Nigeria, we have a large software engineering team, where we have about 13 to 14 people on the team. Typically, most people would presume that a software engineering team will be made up of men, however, at Branch we have a woman leading the team here in Nigeria. Things like customer service and customer success, you tend to find that those teams lean more towards female hires than male hires. We are also conscious about making sure that we are hiring as many men and women as we possibly can into that team.

Considering that team serves as an entry level feeder into other teams in Branch. There are people who come through the customer success team, they learn, they train and have access to a budget to improve themselves and improve their knowledge and they are able to move into other teams within Branch. We make available learning and development stipends to everybody on the team. Again, the same stipends I am entitled to in learning and development, the most junior person in the team is entitled to the same amount for their learning and development as well. Things like child bonding leave and maternity leave. For a birthing mother, you are entitled to 6months maternity leave, and we also give 3months parental leave to fathers, adoptive parents, caretakers, whatever the case may be even fathers who are kids in branch are entitled to child bonding leave. These are some of the things we do to keep things equitable and balanced within the team.

Also at Branch, during our interviews, there is human interference to judge the competence of the candidate but there is no interference to influence who is hired. There is a panel of people who come together to make decisions on who should be hired. The panel in itself is diverse which makes it transparent.

What are the major guiding principles that drive the culture at Branch?

I made mention of our three core values: fearless in the face of barriers, driven by data and passionate about our customers. When we say being passionate about our customers, which means that we are passionate about both our internal and external customers. For example, the HR team’s customers are largely inside the company, so that same level of passion that you have for the people you are working with, interacting with, and serving, be they internal or external are core to how we treat ourselves. So, if you are passionate about your customers, which also includes your co-workers then all the benefits that you give are the kind of benefits that you would want for yourself. Also, driven by data, if you are looking at judging over-performance or under-performance, one person’s opinion about an individual does not determine how the individual will be treated within the organization. We are driven by data both internally and externally and so if we are talking about culture, if a member of my team is under performing, the way in which the person is under performing is documented and clear for everyone to see such that it is not just a case of personality clashes. We are 100% about the work and we also make an effort to like each other when we spend time together in social settings just to build relationships. Fearless in the face of barriers, basically means that we are able to develop solutions at any point needed. For example, I don’t expect my team to always present me with problems, I should also be presented with solutions, which they also expect from me. It is not a case of when you see a problem, that’s for somebody to handle. We all have a collective responsibility of making the company function and grow.

These are the kind of things that we test when interviewing people and they are also the kind of values that will rein-enforc within the organization. We have a channel on Slack that is called the “KUDO’s” channel. It is where people go to give kudos to members of the team that have exhibited these core values on things that they were working on. This is to encourage people to do the best they possibly can in the face of whatever barrier might come their way.

How are you able to achieve effective communication with employees?

Covid-19 forced us into an experiment that has proven to be very successful. Prior to 2020, we like every other organization resumed and closed from an office and it was like in every other market that we operated in. We are currently operational in four markets and with our headquarters in San Francisco. In COVID, to rein-enforce the high values in our employees, we moved to a 100% remote working several weeks before the world went into lockdown.

We’ve been working remotely since the last week in February 2020 before the global lockdown started towards the end of March. From this, we built certain communication norms that even at this point when the world is no longer on lockdown, it is still very functional. We can work from an office if we wanted to, but we have still chosen to remain a remote first organization. We have open communication lines between all members of the team whether here in Nigeria or globally. Everybody can speak to anyone in the team at the same time. We have a communication tool called Slack and in the company Slack, everybody is accessible to anyone at the same time. We also have communication norms where we rein-enforce the need for everyone to always assume the best intention to whoever they are speaking to. Further rein-enforcing these things from the top of the organization on down, if a customer relationship person needed to speak with myself or Matt Flannery who is the global CEO, it is just one communication line away in slack. So, rein-enforcing that is how we operate in the world today.

There are several reports and stories constantly being told about employee injustice. How is Branch able to curb systemic inequalities in the workplace in order to lead change in the industry at large?

This is one of the things I have been working on and I have been intentional about it, before it became a global hot topic. The organization as a whole from its founding principles over the years has worked really hard to build a company and culture that the employees can be proud of. We run an anonymous ENPS (Employees Net Promoter Score) annually. It is completely anonymous, so you are able to give an honest opinion on how things are going. We also do additional pulse checks at different times during the year. One of the things I am proud of, which is one of the reasons why I chose to join the company, is that those scores are very high. Whether it is from current Branch employees or ex Branch employees, the one thing they will all agree with is the employee culture is good. With an ENPS serving, any score that is higher than zero is considered to be a good score, anything above 30 is considered to be a fantastic score but with our ENPS over the last 4 to 5 years it has ranged from about 40 to an 80 to show you how high employees regard the culture at Branch.

Personally, and when you look back at the past few years, what company achievements do you believe Branch “People” are mostly proud of?

For the last 9years, whether consciously or unconsciously, I have been working towards increasing access to financial services for Nigerians. Just the fact that depending on your income level, all the benefits of the financial services systems are not available to everyone. One of the things I am most proud of at Branch is lowering that barrier for entry for people who previously did not have access to these benefits. In Nigeria alone, we disbursed about 4.5 million loans in the last 4-5years. We hear a lot of stories about these quick loans apps and how they treat defaulters who are not able to repay their loans at the due date but at Branch, one of the things we are steadfast about in our organization is to never treat our customers that way. You will never hear of Branch contacting people to report a defaulter. One of the ways we keep tabs on these things is to have mystery shoppers. Occasionally, I am also on the mystery shopping list when we send details and contacts to our collection agencies to state the number of people owing to ensure they pay back. We are very clear on how our customers are treated whether they are owing us or not. Branch globally has been installed as an app by 23milliom people. We are one of the most downloaded finance apps in the world. We have an investment product, one that most Nigerians have not had access to the kind of returns we offer. It is usually people who are wealthier that can access it, but at Branch, even if you have 1000, you are able to save it and earn a good return.

Also, speaking internally there are benefits we give our employees to make the company a place to work as possible. Since we are remote, we give our employees work from home stipends to help pad the cost of internet and power amongst others. We are very generous with our leave day, so our employees have work life balance. The goal is to have a good impact on people’s lives and choosing to work remotely also has a positive contribution to this as you don’t have 60-70 people struggling in traffic to go into an office and to go back home as well.

I have believed profit making and employee consideration are not mutually exclusive. Being profit-driven and treating your employees well, one does not have to give way for another and that’s a strong belief we have in the organization. We believe that treating your employees well makes you even more profitable because you get better out of them.

As a woman holding a top position in an organization like Branch, what is your advice to aspiring younger women?

It’s a few things for me. One is keeping an open mind and that means not accepting that there are certain industries or fields that you cannot go into. Technology, in general, is becoming a go-to career choice for a lot of young people. So, for women, keep an open mind. Whatever ambition you want to achieve, whatever industry you want to work in, it is just making sure that you are the most learned and competent at that thing as you possibly can be. The other advice I give to young women when I speak to them is to find yourself a mentor. It doesn’t have to be a woman but a professional mentor, I have been greatly shaped by the professional mentors that I have had in my life over the last 20years. It is extremely important, and it teaches you everything you need to know to advance in your career or whatever it is you do.