ZENITH BANK OWNER - Meet the amazing founder of Zenith Bank And His Biography

The history of a successful businessman Jim Ovia.
Ovia is not only the founder of
Zenith bank but also an inspirational
speaker, whose speeches motivate
people to pursue their own dreams. He
promotes the development of the IT
sector in Nigeria and does a lot of
charity work. Who is the man whose
net worth currently goes up to $980
million? Let’s find out interesting facts
from Jim Ovia biography and learn all
about his path to the top of Forbes list.
From clerk to CEO.

Jim ovia Biography:

Jim Ovía was born in Agbor, Delta State,
on November 4, 1951. After he completed
his secondary education, he was hired by
the Ikeja branch of Barclays Bank where
he held the position of a clerical officer.
He worked in the bank for several years
before he moved to the USA. The future
businessman got admitted into the
Southern University, Louisiana, and
began studying Business Administration
in 1977.
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 He later studied at the University of
Louisiana in Monroe and two years later,
he got his Master’s degree in 1979. Jim’s
biggest achievement in the academic field
is undoubtedly him being an alumnus of
the Harvard Business School. All these
institutions gave Jim a lot of knowledge
and experience but the most challenging
task was ahead.
After he returned to Nigeria, he was
hired to work in Lion Bank and where
he soon became the manager of one of
the bank’s branches in Lagos. Soon after
that, he joined the International
Merchant Bank and got promoted from
the position of a financial analyst to
manager.
After the deregulation of the banking
sector in the 1980s, Jim Ovia cooperated
with some other partners and applied for
a banking license. In May 1990, 20
shareholders founded Zenith
International bank and Jim Ovia started
to move in a completely different
direction.
Zenith Bank
Jim founded Zenith Bank Plc in 1990 and
has held the position of Chief Executive
Officer until 2010. Under his leadership,
Zenith Bank grew into the biggest and
one of the fastest developing banks in
Nigeria. These days, Zenith Bank has
become a huge success in Nigeria with
branches in Ghana, Gambia, Sierra
Leone, and the United Kingdom.
Being a very skilled banker, he presented
a lot of new ideas and innovations. He
integrated them not only into the Zenith
bank system but the Nigerian banking
industry as well. Zenith Bank was soon
honoured with the Central Bank’s
recognition award.
Zenith was ruled by a man who had
great passion and skills for the work he
does. During his two decades of
leadership, Zenith bank was ranked as
one of the most trustworthy and
profitable banks in Africa.
When Jim talks about Zenith bank’s
challenging beginning, he says: “When
we started Zenith in 1990, it was
extremely difficult as the necessary
resources and infrastructure to do
business, particularly banking, were not in
place. There were no ATMs, no mobile
phones and ICT was a rarely known
concept in the business space.”