Good name they say is better than precious ointment they say.
In class when we had a case study titled “Between Rogue culture and Rogue Trading” about an investment bank (Union Bank Of Switzerland, UBS, which was a meger of both Winteryhur bank and Toggenburger bank) that got involved in fraudulent activities in contrary to their company motto which states “Confidence, Security and discretion”.
The staff, Kweku Adoboli was the one involved, I thought to myself how would a hardworking, intelligent, promising and over ambitious younger trader get involved in such act, knowing well that it will deter his image. Oh well! Things happen and most of the times may not be predicted.
Kweku is young vibrant Ghanaian man (21st May, 1980), he is the son of John Adoboli, a man who worked with the United Nations as a senior official. Kweku, who is so good at what he does, his childhood exposure gave room to many opportunities he had, how he travelled with his family from one country to the other, I was tempted to call him “Kweku the traveller”, he was so good in sports, became the head boy of his school, brilliant and smart boy even until his University days when he headed to this bank for his internship and got retained that after his university days he had earned the spot as a graduate trainee because of his good skills.
Adoboli’s payroll moved from 40,000 pounds and 55,000 pounds in 2007, then 110,000 pounds and 250,000 pounds 2010 and before one will notice he became the Director of the Desk of Exchange Traded Funds.
Kweku Adoboli got involved in a scandalous, unauthorised trading which led to a multi-billion loss. 2.3 billion dollar of the bank was lost.
He also lived an extravagant lifestyle and was spending over $1000 on just apartments per day.
This put the banks integrity at a higher risk as Stakeholders were automatically affected including the customers and how about his own family? Obviously, they will feel so bad, embarrassed and their ego that their son is doing well would have been crushed, especially among their society/community.
Well! Kweku Adeboli ended up in the prison where he was arrested for a four (4) years term.
This teaches a lot of lessons, it choose that one can be ambitious but not over ambitious. One should also have some ethical values they live by so that if you ever find your way in let’s say a cooperate environment, community or society, you will be guided on how to get involved in certain things cos the repercussions can cause more damage compared to what is may have been foreseen.
These are the things that ones decision will result to. Whatever it is you decide on today will affect your tomorrow. So the concern is whether it’s a positive or negative decision.
Being ethical in all our doings will definitely take us far and also the environment we find ourselves in should promote whatever values we decide to guide us.
#MBA21
Discipline