I woke up with a strong headache. The hotel room was dark and quiet, and I thought about the day ahead and wished that I had woken earlier to read my cases. I had a bad time in the Analysis of Business problems – my analysis of the Mountain Man Breweries Case was not robust enough, and I found it difficult to follow the lecturer’s thoughts. The call from Somto, my wife, came in while I was doing my time alone with God. I took the call, and we discussed our activities for the day. She was to go for a clinical check-up, and I was worried. We said a prayer and I got ready for the day. Most of the time, my mind strayed toward her health, but I forced myself to focus in class.
“You know, as a non-mortal, you know everything.” Prof. Ojiabo joked about us MBA students being non-mortals. He often says that to encourage us to put in more effort in the program and to keep going. He distributed three company financials (case studies) on A3-sized papers. We spent the next two hours (with 15 minutes break in between) evaluating the numbers and their significance. It was not enough to consider assets as current or fixed, it is superior and more informative to consider them as income-generating or non-income generating. The senior manager’s role is to determine that the assets are delivering value. This is the key difference between looking at a balance sheet from an accountant’s view and from a business leader’s perspective. We found this new insight very useful for business decisions. Prof. Ojiabo encouraged us to reach out to him if we had questions. This was his last class with us for the semester. His sense of humor and teaching style endeared him to us.
My heart raced fast after Professor Adelakun announced that we were to develop PowerPoint Presentations with the assumption that we were pitching to investors. She further stated that each of us would present our slides within 90 seconds – a pitch. I calmed myself down and began slowly to develop my slides. I pulled up Multiverse Mining PLC and built my presentation around the business. It was not a random choice, I decided to choose from companies listed in the 2000s. I found the nascent mining industry of Nigeria interesting, so I chose Multiverse Mining PLC and spent some minutes on their website and audited financial reports.
I developed the PowerPoint just in time before the class exercise time was over. Prof. Adelakun. began calling us one after the other to make our ninety seconds presentation. Ebele was the first to go – she was taken by surprise. She had a nice slide but could not deliver it within ninety seconds. After two other presenters, Babajide presented, and I followed; I was taken by surprise too. I stepped up, shared my screen, and quickly raced through the critical points that an investor would love to hear – our share performance, new projects, and the prospect of rising share prices, call to action, and contact details for additional engagement. My classmates agreed that it was the first presentation to hit the core points and meet the time base. I was happy.
A few other presentations hit the mark – Dolapo, Samira, Sunday, and a few others I have forgotten now. Many of us had well-developed and beautiful slides but could not meet the ninety-second mark. We were being taught how to determine the essential pieces of information in a conversation, and how to deliver them in a clear and compelling way. We cheered, clapped, and laughed as each person struggled to maintain their cool, be confident, communicate essential information, and keep to time. It was fun and insightful.
