Gabriel Olowo, a former Deputy General Manager, Varig, a Brazilian airline and currently president of the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative and President/ Chief Execuive Officer, Sabre Network NMC West Africa, while interacting with selected aviation reporters in Lagos said the failures of airlines in Nigeria is mostly due to the harsh government policies and environment. He said that if Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic Airlines failed in Nigeria, then there is no reason to blame Nigerian Airlines for failing. Excerpts:

You need to surround yourself with people who can dream along with you

Mr Tunji Olugbodi, Executive Vice Chairman, Verdant Zeal Group, an accomplished professional in the brands and advertising world, in this edition of Executive Platform interview, spoke to Princewill Ekwujuru on latest trends in the industr

President Muhammadu Buhari, went into the judicial system and exposed the corruption within the third tier of government. And this is one area that many never dared to put their searchlight on

It is clear that my mum’s death was politically motivated in the sense that probably some of the issues I talked about on what we faced in the Niger Delta region, may have made some people who benefit from this crisis very uncomfortable

On driving force: I had worked with various large organizations enabling them to grow to become more efficient and more profitable. But still, I wasn’t satisfied. I also wanted to help Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, startups, non-for-profit organizations, and individuals.

I thought we could use the Society not only for career interests in terms of intake into the institutions but also in terms of career progression

Mr. Bola Ajomale is the Managing Director/CEO, NASD OTC Securities Exchange Plc, the promoter of a trading network that eases secondary market trading of securities of unquoted public companies in Nigeria. In this interview with Financial Vanguard, Ajomale said that activity was dull at the NASD in 2016, but expressed optimism that as more companies comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC’s directive for shares of all public companies to be registered with it, there will be increased activity in the market. He spoke on various other issues. Excerpt:

The first song collaboration that we did was “Dorobucci” before “Looku Looku”. I recently signed new artistes and three of them are relatively new in the game

In fact, Obasanjo came to meet me pleading that I should see how to save his life, and I told him that although, he was not the one that invited me to the court, all of them charged for that coup had the same case; so the line of defence was the same

But for the honesty and principled nature of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, mischief makers would have mounted a wedge between him and President Muhammadu Buhari, during the president’s 49-day recent medical vacation in the United Kingdom when Osinbajo functioned as acting president, Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, has said. In this interview, Adesina spoke among others on how Osinbajo disappointed those who tried to create problems between him and Buhari.

We’ve not been on the payroll of any government but we’ve done so much for Nigeria and cannot afford not to celebrate these feats, especially as Pan-African Festival, PANAFEST’s representatives in Nigeria

Mr. Mirko Manojlovic is presently the Charge d’ Affaires of Serbian Embassy in Abuja Nigeria. Here the smooth talking career diplomat shares stories about his long term diplomatic career, his love for Africa and why Africans including Nigerians should stay united no matter how hard the current economic recession bites as according to him, it would soon be a thing of the past.

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Coronation Merchant Bank, Mr. Abubakar Jimoh in this interview spoke on how the bank came into existence; its corporate ambition; financial performance; the capital market operations; how the merchant banking services can spur economic development, the future outlook, among others.

There have been a lot of predictions on the economic outlook for 2017. Many experts predicted about 1.0 per cent to 1.1 per cent growth in GDP. The World Bank also predicted 1.0 per cent rise in the economic outlook. These are outlooks that Mutual Benefits have used in benchmarking what we want to do for the year. It is on that premise that we are looking at the current year. However in absolute terms, we also need to look at those things that the government has put in place that will cushion or sort of arrest the recession at hand.