The Many Benevolent Words of Ini Onuk… the watch repairer’s daughter

The aphorism ‘what a man can do, a woman can do better’ best captures the story of Ini-Abasi Laura Onuk, the Lead Consultant/CEO of ThistlePraxis Consulting Limited (TPC), a firm engaged in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and management consultancy with commitment to helping organisations cope with the evolving demands of CSR and other management concerns.

Like a typical chief executive, she, the afternoon we met, was seated on a leather sofa colourful and tastefully furnished office, busy examining letters and other documents that needed her endorsement for further actions.

A 2008 Draper Hills Fellow on Democracy and Development, Stanford University California and alumnus of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Programme, Laura, as she is called by friends, while at Stanford, led a research team that assessed the Silicon Valley’s CSR projects with visits to Google, Hewlett Packard, Facebook and the San Francisco Bay municipality.

Prior to setting up ThistlePraxis Consulting Limited, she served as the Executive Secretary of Women in Management and Business (WIMBIZ), a not-for-profit organisation established in 2001 as a platform for increasing the success rate of female entrepreneurs as well as growing the proportion of women in senior management positions in corporate organisations. She had earlier served as the Executive Director, Defence for Children International — Nigeria Section — an international independent, non-governmental organisation upon her return to Nigeria and currently sits on its Board as a Trustee.

The proudly Ibibio native and daughter of a watch repairer had conducted training modules on ‘Children and Armed Conflicts’ in West Africa, a collaboration with the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), Ghana, which has become a major reference material on similar issues across the continent.

ASKED why she is so keen about corporate social responsibility particularly in Nigeria and Africa, the Think Tank member of the African Business Women Network under the aegis of the Vital Voices Global Partnership, says, “around the world, there are CSR Global, CSR Europe and CSR International, where major and emerging trends in CSR are discussed. The world has moved from corporate social responsibility (CSR) to Corporate Social Sustainability (CSS) and green revolution.

But in Nigeria, we don’t understand the issue of climate change and this is affecting us as a country. I believe organisations can achieve sustainable growth when they integrate their corporate values with well-rounded policies that consist of good governance, business ethics, human capital management and community engagement.”

Could this be the reason her organisation (ThistlePraxis) convened the Africa Roundtable Corporate Social Responsibility forum tagged AR-CSR 2011?

She says,”we must not wait for the government to provide everything for us; we are also government and we must learn to provide some basic needs of the society. There is this local mantra that states, ‘If the right hand washes the left, both hands will be made clean’.”

According to her, “if as business organisations, we join forces with the government, our society will be made better rather than complain about bad roads, poor electricity supply, poor healthcare facilities, dilapidated and unequipped schools and among other issues.”

She adds, “as individuals, we should begin to ask ourselves what is our CSR to Nigeria? Yes, we were known to be patriotic but we lost our patriotism, which was our pride, when we began looking unto government to do everything.”

The Africa CEO Roundtable & Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility (AR-CSR) with the theme, ‘The Business Case for CSR and its Impact on African Economies’ was a forum that brought international experts from within the continent and beyond for experience sharing as well as methodological discussions.

It is a foremost industry flagship event that attracted the crème of Africa’s leading figures and decision makers who spark-off conversations and discussions about corporate social responsibility practices in Africa.

The conference held at the Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, and was an opportunity for companies doing business in Nigeria to understand what CSR and CSS are and begin to practice it.

The keynote address was delivered by Mary Robinson (First Female President of Ireland & former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), while Prof. N. Craig Smith (INSEAD Chaired and Professor of Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility) lead the speakers and experts across the globe. And Laura was at on the driving seat of the forum says:   ”Business entities and organisations in Nigeria and Africa must and should incorporate CSR and CSS into their business strategy and create a budget for it at the start of every business year.”

*** Published in The Nigeria Daily.com on Sunday, January 8th, 2012.