Jim Ovia lost his father at four and started work as a bank clerk. He founded Zenith Bank.
Born in Agbor, Jim Ovia worked his way from a clerk’s desk in Lagos to founding Zenith Bank in 1990, and later a university and a memoir for young founders.
Jim Ovia was born in 1951 in Agbor, in what is now Delta State. His father died when he was four. Older siblings helped support the family, and one elder brother paid for his early education. He later moved to Lagos to live with that brother and started work as a clerk in a bank.
After three years he travelled to the United States, earning a business degree at Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1977 and an MBA from the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 1979. He is also an alumnus of Harvard Business School.
Founding Zenith
In 1990 he founded Zenith Bank, which is now one of Nigeria’s top-tier banks and widely described as one of its most profitable. In 2010 he became chairman. He also founded Visafone Communications and chairs the Nigerian Software Development Initiative.
Writing it down
In 2018 he published Africa, Rise and Shine with ForbesBooks, a memoir and what he called an entrepreneurial manual. In 2021 James Hope University, which he founded in Lagos, was approved by Nigeria’s National Universities Commission.
His story begins with a clerk’s job. For young Nigerians building a career from modest beginnings, that detail is the point.
