Captain Prince Kofi Amoabeng (Rtd), the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of defunct UT Bank has shared some of his fondest childhood memories that shaped his life later on.
The businessman during an interview on the Y Leaderboard Series show, related how a sound advice from his father when he was a child has changed his perspective on matters.
The advice of starting good things for others to follow his lead was premised on an occurrence where he refused to wear sandals to school because no one in school wore sandals. “I will remove and hide it in some plantain plantation and then walk barefooted so I don’t attract attention. For some reason, my mum came to school and saw that I was barefooted. she asked my teacher where my sandals were and the teacher said I never wore sandals. I was dragged home and beaten,” he narrated.
He continued however that when his dad heard of the situation, he enquired of him why he refused to wear sandals to school. “I told him because nobody wears them. And my dad said, ‘Okay I understand’. He asked me if it was good to wear sandals and I said it was good but no one was wearing them so he replied, ‘if you will have to start something good and the ripples will affect people, then go ahead and do it no matter the circumstance.’”
Kofi Amoabeng noted that since he received that admonition, he challenges himself to always begin “something good” even though some may speak against it.
Prince Kofi Amoabeng is Ghanaian businessman and a former military officer of the Ghanaian Armed Forces. He was a co-founder of UT Bank which collapsed in 2017 during Ghana’s banking crisis and amid allegations that he had misappropriated funds from the bank.
Kofi Amoabeng is out with a new book titled, ‘The UT Story: Humble Beginnings’ which shares his experience and how business-minded people can take advantage of the learnings from his experience.
