APOSTLE Hayford Ikponmwosa Alile, the pioneer Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, chairman of several blue-chip companies including the Oceanic Bank International and the Spiritual Leader of the Saint Joseph’s Chosen Church of God International, SJCCG, turned 80 on Tuesday, 24 April.
Born in 1938, Apostle Alile, attended briefly the University of Ibadan as a State Scholar in Physics and thereafter proceeded to Howard University, Washington D.C. where he earned his B.A. degree in Economics and Mathematics. He later attended Rutgers Graduate School of Management, New Jersey, USA for his MBA and the Harvard Business School for AMP.
Apostle Alile’s rich working history began as an economic and financial Consultant to Louis Berger Inc, East Orange, New Jersey, USA in 1968. Between 1969 and 1972, he served as Assistant Director, Rutgers University Entrepreneurial Development Center, New Jersey and Rutgers Minority Investment Co Inc. He worked as an Investment Adviser/Broker with Investors Diversified Services Inc, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 1972-1973.
In 1973, he returned to Nigeria to head the Management Consulting Department of the Centre for Management Development, Lagos where he was responsible for the establishment of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMCON) and the Nigerian Association of Management Consultants (NAMCON).
Thereafter, he was appointed in 1976 as the Executive Director/CEO of the then Lagos Stock Exchange (LSE). He became the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of The Nigeria Stock Exchange in 1979 from where he retired in 1999.
Apostle Alile has authored several books in management development in Nigerian and on the capital market. He is a philanthropist and has mentored several corporate executives. he is the founder of The Hayford Alile Foundation (THAF).
He is happily married with children and currently the Spiritual Leader of St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God International.
Asked how he managed to remain incorruptible at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the soft-talking Spiritual leader said: “Well, you know that people would always want you to do the wrong thing but from the very beginning I read out all the rules and regulations of the institution and spent much time educating them that the good that they would derive from corrupt doings will not be as big as the loss that society will gain from it. To a certain extent, I believe God was always speaking through me and guided me to pay deaf ears to corrupt discussions.
