Story Telling Data

“This is the best environment I’ve ever worked in.
I feel like everyone here is trying to bring out the best in me!”

Ibrahim is really enjoying his work here at KWL. His role as Systems Analyst involves; collecting, analysing, and presenting business information to help KWL make data driven decisions. We are also pleased to hear that his move to the UK has been a very positive decision.

He explains: “Why do things the slow, hard way when you can use technology to make jobs easy and speed the process up? By analysing data, we can provide a better service to more people.”

Ibrahim Okubena migrated to the UK last September from Nigeria, to support his wife while she was studying at the University of Hull. They also bring their young family of 3 children aged 10, 7 and 4.

Although living in the UK couldn’t be more different to life in Lagos, he is loving his job, enjoying Hull and they have all settled here in a happy environment.

Ibrahim loves data! His background includes 12 years in research, finance, internal control and business intelligence. He started as a Treasury Analyst within the largest indigenous telecoms company in Nigeria – Globacom Limited, where he supported the finance and credit control teams as well as sales, to provide management reports on the company’s transactions and key aspects which demonstrate how the business is doing.

After 5 years, he then joined Steam and Globe Broadcasting, which owns three radio stations across major cities in Nigeria and provides global media services. At this company he rose to become Head of Internal Control, overseeing internal policies, standard operational procedures, and business reporting. He was always the first port of call for anything relating to operational reporting within the business.

Ibrahim says: “I was useful to the business as I would cover any area as the management saw fit. Therefore, it was a very big decision for us to move to the UK. My wife was a Geologist and has always worked in the oil and gas services industry. She had seen the climate problems these companies cause and wanted to be part of the solution by moving into the renewables sector. We came to Hull as the University is the best place to study Renewables Energy, and I am pleased to say she has just completed a master’s degree. This region continues to invest and has become known around the world as the Centre for renewables.

“Moving to Hull has been a worthwhile and positive experience for us living and working in Hull. We have all found a new home and we are very happy here.”

Ibrahim’s job requires continual professional development. He has completed exams and continues to study in the evenings and weekends. He is also a member of the British Computer Society. All spare time is spent with the family, and this has been a great opportunity to spend quality time with his children.

“I found there are lots of opportunities in Hull. When we first arrived, I had a couple of other jobs while my wife was studying. However, I was very happy to find this role at KWL. My core function is to make sure the business makes data-driven decisions which includes business reporting and analytics. We use this information to make informed decisions instead of basing them on intuition and/or just experience. I also provide administrative support for users on other operational systems used at KWL.”

“I love this job. Every day is different and I am given a whole variety of challenges from different departments. My job is to ensure these reports tell stories so we can drill down through the history of the project objectives. Instead of making mere assumptions we can see what is really happening and compare actuals with targeted results.”

“Currently I’m working on developing business intelligence reports across all functional areas of the company. For example, I can support senior management to plan human and material resources based on the insights from reports and visualisations.”

“This is the best environment I’ve ever worked in. I really like the interface and I feel like everyone here is trying to bring out the best in me. For someone who is driven and enjoys getting results, this is the perfect place to work.”

“I’ve been able to apply automations to reporting that minimise efforts. These are very interactive and make other people’s jobs easier. I really feel like I am helping people, and this makes me happy. I always look forward to coming to work and Ian who is Head of IT has really helped me to settle in.”

“Compared to Hull, Lagos is a massive city with more than 15 million people living there. It’s very busy. I loved every part of life there, apart from the traffic. Here in Hull, people complain about traffic, but it’s a dream. It takes me 15 minutes to drive to work. In Lagos on a good day, it would take one hour but could be as much as two hours at times.”

We are fortunate to have recruited Ibrahim at KWL, he brings vast experience and enthusiasm to the role, and we are very pleased to hear that he loves working with us.