The story of an entrepreneur-banker who pursued a Doctorate so he could write a book he’s proud of
Rotimi Owoade is precise about the moment he knew he had a problem—it was 2018. He had left a 15-year career as a corporate banker in Nigeria — rising to bank manager at the country’s oldest financial institution — and relocated to Canada, incorporating a logistics company within his second week in the country. He had always planned to write a book, but when he finally sat down to do it, the quality wasn’t there.
“There’s no point to doing anything that even you are not proud of,” he says.
The gap he identified was research. He could not structure an argument at the level he knew a book required. He went back to school — a master’s degree first, then, in 2022, a Doctor of Business Administration. To make sure he couldn’t talk himself out of it, he paid his tuition in full, upfront, in two installments over two weeks.
“I don’t want even one extra day,” he said at the start. He finished in under three years.
The program changed more than his research skills. His dissertation examined asymmetric alliances in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector — partnerships between organizations of unequal strength, where the promise of technology transfer is made and rarely kept. The findings applied directly to his own logistics business, which operates within a franchise model. He understood his own company differently by the time he was done.
The Eureka moment came at chapter five. Everything the program had built toward — the literature review, the methodology, the analysis — suddenly resolved into a coherent argument with his own voice at the center. “This is why I’ve been doing all this,” he says.
Since completing the DBA degree, Rotimi has published two books — his dissertation research restructured the approach to both — and is working on a third. He has launched a company in publishing, training, and coaching. He leads a government-funded research project on employee wellness at the University of Manitoba, supervised by the University of Winnipeg, where he also lectures.
He had wanted the process to change him, and it delivered in spades.
Rotimi Owoade completed the Doctor of Business Administration through Golden Gate University’s online DBA program — a fully accredited, fully online doctorate for working professionals.
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