The Agricultural Development Bank PLC (ADB) has taken a decisive step to strengthen its leadership and performance culture with the successful hosting of its maiden Inspire to Impact (I2I) Conference, an engagement aimed at aligning mindset, leadership responsibility and execution across the bank.

The conference, held in Accra last Saturday, brought together staff from across the organisation to engage experienced practitioners and thought leaders on leadership, customer focus, people development and collective excellence, as ADB positions itself for exceptional performance and sustained growth.

Opening the conference, the Managing Director of ADB, Mr Edward Ato Sarpong, challenged staff to move beyond inspiration to measurable outcomes, stressing that leadership must ultimately translate into performance. He cited the bank’s recent turnaround from a loss position to profitability as clear evidence of what disciplined leadership, strategic focus and accountability can achieve.

“We must now institutionalise these gains by embedding a culture of responsibility, customer-centricity and performance discipline at every level of the bank,” he stated.

According to him, the bank’s improved performance in 2025 did not occur by chance, but was the result of deliberate leadership choices, decisiveness and a refusal to accept poor performance.

“The turnaround and performance of the bank in 2025 did not just happen. It was driven by discipline, decisiveness and our determination to move from an undesired state to one of renewed strength and historic performance,” he added.

Mr Sarpong urged staff to rise to the occasion by playing their respective roles effectively to sustain the bank’s growth trajectory.

Highlights of the conference included presentations by Professor Robert Ebo Hinson, Dr Abena Asomaning Antwi, Mr Kenneth Kwamina Thompson, and ADB’s General Manager for Retail Banking, Mr Frank Okyere-Adarkwa.

Speaking on Personal Leadership, Corporate Leadership and Collective Excellence, Prof. Hinson urged participants to view leadership as a personal obligation, noting that strong institutions are built when individual discipline aligns with shared organisational values.

Chartered Accountant and business leader, Mr Thompson, delivered a thought-provoking presentation on Design Thinking for Growth, encouraging staff to consistently “walk in the shoes of the customer” when developing products, services and internal processes. He emphasised that sustainable growth depends on empathy, innovation and the ability to convert insight into execution.

For her part, Dr Antwi, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Angel Zoe Foundation, spoke on values-driven and servant leadership, urging participants to recognise the broader human and social impact of leadership decisions, stressing that institutional success must ultimately benefit society.

In a session focused on internal leadership capacity building, Mr Okyere-Adarkwa spoke on Leadership That Scales, highlighting the importance of deliberate people development, data-driven decision-making and consistency in building high-performing teams across the bank.

Participants described the conference as timely and impactful, noting that discussions moved beyond theory to practical leadership lessons relevant to their daily responsibilities.

The Inspire to Impact Conference forms part of ADB’s broader transformation agenda aimed at strengthening leadership effectiveness, improving customer experience and deepening a culture of performance, in line with the bank’s strategic vision of becoming one of the top three banks in Ghana, globally admired for its people, processes and performance.