“Your CV tells people where you have worked. Your reputation tells people who you are.” With that distinction, Dr. Philip Oti-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of Universal Merchant Bank (UMB), challenged graduates of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) to look beyond certificates and job titles and focus on the kind of people they become.

Addressing the First Session of UPSA’s 18th Congregation Ceremony, he spoke less about getting a job and more about building a life of meaning, usefulness and character. His central charge was simple:
Do not just build a career. Build a reputation.

What Will Your Name Stand For?

In a world where qualifications are increasingly common, Dr. Oti-Mensah urged graduates to become known for excellence, integrity, reliability and the ability to get difficult things done: the person others trust with responsibility.

Reputation, he stressed, is not built overnight. It grows from small decisions made consistently: keeping your word, meeting deadlines, being prepared, treating people properly, and taking responsibility when things go wrong. Such habits may seem ordinary, he said, but practised faithfully they become extraordinary advantages.
Qualifications may open doors. Character determines what happens after.

Don’t Just Look for Jobs. Look for Problems.
Africa’s challenges in education, healthcare, agriculture, financial inclusion and infrastructure, he suggested, should be seen not only as obstacles but as opportunities.

“When other people see a problem, ask yourself: what if this is an opportunity?”
For a generation entering a world reshaped by technology, the question is no longer “Where can I find a job?” but: “What value can I create?”
Learn From Failure
Dr. Oti-Mensah urged graduates to study failure as carefully as success. He pointed to survivorship bias, the tendency to focus on those who succeeded while overlooking the many people, businesses and ideas that did not.

Examine what went wrong, he advised, and let it sharpen future decisions, but never let failure become an identity. A failed business is an event. A lost opportunity is an event. Neither defines who you are.
Setbacks will come.
The real question is: Who will you become when they do?

Don’t Rush the Journey
A career, he said, is not a race from one office to the next. There are seasons for learning, developing judgment and building relationships, and the most valuable season is sometimes not the best-paid one, but the one in which you learn the most.

Remember Those Who Helped You
In perhaps the most personal part of the address, he reminded graduates that success is rarely achieved alone: parents sacrificed, lecturers taught, friends stood by, mentors opened doors.

“Success is not complete if the people who helped you get there cannot feel some of its warmth.”
It was a call to gratitude, and to responsibility: extend to someone else the hand once extended to you.

A Reputation That Outlives the Résumé
Ultimately, Dr. Oti-Mensah’s message went beyond careers. Graduates were challenged not merely to become executives, lawyers or entrepreneurs, but people whose achievements mean something. As the Class of 2026 begins its next chapter, he left them with a charge that may outlast anything printed on their certificates:

? Solve problems.
? Learn from failure.
? Pursue excellence.
? Keep your word.
? Help others rise.
? And above all, build a reputation worth carrying your name.

Titles disappear and organisations evolve, but a reputation can follow a person for a lifetime. The question every graduate should carry beyond the ceremony is the simplest of all:
When your name is mentioned years from now, what will people say it stands for?