Major Larson Is Kotoko's CEO

Major (rtd) Lawrence Yaw Ampene Larson was on Saturday appointed as the substantive Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kumasi Asante Kotoko Football Club.

The appointment of the veteran sports administrator, who contested the position alongside Mr Sylvester Asare Owusu, the immediate past Interim Management Committee (IMC) chairman, Mr Kojo Bonsu, Adidas representative, Mr B.S. Boakye and Owusu Ansah, takes effect from March 9, 2004 and would serve a two-year term with one year probation period. The 13-member board took the decision after a marathon meeting held at the 'Aseda' House in Kumasi, which lasted for about seven hours.

Before the decision, the board had received a presentation by a two-man GIMPA delegation on the interview it conducted on the appointment of the Chief Executive at the request of the board. After the presentation and lengthy deliberations on it, the board by a majority decision appointed Major Larson as the CEO.

Major Larson is to set up his management team within the shortest possible time because according to Mr P.V. Obeng, Board chairman, the board needs to install the full complement of management structure to be able to deliver on the many agenda items it had lined up.

Briefing the press after the meeting, the board chairman said it was impressed with the performance of some of the candidates and have therefore decided to use their services in an appropriate manner for the benefit of Kotoko.

Mr Obeng said before the vote was taken, all the five candidates expressed their support for any selected candidate and offered their support and services when requested to do so.

He said the board would critically assess Major Larson's performance periodically because it would be in line with the appointment of all professional bodies.

Mr Obeng explained that like all professional bodies, an employee is fired if his overall performance does not satisfy his employers, stressing that, the same criteria would be applied to the newly appointed CEO of Kotoko.

"The board is simply not going to sit aside and watch him display", he promised, adding, "we would work with him to enabled him achieve the set goals, targets and missions to guide him in ways that would let him know of what is expected of him".

Mr Obeng said the board would judge him based on his own knowledge of the board's expectations, performance and results.

He said apart from the management team that would be the prerogative of the CEO, the board has decided to form eight specialized committees to formulate policies and programmes for the good and development of the club.

This is completely within the purview of the board, Mr Obeng said, adding that they may decide to call some of the candidates into the working teams.

He said there are other advisory and non-executive positions that would be appointed to complement the effort of the management team and the board.

The board chairman said since Kotoko is a big family, there was the need to utilize all the values and expertise available for effective and sustainable development of the club.

Answering a question on the factors that led to the selection of Major Larson as CEO, Mr Obeng explained that the board set up clear criteria at a meeting three weeks ago.

The criteria span the persons work experience, experience in corporate life and experience in management, adding, "we also clearly identified some personal attributes such as skills in man management, interpersonal relations, ability to work with board and management and so forth, so a clear criteria was set", he explained further.

Mr Obeng explained that the criteria were given to GIMPA to be added to their own set of management assessment criteria, and "they used this criteria on all the five candidates and came out with their recommendations".

He said the board made sure that the criteria given to GIMPA were applied correctly and that indeed the board's intentions were translated throughout the interview process. 07 March 2004