The Acquisition Seat: What Changes When Ownership Changes

There is a particular silence that falls over an organisation the day ownership changes.

It is not fear. It is not relief. It is the collective held breath of people who have just been told that the ground beneath them has shifted, and are waiting to see whether it will still hold.

I know that silence. I have stood in the middle of it. Twice.

The first time was in November 2013, when West Power & Gas Limited (WPG) acquired a controlling stake in Eko Electricity Distribution Company as part of Nigeria’s historic power sector privatisation. I was there as the pioneer Chief Legal Officer, helping to shape what a privatised utility would look like, navigating the unfamiliar terrain of moving from public service to private ownership.

The second time was in December 2025, when Transgrid Enerco bought that same controlling stake from WPG. The difference this time was that, apart from a new board coming in, I was no longer at the side of the chair. I was being asked to sit in it. No runway. No rehearsal. Just a handover and a Monday morning.

Two acquisitions, twelve years apart, in the same company. And yet, the silence on both days sounded exactly the same.

What I have learned across both seasons is that leading through an acquisition is a different discipline from leading through growth, or even through crisis. Growth has momentum. Crisis has adrenaline. Acquisition has ambiguity. And ambiguity is the hardest environment for a team to stand upright in.

The First Lie of Transition

The first lie a new leader is tempted to believe is that ownership change requires identity change. That new shareholders want a different company than the one they just bought.

They do not.

They bought what works. What they want is for what works to keep working, and for what does not, to be fixed without drama.

The second lie is the opposite. That nothing should change at all. That continuity means stillness.

It does not.

The real work of the acquisition seat is learning to distinguish what is transitional from what is transformational. Transitional matters require steadiness, clear communication, and the protection of trust. Transformational matters require courage, conviction, and the willingness to decide before everyone is ready.

Confuse the two, and you will either paralyse the company or destabilise it. Both are forms of failure.

Holding the Room

In the first weeks, I learned that a leader’s most important product during a transition is not strategy. It is presence.

Staff do not need a new vision deck on day three. They need to see you in the corridor. They need to know the building still has a head. They need to hear questions answered, the small ones and the large ones, with the same composure.

Leadership in transition is deeply pastoral work. You are not just managing a balance sheet. You are managing the emotional economy of hundreds of people who have questions they are too professional to ask out loud.

Will I still have a job? Will the culture survive? Is the leader I report to still the leader I report to? Does anyone know what is happening, and will they tell me when they do?

If you do not answer those questions clearly, honestly, and repeatedly, the silence will answer them for you. And the silence always lies.

Legitimacy Is Earned, Not Inherited

Here is the hardest truth about the acquisition seat: the title does not confer authority. The board can hand you the role. They cannot hand you the room.

Legitimacy under new ownership is earned in the first 90 days, and it is earned in small, unglamorous ways. Keeping your word. Making decisions when you said you would make them. Defending good people. Releasing the ones who must go, with dignity. Being the same person in the boardroom as in the back office.

A Steward, Not a Successor

Scripture offers a quiet model for this season in the life of Joseph. When Pharaoh placed him over Egypt, Joseph was not the owner. He was a steward. And yet he governed with such integrity that when the famine came, the nation did not collapse. He did not treat the assignment as his. He treated it as entrusted.

That is the posture of the acquisition seat.

You did not build the company. You may not own it tomorrow. But while you are “in the chair”, you are accountable for what happens in it.

Final Thoughts

Ownership changes. Markets change. Boards change.

What must not change is the quality of your character in the chair.

Because in every transition, people are watching to see not just what you will do, but who you will be while you do it. And long after the transaction is filed away and the press release is forgotten, what will be remembered is whether you held the room with grace, or let the silence do the talking.

The acquisition seat is not just a leadership assignment. It is a stewardship test.

And stewardship, faithfully held, is how you earn the right to lead.

About Author

Wola Joseph-Condotti

Wola Joseph-Condotti is the CEO of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC). She is a Harvard-trained lawyer and passionate advocate for faith-driven leadership, gender equity, and energy transition in Africa. She writes from the intersection of power, purpose, and personal growth.