Tori Abiola, creating business opportunities through WOWe for the discerning woman

I am always intrigued when I meet women doing exploits, breaking barriers, doing the seemingly impossible tasks and daring to soar where eagles dare. Such attributes come to mind when I think of my ‘lunch date’ for today.

I remember my first meeting with her; we connected immediately like we had known each other forever, her vision, passion, focus and determination is worth commending. You can tell a successful woman by the way she nurtures, pursues and never retreats on her goals.

I can confidently tell you she is a woman on a mission to effect positive change in the lives of women and as such contribute to building the economy of Nigeria and Africa as a whole. Tori Abiola graces these pages this week.

Tori Abiola joined Montgomery in 2012 as the Managing Director for Montgomery West Africa and now runs Montgomery’s PCO business in Africa.  With over 16 years experience working in a variety of marketing, sales and management roles for organisations such as Euromoney Training, Terrapin, IQPC, WBR, First Conferences, Pfizer and the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ICAEW), Tori has indeed cut her teeth in various fields.

In August 2013 Forbes Africa listed Tori as one of five women to know when doing business in West Africa. She is the founder of Women of West Africa Entrepreneurship Conference (WOWe).

Tori has a BA (Hons) degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in Economics and Politics.

“I was born in Lagos, did a couple of years in Port Harcourt, then back to Lagos, where I went to Chrisland in Opebi – very happy home and family – lots of parties, uncles and aunties, then at age ten moved to England to attend private girls boarding from 10 – 18 – in Kent, near Tunbridge Wells – but came back to Nigeria at least twice a year in that period so I had the best of both worlds. Very loving, close knit, supportive and positive environments. Made friends from all over the world, but very proud of my African heritage – which led me to do my first degree at SOAS” says Tori.

Passionate about entrepreneurship in Nigeria, Tori has this to say. “I am so much in support of entrepreneurship in Nigeria for reasons like falling oil prices, a young population, a growing domestic marketing terrain, increasing middle class among others. We need to empower and equip individuals to start their own businesses, in most developed economies SMEs, sole traders, take up a significant size of the contribution to the economy. SMEs, Entrepreneurs drive economic development and growth.” She says.
WOWe Festival has become an event to reckon with. Wondering what that is about? Hear Tori tell you more “The WOWe Festival is an opportunity for female entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs (corporate professional women with entrepreneurial ambitions) to secure practical information on how to transform their businesses and realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.”

“For 2015, the festival will bring together local and international entrepreneurs, brand ambassadors and influencers of Nigeria’s dynamic entrepreneurship landscape. We will look at how you turn ideas to reality – what you need to do internally and who you need to engage with externally. We will look at the latest and fastest growing sectors and industries which present opportunities – as well as traditional industry of interest to women like Fashion and Beauty. We will also get into technical elements of learning for entrepreneurs like a really fast-food quick bite executive MBA, business plans, access to finance, banking, people management, partnering and resourcing, cash flow management. We are working with people like Sage, KPMG, Ecobank to mention a few.” Tori tells me.

Truth be told, in business, the type of challenges women face are not necessarily same in every way with those faced by men especially in Africa. Tori has her views on this. Again, she speaks “Cultural issues pose a serious challenge on this matter. Furthermore, women have different priorities which include family priority, personal interests’ priority among others. One other major challenge women face is the challenge of confidence. If you are not confident as a woman, there is little to what you can achieve.” She says
There is the venture capital/global investment panel for raising 200 million – 1 bilion naira. WOWe 2015 will be providing an opportunity for women who want to raise this amount to submit investor prospectus and then pitch their ideas to a panel of investors. “This will help women develop their business but they must be confident to convince investors on why their businesses should be invested upon”

“To be a successful female entrepreneur, you must have vision, resilience, passion and persistence. You are ultimately responsible for your business so the buck stops with you.
Rewards are that you set your own rules and agenda and nothing compares to the amazing feeling of supporting people who can feed and look after their families simply because they work for you.” Tori says.

The government can indeed play a major role in developing entrepreneurship capacity in Nigeria and to do so, Tori says it must include “Creation of incubation centres, teaching of entrepreneurship at schools among others. Entrepreneurship can support job creation and SMEs create jobs. Everytime someone creates a new business there is a job opportunity. In doing so, entrepreneurship begins to play a major role in our new emerging economy.”
It is true that there are current economic challenges caused by insecurity and falling oil prices

in Nigeria however, Tori is optimistic “Nigeria is a very blessed country. Yes we are experiencing challenges in various aspects but we can’t rely on oil alone anymore. We need to begin to diversify, if we don’t create entrepreneurs or provide a conducive environment for entrepreneurs to emerge, we will be getting ourselves as a nation into a lot of trouble”

“In other developed countries, if for instance you want to start a business, the government provides incubation centres for you, provide social service for you and you can even employ graduates in your business. Truth of the matter is that if we don’t take hold of the economy and foster entrepreneurs, we will have ourselves to blame. We have a massive domestic market and there are great opportunities out there, we cannot continue to rely on oil for everything, there is so much Nigeria is enriched with and we must not be stuck to only one means of generating revenue for our growing economy” she concludes.

Kemi Ajumobi