FEMI OLAYEBI is a self-taught award-winning handbag designer, trainer, mentor, and a creative brain behind the eponymous FemiHandbags brand. A translator by profession, she became an entrepreneur by accident, when in 1992, she tried her hands at making a baby bag for her first baby. Slowly, but steadily, she navigated the design and manufacturing terrain, experimenting with the resources at her disposal.
In 2008, she became a Goldman Sachs 10000 Women scholar, and was twice nominated to attend programmes in the United States, where she job-shadowed some of the world’s most famous handbag designers.
In 2010, she participated in her first international handbag show, Pure London and in 2012, her business became a case study for MBA students at the then Lagos Business school (Now, Pan-Atlantic University). In 2017, she championed the Lagos Leather Fair, which provides a platform for leather designers and other stakeholders along the leather value chain with the aim to create awareness of the huge potential of an industry which has long been neglected.
In 2018, she showed her signature pieces at the Autumn/ Winter edition of the London Fashion Week and has been featured on the CNN marketplace AFRICA and BBC News Africa. In July 2018, she opened her flagship store in Lagos, Nigeria: her bags are also stocked in London and New York. In 2019, she participated at multi-trade shows in New York at the invitation of SheTrades, a business women empowerment initiative under the International Trade Centre based in Swaziland.
At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, she signed a partnership agreement with the Mastercard Foundation to provide millions of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), to help alleviate the effect of the pandemic across 5 focus Nigerian states.
She has also recently launched KAFAWA, a training program in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation on their Young Africa Works Nigerian Initiative, a programme dedicated to Youth Skills Development, Education and Employment in Africa, to train and empower young people.
Tell us about your childhood memories
I grew up pretty much like any young kid at the time living on a University Campus in Nigeria. I was one of three children and was the only girl in the mix, so I guess that already landed some automatic responsibilities on me. It made me extremely independent. I attended International School Ibadan which at the time was considered very elite, but my disciplinarian dad ensured that we did not entertain any fancy ‘elite’ ideas and that kept us very grounded.
My Dad was a very strict, no-nonsense, highly principled man who was revered amongst his professional colleagues for his forthrightness, and his ability not to sway in the face of differing opinions. That trait particularly trickled down to me and it has helped me a great deal in the face of challenges I would face later on in my business journey.
I grew up with a dad who taught Latin and Greek at universities around West Africa and a primary school teacher mum. She was the ‘softie’ whom everyone loved while my dad was one of a declining breed of Latin and Greek scholars. I watched my parents closely, especially my dad who did everything with such meticulousness, and a high level of dedication that it was almost impossible to not turn out that way myself.
My siblings and I lived a very sheltered existence on the University campus, surrounded by all my parents’ academic colleagues who had become family. Life was simple, sweet, and uncomplicated, that probably explains why my background had certainly not prepared me for the world of business.
Gladly, my parents instilled in me values of integrity, excellence and a resilient spirit which laid the groundwork for whom I have become today. Added to that of course was a stubborn determination to get it right, to be the best at my craft, and to never give up, even when everything seemed difficult and almost impossible.
Share with us about being a translator and your experience so far. How often is your service needed?
I must confess that all my dreams of becoming a translator dissipated the moment I tried my hands at making my first bag thirty years ago — a diaper bag for my first baby — and became an accidental entrepreneur. I truly wanted to become a translator at the time and I got awarded a study scholarship. The independent streak in me took over, and two weeks later, I headed to France for a much-craved Diploma in Translation. Once done, I returned to Nigeria two years later with my certificate tucked under my arm, a spring in my step and my translating dreams in my head. I worked as a freelance translator for a couple of years, but I quickly learned that it was a tough, competitive world out there and getting jobs was pretty difficult.
As we all know now, the tides turned and life happened but this all started one day, thirty years ago after I could not find a simple diaper bag that I liked. I sat at an old manual machine and tried my hands at making one for my first baby. Fast forward a couple of years later, I was registering a company (My World of Bags) and running a business as best as I could. That began my handbag-making journey and little did I realise that life on the other side of my ‘translator dreams’ was about to begin.
So, in response to your question, this self-made, self-taught design entrepreneur spends all her time now designing and translating her ideas into stunning handbags!
Share on being a Goldman Sachs 10000 Women scholar
Ok! So, let’s roll back to 2008. Goldman Sachs had just launched the 10000 Women initiative and was awarding scholarships to ‘underserved’ women across the world to help them acquire basic business skills. This meant that, if I got lucky, I would have the opportunity to attend a business course for free! Looking back now, I know it represented one of the many pivotal points of my journey. It changed everything, and the experience was simply put, phenomenal. Classes were held at what is now Enterprise Development Centre — the SME arm of the Lagos Business School — and for the first time, I began to wrap my mind around business concepts such as strategy, operations, accounting, business planning, customer service and so much more. It was instrumental in expanding my mind, pushing me to think out of the box and connecting me with like minds who were also striving to grow their small businesses. But more than anything else, it helped me to see and dream beyond my small world in Ibadan, and look at my bag business through a different lens. It suddenly dawned on me that I was running a serious business venture, and the time had come to stop treating it like a hobby! A year after the course, I was again selected by Goldman Sachs to participate in a mentoring programme in the US, and for one month, I job-shadowed a few well-known handbag designers in New York. I watched their creative teams at work and sat in with them on meetings with their leather suppliers. I fell in love with their sleek offices, their mood-board filled walls, their laptop-scattered desks and the palpable creative energy around their beautiful design spaces. I also visited a handbag factory for the very first time, and that was my Aha! moment. I gained some real insights into the nuts and bolts of running a handbag design business, and it was this real-factory experience that gave me a first-hand understanding of how things worked, and what structure looked like. That singular New York experience made a lasting impression on me and sealed the dream for me. When I got on the plane, I made a promise to myself to run a world-class business, no matter what.
How are your products faring on the international scene?
In all, it has been a pretty interesting ride and we have been very fortunate to build a customer base abroad. Apart from numerous customers in Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Gambia, Ghana, Namibia and a few other African countries, we have also acquired customers in Europe, the US and Canada. Experience has taught us to better understand the profile of our international customers and the parts of the world where our products do best. I have found that it is extremely important to properly research your market, identify the markets that best suit your products and have a clear understanding of the demands and intricacies of each one before venturing into new terrain. I have learnt, for example, that we cannot sell bags to the woman in New York without the option of a long strap because she wants to be able to travel hands-free. I have also learnt that the woman shopping on Madison Avenue shops differently from the shopper on Park Avenue; that the Nigerian shopper is totally different from the shopper in London and the shopper in Northern Europe is different from the one in Tokyo, Dubai or elsewhere. Going through the different markets, understanding their different yet unique wants and meeting these needs has been a learning journey for me and of course for the business we do.
At your first international handbag show, what was that experience like?
In 2010, I participated in my very first international accessories exhibition, Pure London, and that was when my relationship with real leather started. It was an experience and a half and proved to be a massive learning curve! First of all, preparing for the exhibition was quite daunting, not only because it was my very first shot at using leather, but also because I was not sure what to expect. I was literally just winging it and walking by faith as usual. I researched all I could about how to work with leather, and how to successfully participate in a trade show. With advice from a couple of fashion industry experts, I renamed the brand FemiHandbags, came up with a new logo and created what I hope looked like a ‘collection’. Up until then, I had not distinguished between the company name My World of Bags and a brand name. Surprisingly, I landed an order from a boutique store with branches around the UK but my excitement was short-lived because I very quickly realised that landing an order was only one part of the story. Trying to find the exact same leathers I had used to produce the collection was an absolute nightmare. I had bought all the leathers on a whim and I found that the local leather market (Mushin) where I had purchased the leathers was not developed enough to meet my specifications or fulfil international orders. I realized that I had a lot to learn and I would need to invest time and energy in this growth journey.
One thing had stood out for me at the trade show from the great feedback to the profile of visitors that gravitated toward my stand at the fair was a clearer understanding of who my customer was, how much they were willing to pay for my bags and how I could begin to position my brand in the marketplace. I pressed the pause button, went back to the drawing board and began to articulate a plan that would map out everything from design planning to sourcing, production, branding and marketing. I started to put in place the different elements that I believed were necessary to build not just a great product, but a very strong brand.
Tell us about your business as a case study for MBA students at Pan Atlantic University
This happened way back in 2009. I had just graduated from the then EDS, now Enterprise Development Centre after going through the Goldman Sachs 10000 Women programme; I probably must have been one of the very few students in class, if not the only one that had been running a business for so long. At the time I had been running my company, My World of Bags, for 17 years. My lecturers were probably intrigued by the fact that a business as non-conventional as mine was still in existence after so long. Numerous conversations and interviews later, by one of the Master’s students at LBS, now Pan-Atlantic University, followed by visits to my newly set up showroom in Ibadan, and my factory which was located in the chalet at the back of my house, a case study was finally put together. I believe it was prepared as a basis for class discussion, and an example of how a business like mine was serendipitously built from the ground up with no injection of external funds and no business plan, yet had become potentially viable. Interestingly, ten years after my business became a case study, I was invited back to Lagos Business School to share my ten-year journey with a set of Masters students. It was 10 years after I attended the Certificate of Entrepreneurial Management course. I shared insights on the many lessons I had learnt and the various ways in which I had been able to grow the business from a cottage industry to a thriving one. I must admit that I felt truly honoured.
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When and why did you birth the Lagos Leather Fair?
The Lagos Leather Fair was a personal decision I made after operating in the leather space for so many years and facing the same challenges within my industry year after year. I felt frustrated with the system and the status quo, and all the misconceptions around made-in-Nigeria products and generally, the Nigerian leather industry. As a design entrepreneur and a creative, I felt an urge to do something to counter those misconceptions. It was an intentional decision to stop complaining and do whatever I could in my little corner to fix what I could. The more I pondered, the more convinced I was that if we could bring those issues to the attention of the private and public community from the lens of the designer, we could very well begin to change the narrative. I felt I had a voice, and the time had come to use it to advocate for change. And so in 2017, I took a bold leap of faith and proceeded to take the most audacious step of my life and created Lagos Leather Fair. I hoped that by bringing together the stakeholders and the different players along the leather value chain to showcase our talent and our work and start conversations around the challenges and solutions, the platform would begin to break the negative narrative around Made-in-Nigeria products. There was no other platform for such anyway so, it was easy to sell my big idea. It was also a great opportunity to bring in other industry leaders, policy/decision-makers, leather enthusiasts, suppliers of raw materials and stakeholders along the leather value chain to leverage the platform and increase awareness of the ecosystem and advance the leather conversation. What an eye-opener it was! The event was extremely successful, and since then we have held three more, one of which was a virtual fair in 2020. This year makes it our fifth edition.
How has the experience been so far?
Nothing short of amazing! The Fair has created massive visibility for both start-ups and established brands. It has also made room for extensive collaborations across board. Every year since its inception, for two days, leather designers, suppliers of machinery and tools, hardware and accessories traders, and manufacturers of FLGs come to network and showcase made-in-Nigeria talent. One of the main features of the Fair is the very engaging masterclasses and workshops which are usually facilitated by local and international industry experts. I think the Fair represented the beginning of a new way of thinking for the Nigerian consumer because they suddenly realised that there was no real need to spend so much on foreign brands when we have an amazing crop of brands right here that were striving to build great products. It was also a good opportunity for brands to begin to up their game because the landscape became competitive overnight. The Fair has now become an annual event and was expanded in 2019 to accommodate emerging designers and other African brands. We have had conversations with the Ministry of Trade and Investment about the country’s Leather Policy, and a couple of tanneries regarding more relaxed policies and ways of selling smaller quantities to local leather designers. We truly believe that Lagos Leather Fair has played a huge role in bringing attention to the industry.
Share on your anniversary, plans for the celebration and what you are grateful for?
I still can’t believe it has been five years since the inception of the Lagos Leather Fair and we are planning to celebrate our fifth anniversary in a really grand way. The Fair is scheduled for June 11 and 12 at the Balmoral, Federal Palace Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos, and we shall once again be featuring leather designers, including many newcomers and a few from the wider continent. We are also proud to be featuring emerging designers from the Kafawa Training Program – an initiative created by my company, My World of Bags, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. Our invited speakers for this year include industry experts from various backgrounds who will engage in diverse conversations on intra-Africa trade, copyright infringement issues, brand positioning, building bankable businesses and many other compelling topics. There will be a special interactive workshop that will run through the course of the two days, as well as catwalk presentations that never cease to thrill our audience. We are super excited to also be launching the Guild of Leather Designers – GOLD, which is a first-of-its-kind advisory body that will offer leather designers both emerging and established, the much-needed support and help that creatives like myself require to succeed in tackling legal issues, marketing, branding, business planning and so on. What am I grateful for? So, so much! Through it all, I am grateful to my family and friends for believing in me and supporting me through the very arduous process of running this platform, and accommodating my ‘crazy’ ideas. I am grateful for the support I have received over the years, especially from the Bank of Industry and more recently from Providus Bank, and other organisations and individuals that have stood rock solid behind me. I am extremely grateful to my small team of smart, young men and women who have burnt the midnight oil to make this work. I am humbled and grateful for all that has come out of this. Great connections have been made, amazing relationships have been built and some unusual doors have opened, including a partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, and more recently, an MIT Fellowship! But I think what I am most grateful for is the divine opportunity given to me to make a difference and the impact that has been made through the various initiatives that have been borne out of Lagos Leather Fair.
Tell us about KAFAWA
My World of Bags’ partnership with Mastercard Foundation has been transformative. It has brought some of our biggest goals and plans to life in such significant ways, and the Kafawa Training Program is one major one. The word ‘Kafawa’ loosely translates to ‘establishment’ in Hausa and as the name implies, the initiative is designed to establish a highly-skilled generation of youth to enhance the quality of workmanship in Nigeria’s leather and non-leather industries, and begin to tackle the problem of unemployment across the country.
We developed what we like to call a “living” curriculum which means that it is extremely flexible and consistently adaptable to the needs of the industry. Using the Technical Industrial Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TIVET) standards, we have established partnerships with industry experts and partners who feed into the development of each course curriculum. Findings from our research activities provided additional insight into the skills gap across the leather and non-leather industries. These findings were also incorporated into the design of the curriculum to ensure that all the content would be significantly value-adding for our trainees. To allow for a ripple-effect system where the graduate trainees can go on to establish themselves and employ more young people that they would go on to train, we included an entrepreneurship course facilitated by the Enterprise Development Centre of the Lagos Business School – Pan Atlantic University. Other elements of our curriculum include activities like business plan pitching, group coaching, peer-to-peer mentoring, and so many more training models that create growth and mind-set shift opportunities for young people so that they can view manufacturing work as dignified and fulfilling.
The program is on a mission to equip Nigerian youth with the needed hard and soft skills that will ultimately create the country’s next generation of business owners, employers of labour and industry leaders. The ultimate goal is to simultaneously invest the necessary skills into Nigeria’s high-potential, high-value leather industry.
Having operated in the leather industry for many years through my brand FemiHandbags, I have seen first-hand how the dearth of skilled manpower has limited the growth and expansion of strong brands. Kafawa is designed to be a multi-faceted solution to these issues.
What can the government of Nigeria do to create an enabling environment for leather business owners?
I would like to see an intentional effort by the policymakers to bring practitioners like ourselves to the table to engage in conversations around the challenges so we can be part of the solution and help drive the change we need. Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest livestock producers and its leather industry offers a fantastic opportunity to achieve its zero-oil plan. It is a significant area that can help boost exports and job creation and I believe support must be increased in the areas of systems upgrade, training and up skilling, production capacity, technology, branding and access to market.
I am very clear-eyed about the challenges we are facing in the leather space as designers and producers of finished leather goods and will be the first to admit that though the terrain seems somewhat difficult, we must start to understand that some things won’t happen if the right steps are not strategically taken. If our design and production skills are not enhanced, if as a country we continue to produce low-quality FLGs, if we do not have the production capacity to be commercially viable, if the availability of well-finished hides and skins remains low or inexistent due to the export of the greater percentage of the leathers produced in our tanneries, if we do not understand how the export market works… I could go on and on, we will keep going round and round in circles and continue to find it impossible to achieve our goals. The government needs to focus on formulating a leather industry strategy to be driven by the relevant stakeholders, initiate the necessary value-addition processes that will enable leather designers to have better access to well-finished leathers, and of course, create effective skills acquisition and improvement centres, invest in appropriate technology, formulate regulations around quality and standards, ensure the enforcement of those standards then create a leather marketing campaign to attract outside markets to our FLGs. Last year, the Leather and Leather Products Implementation Policy was launched to address some of these problems and it is my hope that we see a proper execution of the plan that will lead to tangible results.
Final words
This year makes it thirty years since I registered my business, and it has been an incredibly unbelievable ride. I have learnt lessons that no textbook can teach, and learnt that frustrations and setbacks are all part of the growth process. I have learnt that, despite the curveballs that life may throw at you, we must keep showing up. So, if I had to whisper some words of advice into anyone’s ear, one of the first things I would say is this: Be authentic. I have found that there is power in being honest, being yourself and not pretending to be who or what you’re not. You don’t have to run someone else’s race. Bloom where you’re planted – I love those words.
I also always say this – ask for help when you can. It is okay to be vulnerable and it is ok not to know. What is not okay is to not ask, to pretend that all is going well, or to not reach out to those who have walked the walk and can give a helping hand. Finally, I know it takes some level of self-belief and inner strength to see possibilities where others see problems or to see the glass half-full and not half-empty, but I am a die-hard optimist and we need to understand that though there be bends in the road, we need to keep believing and working hard and doing it afraid.
So, let’s keep showing up and giving it our best shot, and everything will be all right in the end.
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