Olatowun Candide-johnson, creating that suitable environment where women network, inspire like minds

Olatowun Candide Johnson is a lawyer with thirty+ years’ experience in corporate and commercial law and in business development and governance of multinational corporations. During the course of her career, she worked in Law Practice, Shipping, & Oil and Gas. Whilst working with the Total Group, she worked in different divisions including three years in the New Business (Affaires Nouvelles) Division in the Paris HQ. Before taking early retirement, she held the roles of General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Executive General Manager, Management Services Division (incorporating Legal, Audit, Insurance and AntiCorruption Compliance) and for the Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria.

In 2016, she obtained a Global Executive MBA awarded by LSE, NYU Stern and HEC (Paris), known as the TRIUM Global Executive MBA.

After many years in corporate life, she decided that it was time for her to fulfill her passion which is to open an exclusive space in Lagos to help bridge the business connections gap currently experienced by Women in Nigeria. This birthed “GAIA” (meaning “Mother Earth”), a Women-only Members Club located in Victoria Island.

Olatowun is a Founder parent of Lagos Preparatory School, Ikoyi, one of Africa’s leading British curriculum preparatory schools in Lagos. Member of the board of directors of the Nigerian-norwegian Chamber of Commerce, Advisory Board Member, African Women on Board (AWB) as well as a member of the Committee on Tourism and Hospitality of the Institute of Directors (IOD). She is also an angel investor and a member of Rising Tide Africa – a network of female business angels investing in entrepreneurs across the African continent.

She is Wines & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Level 2 certified, and Dame Chevalier de l’ordre des Coteaux de Champagne (2017). She loves all forms of the Arts, Culture, food and wine, Pilates, spinning, yoga, books, and interesting places

Olatowun is happily married to Yemi Candide-johnson (SAN) and they have three bright and wonderful children.

Growing up and influence till date

Growing up in Lagos in the late 60s and early 70s was wonderful and memorable. I still hold dear fondest childhood memories; bicycle races, going for neighborhood walks with my father, cinema on Saturday’s, swimming and arts & crafts at the Onikan art centre (I forget what it was actually called then) and simple things like that.

We knew who people were and it mattered where you came from. That a person had or did not have money was not a topic. It was family and honor and keeping reputation unblemished. We knew the values upon which our civilization was based, and these values were paramount. I remember that my father would always ask our friends what their surnames were. A known name would lead to a further interrogation about which particular branch of the family they came from. There is a lot of intelligence in a simple name and though, at that time, we were embarrassed by this Q & A, it is also what we now do with our own children. Showing off wealth or acquisitions was an embarrassment and people were generally ‘called out’ or shunned if they ‘mis-stepped’. This type of value system lent itself to a wellregulated and orderly society. Today, I tend to flinch from anything and anyone that’s OTT (Over The Top) in behavior or outlook and instead look out for people who have the same value system that I do. All these influences remain with me today and I have passed them on to my children.

30 years experience in corporate & commercial Law, lessons learnt

Gosh! That could take a long time. Suffice it to say that you’re never too old to learn, be confident enough to admit that you don’t know what you don’t know so that you can actually acquire the knowledge; constant selfimprovement is imperative. Seek

Being a member of Rising Tide Africa and reason for joining

Well, RTA is an Angel network of women that seeks and invests in women led businesses and I am very pleased and proud to be a member. It has not only introduced a new asset class of investments, but it has also further exposed me and allowed me to meet fascinating authentic, brave and interesting fellow angels and learn about the brilliant tech and non-tech startups in Nigeria. I doff my hat to Yemi Keri and Ndidi Nnoli-edozien who are the cofounders of RTA.

Balancing work and family during active service in comparison to how you do it today. What has changed?

What has changed? My children are all grown up. When they were younger, both my husband and I were very busy professionals leaving home early in the morning and coming back late at night; and so, we took the decision to send them to boarding school quite early. Having said that, we did everything in our power to attend school activities, parent teacher meetings, plays, recitals and so on. It is never easy, but you have no choice.

When they were still at home however, we had help from my late mother, my mother in-law my older sister and others. It does take a village to train a child as the saying goes and I was lucky to have a very strong support system. It’s either that or you leave your kids to be brought up by domestic help. That was not acceptable to us.

GAIA

GAIA started in March 2018 on the rebound from a project – Voltaire Arts Club which effectively was a Members only club for the arts, established to show case the work of emerging artistes in the Arts space – music, art, fashion and so on.

In trying to build that project, I found that I didn’t come across many women in the investment space. When that project couldn’t go further, due to lack of financing, wrong time for investors (as the economy was in recession (2017) as well as some issues with the project site and so on, I decided to turn my sights to women. Why weren’t there many women in the investment space, if there are, where are they? Why couldn’t I find them then? Why do women bond on so many levels but do not do much business together?

There are no real peculiarities with the club. We have criteria for membership and the minimum age is 30. We want real business owners as well as corporate csuite executives and other senior professionals. In short, we want women who are decision makers and who can connect and collaborate with others around the table or make it happen through their networks.

The club is NOT for show. The club is not for “big gals” without an identifiable and genuine source of income. The club is for serious women who want to do more not just for themselves and for their businesses but for society as a whole.

Challenges setting up

First, I’m still in the process as we are renovating the club house even though we have been running activities for over a year. The club house is an absolute must for the business. One huge and real problem is funding!!!! funding!!! funding!!! I have managed to find a few investors who believe in me, but I need more!

The other problem is staff. But this isn’t peculiar to this business. Finding intelligent, competent and dedicated employees who understand what it means to run a start-up can be very difficult to find. The search continues however.

Membership

Membership is by referral or by application through the membership portal of our website www. gaiawomenclub.com.

It’s been very exciting so far even though we get a lot of people applying who are not qualified for the club membership. It shows that it is indeed aspirational which is good thing!

We have had a lot of interest from diverse women running diverse businesses (several from the “lifestyle” industry). I think however, that the more we connect collaborate and begin to create together we will begin to spread our wings into unchartered territory. I believe that more women would start more capital-intensive business if they were not limited to self-funding. This is certainly one of issues that GAIA would like to tackle in close collaboration with funding entities.

Do women truly support each other?

Okay so this is the loaded question but one that’s not so difficult to answer anymore. I’ve seen both sides. I have learned from both. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. I believe that it is probably still 50:50 but we’re moving the needle step by step and increasingly, I hope that women would support each other as we do at GAIA.

Another objective for GAIA is to build an environment of trust. A trust circle if you wish, where members grow to trust each other. When you trust someone, you will find it easier to do business with that person. Where there’s no trust, it becomes difficult, sometimes impossible.