Inspiring Woman Series 11, where distinguished speakers led the change narrative

The joy in my heart knows no bounds! I am glad to announce to you that Inspiring Woman Series 11 was an astounding success.

So much had gone into planning for series 11 and as usual, excellence was expected, and excellence was delivered. We are always intentional about our speakers and this year was no different, in fact, we switched things up!

With our line-up of distinguished speakers that included keynote speaker, Shiphra Chisha, President and Co-Founder of the African Women in Business (AWIB) and Director of Programmes, The Graça Machel Trust, special guest speaker, Olori Atuwatse III, Queen Consort of the Warri Kingdom. Others included: Hon. Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim (FSI), the Federal Commissioner, National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), Hon. Mojisola Alli-Macaulay, Chairman, House Committee on Women Affairs, Poverty Alleviation & Job Creation, Lagos state, Adaeze Udensi (PhD), Ag. Managing Director, Titan Trust Bank, Mary Akpobome, Chief Operating Officer, Imperium Capital Partners Plc, Mories Atoki, CEO, African Business Coalition for Health, Stella Kalanne Fubara, Regional Director of International Operations, Dubai Department of Economy & Tourism (DET), Dr. Modupe Elebute-Odunsi, Founder & CEO, Marcelle Ruth Cancer Centre & Specialist Hospital, Ayodele Olojede, Group Head, Emerging Businesses Africa, Access Bank Plc, Pearl Uzokwe, Director for the Sahara Foundation, Bunmi Adeniba, Senior Marketing Director, Africa, Coca-Cola Company, Elizabeth Oguegbu, Executive Principal, Financial Markets Corporate Sales, Africa at Standard Chartered Bank and Sola Adesakin, Lead Coach/Founder, Smart Stewards & The Smart Investment Club, and skilled moderators that included Esther Longe (PhD), Nation builder & Founder, The 7000 Movement, Tokunboh George-Taylor, Managing Director of Hill+Knowlton Strategies Nigeria, and Tanwa Ashiru, CEO, Bulwark Intelligence, trust me when I say it was not only a loaded line-up of brilliant speakers but a loaded event.

From when the keynote speaker sent a text to me when she landed Nigeria from South Africa, saying “Kemi, let’s go ahead and have a great event”, I knew there was about to be a shift, I knew 7th of December was going to be positively explosive, and yes it was!

Don’t ask me how preparations went because I won’t be giving you ‘juicy’ gist, because you know what it takes to put an event together, but ask me how the event went, and I will tell you that all the stress of planning was worth it.

The hall was set up and everything was ready. One after the other, guests began to arrive and finally, the event commenced with the national anthem, then the opening speech by the Publisher of BusinessDay, Frank Aigbogun followed by my speech then boom…the explosive and highly inspirational talks began.

The theme was ‘Leading The Change, My Story, My Role, My Expectations’ and trust me when I say each person’s story was peculiar and inspiring. Imagine listening to 15 speakers with 15 stories! I haven’t stopped getting feedback on the impact so trust me when I say 2023 is going to be an avalanche, do not miss it!

You will also get to watch Inspiring Woman Series 11, so, again, watch this space!

I want to appreciate our sponsors, Her Excellency, The First Lady of Imo state, Barr. Chioma Uzodimma, Unilever Plc, Binatone, The Henna Place, FITC, Dulux and Dr. PureJoy.

Here are some quotes from speakers who graced the occassion.

In the measure of priority, the most important things to me are God, family, and livelihood.

I have over the past 30 years always been a firm believer that until we provide opportunities to women for social economic development, things will always remain the same. Twenty years down the line, we held a meeting as Africans and African women discussing the same topics as we are discussing today, because at that time, only a handful would have acquired wealth while the majority will still have no voice. This is the situation we face because our voices can only be derived from attaining a good acquisition of assets using the skills and expertise that we have or possess to acquire those assets.
Recently, we were deliberating about Africa’s continental free trade and the fundamental of new development, the leaders reiterated that women are dealing with multiple crises, women are dealing with gender-based violence, climate change, and post covid challenges.
The global scale of women’s financials makes it clear that to achieve universal financial success, we need to focus on our women. I always say to the banks that I know that they are in the business of making money, but women are your next emerging market.
Expanding access to finance for women, and solutions to funding for women, we need to push towards universal inclusion, we need to think about incentives we can provide to cater for women because margins are small and they require more upfront investments

A few things we can do are to; change the social norms and the constraints to women’s demand for financial services. Women have less access to technology, and it needs to be changed because that’s an enabler of education, employment and entrepreneurship. We need to challenge the misconception of banks on women’s needs.

–Shiphra Chisha

Leadership cuts across every facet of responsibility. If you do your bit diligently and I do my bit diligently, then not so far from now, we will begin to see the realisation of the society and community we hope to see.
Imagine the name of the women who were written in our history books, in their day going about their daily businesses when leadership fell upon their lives. Their contribution to the test of time, not because of the title of leaders but because they cared enough about others to show up and lead the change in their day. Nigerian women are historically resilient, strong, innovative women and they do this while being wife, mothers, sisters, and daughters excellently, we carry many hats and wear many hats so graciously, yet, Nigerian women have long been marginalised regarding education, business funding, and property ownership. We comprise only 44% of the workforce and we only make up 20% of the executive level in corporate organisations, and 10% in public and government leadership. We need to change this and I can’t wait for our generation to change the status quo.

I would like to share 4 pillars of my leadership journey: conviction, commitment, courage and community. These 4C’s are intertwined with my leadership story, my role and my expectations and I hope they guide you on your own journey.

-Olori Atuwatse III

In my career as a broadcast journalist, I began as a duty announcer at Eko FM, moving on to NTA, then to TVC, where I worked in productions before leading the station’s marketing team.

As a result of my desire to have a greater beneficial impact on the populace, I entered politics as a councillor, where Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu recognised my drive for the growth of my neighborhood and the people.

Women need to succeed in politics, they must be bold and refuse to be fearful. There must be the desire to constantly learn new things, and a strong sense of commitment to community service.
If you’re given little obligations, it’s always good to put your best into it because you never know who is taking records of it, and all these records will be in your dossier. When it’s time for your appraisal, they know the next place to put you.

To succeed in politics as a woman, you must be top notch, exposed, very educated and resilient.

-Hon. Mojisola Alli-Macaulay

I live on daily affirmations and it has positively impacted me till date. I’m that highly principled, self-disciplined, and self-motivated woman, with strong values and extraordinary goals, extra extraordinary determination. I will lay the footprints of success anywhere I set my feet. Being a dynamic achiever and leading many dynamic achievers, miracles will happen, and dreams will come true, building many families, changing society one pace at a time and we are all going places.

I am the immaculate, the immense, the money machine, the money magnet with thanks to the Almighty God, I am Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim.

-Hon. Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim (FSI)

I always tell people that my biggest competition is myself not the target that the bank sets. While working at Zenith, when I saw the target that the bank set, I look and say, this is like 20% of what I set for myself nevertheless, I am going to cross it and it happened. So, the game starts in the mind. A lot of times, we are holding ourselves down, the moment you win the battle in the mind, you have won in the physical.

-Adaeze Udensi (PhD)

I’m not one of those that woke up and said I have the plan to be an executive director or some position, I’m one of those that when I go to work in the morning and shut down in the evening, I ask myself, have I done my absolute best that I could have done today? I do my best and I’m going to provide much impact on everyone that I meet along the way in my life.
To every young woman who has come to listen to us, it is important you are open-minded in this journey because opportunities will come and it will not inform you ahead of the how. It takes someone with an open mind to be able to identify it and use it to their own advantage.

-Mary Akpobome

My story is wrapped around gratitude, the vision for coming back to Nigeria is giving back to a place where I have been given all the opportunities that I had. Sometimes, you have to do things terrified. My story is born out of an outlier because I was born into an academic family, my family were professors. You have to do more sometimes, it is about the extra that you do, the more that you do. Sometimes, it is not about the big things but doing things off the radar. Don’t let anyone put your goal down.

-Dr Modupe Elebute-Odunsi

My journey has been a journey of discovery and is anchored on three points, faith, resilience and focus. Faith because it is about mindset, a picture of what you see and what you pray. Secondly, it is also very important that you have a partner that shares your aspiration. The third one is, you have to create your own job description, there is a saying that what got you here will not necessarily keep you there, and a lot of women, just want to be in their comfort zone. It doesn’t matter whether you know 100% of what you are doing but you need to have your hand up to say this is something I can do, and even creating the situation or an environment that gets your executive management viable. The next point is that you do not need to wait for your organisation to train you, if you wait, you are becoming mediocre, and you have to invest in your own aspiration. Finally, surround yourself with good people, people who are better than you, they keep challenging your thought process. This is what has shaped my own journey. And lastly, find your lane.

-Ayodele Olojede

On the way to the top, there are these things that makes you say “I have made it to the top, there are no challenges” however, the truth is, as you lead, you are going to fail. One thing I admire about Gen Zs is courage because they get a lot of nos, nobody is going to tell your story as well as you are, and nobody is going to put your words out as well as you are, so stop being so shy to speak about what you have achieved because, the knowledge that you have will be beneficial to somebody else.

-Pearl Uzokwe

I will anchor my story around 3 things that shapes who I am. It is family, purpose and career, and from these three facets of my life, I have also picked 3 learning things that I would like to share. First is career. When I started with family, if you tell me to describe growing up in one word, it is contentment, because the ambience my parents created was sufficient.

In terms of career, one thing my mum says to me is that life is a travelator. At every phase of your life, there will be people, 2-3 people on the travelator, and there will be 2 steps down in the travelator, so pitch where you want to be and how you want to see the travelator. For me in my career, what inspired me was that I could look forward at people in that travelator who have gone ahead and there was no point in envy, it is just a matter of time, my time will come, so I will be inspired. I had friends who were doing well as entrepreneurs, but as a little girl, I wanted to work in a multinational. I didn’t want to be put in the place of my peers, I wanted to compete in any part of the world and be ranked.

One thing I have learnt is that, it is not a game of numbers, but a game of impact, the second lesson is a cell, it is the smallest unit of the body, focusing on the small cell that makes a difference. The way it works for me in the corporate world is that I see seeds and not trees.

-Bunmi Adeniba

It is important to find your passion; until you find it you will continue to float. Your passion might be different from your talent. Your passion will carry you through when there are challenges, when the work is laborious, when you have to stay up till 3 am, passion produces steam that keeps one going.
It is necessary to belong to many tribes, tribes for prayers, at work, for personal development, a tribe for fun, have as many tribes as you need to help carry you along.
Women, use your role to open doors for other women and no matter what stage of career you are, you must inspire others.

-Stella Kelanne Fubara

As women leading the change with our finances, who are we leading? We are leading ourselves and leading the younger generation, especially those who do not believe in working their way into building wealth. How do we lead? (my role and expectation). We have a responsibility to help the younger women as role models. Many young girls are going after the wrong models. We need to become aware of the economic issues and get familiar with what’s happening around the world. We need to invest more in assets and think of building true wealth as women. We need to embrace financial literacy.

-Sola Adesakin

I went from being a below average student to graduating best student in secondary school and first class in university. I urge women to bring global solutions to African problems. Women must pay evil with kindness and God will reward you with good. I am a benefactor of God’s goodness.
It is okay not to take no for an answer. Be persistent in what you want. Furthermore, family is everything, I acknowledge the role my parents played in my academics. Finally, honesty pays.

-Elizabeth Oguegbu

When the opportunity for the CEO of African Business Coalition for Health came, I applied but at that time, I was with PWC and it wasn’t in the policy that an employee can apply for the post. Some people at the top said, someone, is willing to do it, why deprive the person? But I knew I wanted something, and I had to thrive to get it. I didn’t start as a very bright student growing up, I was consistently average, but when I crossed to secondary school, I knew something changed and I found my ground. This means that nothing defines you in the process of your journey. I got into the university and graduated with a 2.2 but interestingly, I have worked with multinationals where they only take 2.1, maybe that is where luck came in. I have also been mentored, I have had strong people at the top level who insisted it was my c.v they preferred, and it was me that they wanted to work with especially when they saw my level of skills and this is because I was mentored early.

To every young woman who has come to listen to us, it is important you are open-minded in this journey because opportunities will come and it will not inform you ahead of the how. It takes someone with an open mind to be able to identify it and use it to their own advantage.

-Mories Atoki