Violet .N. Arene is a rare breed, a Nigerian woman who straddles several areas of human endeavour in work experience. She is the former President of African Women in Leadership Organisation (AWLO). She represented AWLO at the 2018 United Nations Leader’s summit. She is also a recipient of the 2018 Global Empowerment Award, at the U.S House of Representatives 18th Congressional District of Texas. She was former General Manager NNPC and the initiator of the Management Development Programme of the NNPC.
She is driven by a fierce commitment to human, social and national development in addition to women’s empowerment and capacity building. Among the many hats she wears, she is a family and women’s advocate, an educationist, teacher, trainer of business executives, TV producer and presenter, social counsellor, leadership mentor and well sought after management consultant and trainer.
With over sixteen years of remarkable experience in the Federal Ministry of Education rising to the status of Assistant Chief Education Administrator Officer and twenty years of distinctive service in the oil and gas industry (NNPC), exiting as a General Manager working directly with the C.E.O for five years. Six years of distinctive service as Group Training Co-ordinator of the Industrial and General Insurance Co. (IGI).
Arene is also one unique Nigerian woman who could be said to have traversed many career fields-from business management to the very successful stint in the communication industry (as Journalist) as TV Presenter, first for NTA Network for six years presenting the popular family program ‘Kith and Kith and today as an independent producer/presenter of the Voice of Eve TV, a women’s enlightenment and capacity building program; dedicated to advancing the cause of gender parity, and women in leadership.
The expected change everywhere for Africa’s developmental studies will start with leadership quality betterment, and that is where Violet is throwing her weight to catalyse positive changes.
Poised to give meaning and impetus to the hope of gender gap closure, Arene has thrown her might into capacity building for women especially in senior level positions and executive leadership, the locum of impact. She is fired by the critical gaps in gender opportunities at the top and the parity of female executives.
“AWCBN” which stands for African Women Capacity Building Network has been initiated by her to achieve great results. Arene has secured a Technical Partnership with the Americas Empowerment Institute “AEMPIN” Houston, Texas, USA in affiliation with Texas Southern University “TSU”. This setup provides accredited certificates, validation and authentication for AWCBN initiative in executive leadership education and training for women and men also.
The AWCBN philosophy is to assist in capacity building of women for repositioning them to be a huge national resource for all nations with equal opportunities, freedom from self-limitations, discriminations, oppression, abuse and exploitation.
Violet’s belief is that with the recognizable assets of female superiority in almost all parameters of leadership especially quality performance, Africa and Nigeria needs more women in leadership and executive positions.
According to Arene “The percentage of females in all organisations benefiting from capacity building programs needs to be increased to enable the process of gender gap closure and increased benefits to organisations, hence the reason for dedicating my time to this cause.”
As a management consultant, Violet is President, Lydia Rock Consult Nig. Ltd., a firm of management consultants and training, well-known for its highly branded world-class training programs in Executive Business leadership And management.
She has a B.A History 2nd Class Upper, A University Scholar (University of Ibadan), Nigeria (1966), Post Graduate Diploma in Education, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Nigeria (1972), M.A. in Education (Counselling & Students Personnel) Arizona State University, Tempe, Phoenix Arizona, USA (1976) and Ph.D. in Education (Guidance & Counselling) University of Lagos, Nigeria (1981). Arene is the author of nineteen books to date.
