Consistent with its thought leadership philosophy and commitment to drive sustainable capacity building, First Bank of Nigeria Limited focuses on women entrepreneurs for sustainable capacity building and value creation as it hosted its last edition of the Sustainability Workshop for 2015.
The workshop has empowered women in various businesses to gain the requisite knowledge that they need to be in business.
Speaking at the event, Ibukun Awosika, chairman-designate, FirstBank, said Nigeria had natural abundance of entrepreneurial energy but lacked sufficient level of entrepreneurial knowledge to help them execute their ideas in a structured manner that helped to add higher value to the economy.
The sustainability workshop seeks to help women address the above challenge and rob minds with them on the way forward, she stressed.
She emphasised on the need for entrepreneurs to evaluate the market, stay committed to the business against all odds and not diverting the resources of their businesses to other needs.
According to Awosika, “You have to be disciplined to build proper structure within the business, in a way that you become bankable, because for the bank to invest in you, they want to evaluate you, and be able to release capital to you knowing that they will be able to get their capital back with the interest.”
She explained that for businesses to be sustainable, they must move from one stage to another, have long lifespan ideas, which can be tweaked at the right time to make necessary changes within the season.
“You cannot build a business based on bribery and corruption. Every business has a challenge but taking the right type of decision will help you navigate through it,” she told participants.
Adenike Agnes Shobajo, one of the participants of the workshop and the chairperson of the women group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, disclosed that she led the women in the chamber to visit the First Bank management as part of their facility visit and after an interesting meeting with the team, First bank picked interest in them and decided to sponsor them on the program.
She further disclosed that present at the workshop are women in various sectors of the economy such as oil and gas, agriculture and tourism amongst others.
“Women are more in the SME sector and we require knowledge exchange and information on those areas where we need to do well so that we can rise up to the requirements of the private sector businesses and reduce the number of women under the poverty bracket,” Shobajo said.
Aderonke Adeyegbe, another participant, said the workshop has helped her improve her skills and knowledge on building a sustainable business.
“I appreciate First bank for trying hard to support the growth of SME to help improve the economy. Other organisations should emulate first bank and do what they are doing to help grow the SME sector in Nigeria,” she added.
