I would say we're about 24 here I'm sure a lot of people will be joining us as we go along and just so we know as much as we are watching this on Google meet we're also streaming live on YouTube so yes again awesome job by the team so um I just want to run us through the agenda of international Women's Conference so I'm just going to read through real quick so International Women's Conference day International women's day conference is a two-day free and collaborative event powered by TRL which
is tindera leadership Hub and skill tensive training and development center which aims not to celebrate 1,000 women alone but to empower them by creating opportunities through provision of grants for women now that's amazing distribution of paths and seeing through the length of experienced women across different sectors like lifestyle education politics health and Agriculture and the current sponsorship updates um we have been able to give out 408 packs of sry PS donated by Family come on now c
an we yes I love the fact that we're capping now was the best time to T really thank you so and um one free data analysis course sponsored by a woman for a young lady this year's theme invest in women acceler progress resonates with the conference objectives and your support is instrumental in making it a reality you can also support the vision through pads donation sponsor women in OnDemand courses like business and creative lab courses which would go for 500,000 NAA data analysis course 100,00
0 NAA AI for business owners course 50,000 NAA virtual assistant course 50 ,000 NAA and business leadership and management cost 500,000 NAA now I'm sure a lot of us are wondering how to go about this or wondering if we can be um maybe beneficiaries or of a scholarship or something well um I'm sure I have with me here on the call I have the CEO and managing director of um skillens sa and I also have Mr Tinder who is the CEO of TR leadership club and I'm sure they'll be telling us more about this
amazing packages and the courses that we have lined up so um again welcome to everybody that is just joining us that has just joined that has missed the exciting I mean every part of this session is going to be exciting trust me but like you know the introductory part let me see so um my name is alab Robert once again welcome welcome welcome we're glad to have you and at this moment I would like to I want to confirm if Mrs P Zab Judi co-founder managing director of skill tensive is here yes my G
od you look so beautiful ma'am good morning here good morning we're so glad to have you here welcome M all right so I would like to hand over to you now to just you know give us the welcome address so the floor is yours maam yes hi good morning everybody um I have to say I'm actually really excited to be um on on this on this call this program has meant quite a lot to us we've uh collaborated with the Tunda leadership Hub to bring um you know a program a free program to as many people as possibl
e uh to mark International women's month I would say so for us as um as a company that is female LED you know we we think it's very important that we sort of lead with um we lead by example and we lead with purpose so the theme for international women's day this year or the month is really about um investing in women you know accelerating progress and you know looking at the theme really really because once you invest you obviously hope for Progress so it's not just like a wishy-washy conversati
on that is to be had it's these are very wellth thought out you know themes uh that have happened throughout the year so for us as Skil tensive we we thought you know the best way to reach as many people as possible we know the economy is you know um challenging to say the least for for quite a lot of businesses so we thought okay okay you know what let's get people together let's Inspire as many people not just women but also you know as many people as possible so that you know when we come tog
ether there's always a saying that when you you know walk together you go far rather than being alone so you know once we come here we Network we talk to each other we see different um what what different people are offering in terms of levels of expertise so that people can really key in and um and link up so for us at Skil tensive we worked very closely with the Tunda leadership Hub we're very strong partners and we just thought the best thing to do is to really collaborate to bring informatio
n to bring wealth of knowledge to to as many people as possible so um you know skill tensive is a training and development company and it's also a consulting company so again what what how best to really help people in this economy but to give them knowledge the best best way to train people is really giving them knowledge and praying that you know they will take that knowledge and and run with it you know today we have um four very powerful speakers you know we've got an you know diverse set of
topics um that really is supposed to be sort of you know looking at the Spectrum of women's expertise in in different areas we have um you know mo of mod who is really exceptional in her field we have the honorable Hada era who we all know is the commissioner for education in Cina and I believe she's the first female Commissioner of Education in in Cina State I stand to be corrected so she you know will be speaking to us on on on governance and how to thrive we don't have enough women in govern
ance so it's you know we going to politics and you know we get draged we come back and then we give up but you know hadiza is a very strong um a very strong lady and we've seen the progress she's been able to bring to to kazina State and you know the education sector you know we also have um uh Tony Albert who's the VP of switching at flutterwave flutterwave is you know an Innovative company we know it's a very big fintech company and you know offering us Services there's no way we would say we'
re not using their service when it comes to payment platforms you know they're very important so it's it's going to be good for us to listen what is it they do differently how the women in Tech you know really move forward and you know our last speaker for today is Amina to Cha who would be speaking to us on issues uh the office place you know HR Recruitment and so on so she is um the one of the partners at a company called pedison and partners so she's very well versed in in her field so all th
ese are building blocks you know whatever you do on a daily basis is a building block to progress to investment and as you know Lam said at the beginning you know thank yourself for really being here today because at the end of the day it means you're investing in yourself and once you invest in yourself it means you are taking yourself seriously you want to be taken seriously at the same time you know as women we always get the short end of the stick we hear statistics oh women are you know wom
en are not doing well women need to be more in the space but you know statistics have shown that 58% of Nigerian women are the business are those who are starting businesses even in Africa Nigerian women are leaders in starting businesses look at the statistics they speak for themselves you know um there's hardly any Nigerian woman you meet who is not doing something it doesn't matter how big how small people are doing something they're engaging and it's it's not also always about business there
's also the community aspect building your community unities building your homes you know building your whether it's in your mosque your churches and so on people are building and these buildings you know I mean building really means Legacy you know once you able to build something it means you're you're keying on your legacy so for us at skill tensive we look at you know we have an eye on the future about this because we want to build we want to build people we want to build young girls we want
to build women so which is one of the reasons why we we are a female Le company um with a few a few male employees but you know our board is pretty much um Almost 100% women so we're leading by example like I said and we like to see these types of progress we like to see women really push the barriers we've seen in the banking sector how you know Nigerian women have really taken the Buton so nobody you know can look at us and say oh Nigerian women are you know they're lazy when it comes to bank
ing we have like I think 10 or 12 you know MDS of Bank where in the world do you have that where in the world do you have that you know we're leading in the consultancy um segment of the economy whether it's also in the fast moving Goods businesses so you know you see and and we are also leveraging on other tools that are I think that are you know available to us whether it's social media aspects of technology so definitely Nigerian women are leading and I think you know accelerating progress Ni
gerian women no doubt I can assure you are really in the Forefront when you travel the world you know whether it's in Africa you see how I always say when I come back to Nigeria always say people are so envious of us in Nigeria because they feel we have everything and we are here complaining oh no this no that but other people are dying to come here honestly um and it it fills me with a sense of Pride when I'm away and I see that people are like oh you Nigerians you always do this differently yo
u want to do so it's good we shouldn't um you know maybe fall back into this uh mode of complaining you know so we we should we should be in a position whereby we are always strengthening what we have and showing that you know we we are strong we are smart we're extremely intelligent we have goals that we want to achieve and you know we're leaders in our pars that's the truth we really are leaders in in our pars and I'm just excited that you know today we have very strong people that are going t
o be speaking and you know ex really talking to us and we're all here toar and no nobody's an island and there's nobody who has the Monopoly of knowledge you know we really all need to listen and take away as much as as we can from from from today so thank you all so much for making the time to join us it's um we're very excited to have you here with us and we really hope that today as we take you through various um elements of you know uh investing in women because these are all different women
who are doing extremely different things and very uh being exceptional really in in their field so the thing is that The Sisterhood is strong I have to say so The Sisterhood is very very strong and you know we keep championing our cause and moving ahead so thank you alamid for you know um taking the time today to really uh chare this occasion for us we're very grateful and also thank you to the today raama leadership hub for working with us to deliver this particular uh program so thank you eve
rybody and I don't take it for granted we know you're all busy today it's it's a holiday as well so we don't take it for granted that you're here so thank you so much and enjoy the program thank you day thank you so much M that was profound I mean ladies can we can we please oh my God at this point I feel like our excitement should be through the RO with everything that had has already said now I mean take all my money really take all by time I I'm so excited in fact it was when you whole day he
re you you will find me here so um please without further Ado while we clap for um P for this amazing welcome address thank you so much ma'am I would also be inviting Mr tnd Rema the CEO of tnd Rema leadership Hub to also give us his welcome address as well um I don't know if Mr might here with us now um I can see Victoria and Mary raising their hand do you have a question or you don't have a question must be a mistake so maybe you should just try okay all right so um I think uh okay we are wait
ing for see what oh yes he's here with us welcome sir hello sir can you hear me hello hello sir good morning you're welcome good morning everyone it's um a beautiful morning here and I'm glad that this is happening at a time like this I want to say thank you so much to the co-founders of skill things AIA zop and AIA Lami they are so easy to work with it's been a great partnership and in my head I think we would always have more of this I want to say thank you to everyone who is present at the mo
ment um you guys are the reason why we click and why we keep running um without taking much of her time because she's done a great and powerful introduction uh we all know that the world cannot exist without women women shape the world and women tells the child of things in the world system uh the essence of the international women conference which started two years ago is just to empower women because we understand that empowered women denote an empowered word so I won't say more than that so t
hat we can get started I learned that the CEO of Madi is on call and everybody who is on this call I'm glad to see some people arba p ages good to see you and kidrock good to see you marret good to see you Madame Victoria good to see you everyone good to see you so I will leave us with this challenge please share the link with everyone you know in your life all right right now because um the recording alone will not do justice the recording alone will not do justice this is streamed on YouTube a
nd this is also available for you to watch so permit me to mention few names once again um I want to say big thanks to the theme who made this happen thank you for the theme for doing an exellent job even I've been h on everyone let's do this let's do that P this one do that do this but thank you for doing this graciously thank you I don't want to mention it before I miss someone's name so thank you so much everyone good to see you um D Davis Edward Mata um you've been very active thank you good
to see you mag pel Mary Revelation and good to see you Mo and well done to our moderator robot I met robot on a platform du investment and she's been doing greatly this is so beautiful so um because I'm a man I would have to run away from this call so that women can have their conversations okay so bye for now everyone thank you so much woman please do your and have exciting conversation God bless everyone of you bye for now all right thank you so much M that was that was a beautiful welcome ad
dress thank you so much um so uh I I don't know I'm considering engaging us a little bit for bringing a here but looking at the fact that I mean like I said we have power houses so of course they have other engagements they have other um assignments that they need to attend to I mean power is like that even if when it's a holiday don't have holidays you know I mean I mean for our speak that we are bringing old she's an amazing entrepreneur she is a CEO of Mo um her name is Mo and we are so glad
to have her she is a Powerhouse in the fashion industry so m is a clothing land and um I'm sure when she when we bring her on board she will tell us so much more about it so ladies I don't know if you have gentlemen here well okay ladies and gentlemen of course please welcome missory withing with Ovation of course thank you very much Ed M welome good morning thank you very much I'm so honored and you I'm so happy to be here today amongst women like me I'm really really excited thank you so much
first i' would like to really thank Mr and the team and still incentive for this really amazing opportunity it's always really wonderful to talk to women you know women are like the killer that to for me that's what I think you know it's always good to talk to women to share knowledge to women so I really I'm really honored to be here I'm really grateful for this opportunity to be here and I also like to celebrate the other facilitators that will be speaking together like you said over and over
again we have power houses here like people that have done so much I've impacted women in so many ways and I'm I'm so excited to be here I celebrate you Ms I celebrate everyone here on the call I celebrate you yeah so today um yeah you know my name is moyu and I run a clothing line and I'll be speaking about strategies for women to flourish in lifestyle entrepreneurship uh you know for you to flourish for you to for you to become someone of power in entrepreneur as an entrepreneur you have to do
so much you have to have grown to a certain extent you have to do in fact as a woman you have it's more like you have to do more than a man would do because you know before women are recognized you have to push push the barriers and so today we'll be speaking about lifestyle entrepreneurship I am in fashion so you try to relate if you're not in fashion like me try to relate it to the business that you're in yes so um first I would like to share my story uh I started this in 2016 in 2016 I was s
erving um you're a Nigerian year you know what serving means NYC I was serving NYC and you know I had I had a PR for fashion in University but I could not really pursue it because I had to get good grades in school so during NY I had to learn I went to not really a fashion was just a seing place to go and learn so I learned for a while for like six months after learning I felt like you I was done already but I go back home I realized I could not cut any clothes right you know I learned for six m
onths but there was nothing I could do with that knowledge and so in 2018 after I started working 9 to5 for like two years yes two years I went back to Fashion school where I learned for um about um one year and a half I learned for one year and a half and you know from there you know there's that there difference between learning where you're are not allowed to practice and the expence you learning where where you're allowed to practice I was allowed to practice here you know with have class wo
rks you know would walk over time when you get when you T this you're you're me you're made to do it over and over again so in passion school I was able to learn a lot know my knowledge grew so the first thing I say to any lifestyle entrepreneur here is first things first learn make sure that you have you know any fi that you're in you're in fashion you're in media whatever feel that you're you're in make sure that you have knowledge enough to pursue that field make sure that if you asked questi
ons in that field you're not just sturing make sure that if you're brought to a room filled with if I'm brought to a room with fashion people I should have something to say right I should be able to say something I shouldn't just be mute because I don't know anything so first thing as a fashion entrepreneur or as a lifestyle entrepreneur is that you learn make sure that you put yourself out there if you if you can't learn if you cannot afford to go to Fashion school then you can learn on YouTube
you can learn from videos on online you know you can start to grow from there there are some selftaught tailors out there there are some selftaught fashion designers out there not everyone went to Fashion school you know so you can learn from there yeah so first things first learn make sure that you learn number two thing I would like to highlight on have a strong why if you're in a business and you don't know the reason why you're there my darling sisters my darling women you're bound to fail
and it's not it's not me saying Doom it's not me you know saying um bad things about your negative things if you don't know why you're in that business and it's bound to fail so have a very strong why why am I here for me I would explain my own why one of the reasons why I said going to Fashion was because I love the fact that when I come out dressed a certain way with the right feets there's a confidence that you exud so if I walk into a room dressed really good my my head has to be up it's jus
t normal when I get into a room and I'm dressed where very well I I I exed a certain kind of confidence so if you're going to a field have a strong wife and I want to really highlight on this because this is something that will Propel you to do more so if you have a strong why then that means you have you have goals so I'm going to give you a quick class walk now wherever you are if you have a phone or a daughter right if you're in a business at the moment I don't know if you're in a business or
you're 9 to5 or you want to you want to be in a business write it down why do I want to be and answer that question now why am I in this business why do I want to be a fashion entrepreneur why do I want to be big why do I I want to send cloth globally why do I want to send closeth to other nations other states in Nigeria what's my reason like what your it may be profit if that's what's going to push you if you feel that be enough push you of course so I want you to I'll give you like a minute I
want you to write it down and yes I want you to write it down just write why do you want to be in fashion why do you want to be in media why do you want to be in interior design so I'm giving you one minute I'm hoping that someone out there is no responding to this question so one minute have a strong why and another thing I would like to say is that make sure that that that note you're writing keep it at keep it beside your bed somewhere where you sit or if you own the room can past it somewhe
re so you keep seeing it as you see your wife the passion rises in you it makes you want to do more it makes you want to forge ahe okay so one minute over there's anybody that like like to share what they wrote anybody anyone that would like to share what they wrote okay I assume that nobody wants to share okay is anyone that would like to share okay anybody okay I think hello yes I can hear you m yes um the reason I the the answer for the why is because I want to be able to meet the needs of pe
ople needs of okay I didn't I didn't get that M I said the the the answer for the why is because I want to be able to meet the need of the people that are in need of my products wow beautiful beautiful beautiful I love that let's put our hands together for her that's amazing very very amazing one of the reasons why I'm is because I want to impact lives you know I want to impact people I want people and I love I love the fact and this kind of Reon will never it you know to keep evolving so make s
ure that your wife is not a um selfish why right make sure your wife is not a um I want to I want to travel to Dubai I want to go on I want to go to Maldives of course is still good though no I'm not saying don't do that not fact me I want to go on vacation but make sure that that why is something that is impacting other lives make sure that is something that will keep you steady and keep you going number three thing as I'm sharing my story start small and start start small start anywhere of cou
rse there are people that start big I've known people that you know they going into business and they have 10 million 15 million 20 million right but if you don't have that amount of money starts more start anyway I would share um one of my experiences with you the first time I would ever make an outfit for someone was you know for my colleague at work that time I was my 95 and she wanted me to make a to her and a SK and I I didn't really want to do it because I'm like this bab I just started le
arning why you telling me to make you outfits right but then I just took the leap and then she even paid me for it I I think I that charg something because I was scared I didn't want to overcharge her so I took I took that LE you know I took it to work she tried it on in the restroom by time tried it on in the restroom someone came and was like someone was laughing at the dress what this why does this look like this I feel bad but that was the start right that was like 20 I think I was 2018 now
I will not make something like that so start more wherever you are at start it um um if you're on this call and youve been saying oh I'm going to start my business when I have one billiona I'm rning you m I'm morning you sis today make sure that you write all your goals and start that business make sure that you you start that business today even if you have then right because you can start a business as a drop shipper that's that's also possible if you don't have money you can do that to so sta
rt start now start that business right now start it now start it now this is for somebody start your business now even if you don't have money for it start now start with something first then you move ahead all right so next thing I would like to talk about know regard as regards my story expansion right so got to a point that oh I started getting jobs you know people were stealing from me i' get you know several customers and all but later I start getting overwhelmed one of one of the stories I
would tell people about me being overwhelmed was one day I go back on my night to5 you know I would close eight eight I would close 800 p.m. get back home like 11: p.m. and I had close to so so that day I sat on my machine from 11:00 p.m. till um 6:00 a.m. in the morning and I'm still going to work that day it was crazy I was just I was I was overwhelmed and tired so I realized that day that I needed to expand this business when your business is one man business it cannot go for subtitute you'r
e it's just you that makes the money you're the customer care exper you are social me everything you are the one make sure that there's a part of your business that you're delegating to someone else so so to get expansion first thing you do is take a risk the risk I took was I went and got a l lo I know a friend of mine spoke to me then and was like oh um Mo I think that you've been rejecting jobs so I feel like one thing that you can do for yourself to get people that are so like I'm like he ma
y not be able to SW like I do he may not be able to do the same thing that I do right so I I was really skeptical about it I was really I kept thinking about that if I give these people my clothes so they would mess it up and then customers would start saying oh the clothes are messed up Mo I know you're not the one that made this and all so I kept thinking about but I knew that I could not go back to that I I could not be overwhelmed because I still had a 9 to5 at that time so I thought about i
t and I started to dedicate t l so I took I would take outfits to them test how they could work and then they would make me what I want the ones are not as good as I want I put them aside the ones that are good I start to work with them so first thing you do for expansion is take a risk make sure that take a risk take a risk you spend that money that you have in your account take a risk you know I would have to Paya now right so take a risk spend that money get someone that can um what's it call
ed that can do what you're doing and do it well right someone that is doing what you're doing and can do it well do you understand me sorry could you excuse me let me I hope we are taking notes everyone um I mean as you can say I have my notes Here me my pen and my notepad I hope we all do too because there is so much to ear and there is so much to learn here my God I'm I'm just scribbling I keep scribbling so I hope we're doing the same um let me know if you have your nose and your P you can ju
st imate with amazing even has a nose pad that is a CEO ladies so I mean if you do not have your nose I will with you my god well a is back so I'll hand over the floor to her thank you Mom you're doing amazing thank you you thank you so much so as I was saying first thing that you need to do is take a risk if you're not willing take a risk then you will not move from where you are at and that's the truth you will not move you just keep going round circles they will know you as a let me see what
I maybe Remy designs but Remy design is still on that same spot for years you need to take a risk you need to spend that money you have with you and take a risk but first another thing is make make sure that your risk is calculated don't go and take they said um there's one container is 1 million n the old money you have in your account is 1 million n my sister no that's not calculated risk if you're going to take risk then make sure that it's calculated if you're going to maybe spend um what's
it called like maybe 200k from the one millionaire to take that R that's wise because you still have 800 in case everything perish right so first thing to do to expand is number one take a risk number two delegate delegation I know women we are we always a for strong I'm strong I'm strong I can do I can do everything no delegate make sure that everything those things that you cannot do very well make sure that you delegate it to somebody else to do make sure that if you're not the best at cuttin
g cets or you're not the best at making shirts let your Apprentice make it don't say they must see my touch they must know that M did it everybody in that Circle everybody in that company see M SE the name that they will see right make sure that you delegate delegate to someone else if you are not good at that thing even if you're good at teach someone else number three thing that will not happen after risk and expansion is that sorry risk and delegation is that you expand it is normal I'm telli
ng you from experience then immed I to take risk and delegate I expanded I got more customers I was making clothes for five customers a it became like 10 why because I delegated to someone else so I was still making my money and I was resting properly right and the company was flourishing so as women make sure that you are not you don't you're not so stuck up in the place that you are that you cannot dedicate to someone else right so next thing I would um now talk about is growth of course expan
sion is different from growth then growth is you going to the next level of um next level of your business next level of what you're doing so it got to when it was I think was 2020 through 2020 2021 2032 I start realizing that I could do more even though I was already making money but I could make more money right I could impact more people I could get across to more people across the nations of the world so in 2022 speaking to you know my coach no wor we'll talk about later I have a coach speak
ing to my coach I thought that this business it could be better than this like what what what can I do what can I how can I make this better talks to me about advertising advertising men and readen it gets to a point in your business where your neighbors and your family members and your Associates and the people that you know will not be enough to carry that business to Next Level the people that you know will not be enough if you want your business to go Global it's not only your neighbor that
you sell to right you want to business to go Global it should be just your neighbor you sell to you have sell to more people than us and so she spoke to me about sponsored Arts but if I'm going to do sponsored Arts what would I sell sponsored that even I'm doing is a lot I'm juggling a lot right so I switched into reg weed to make cloting B and you know we got into sponsor that and then we just went boom from there the first time I got a customer online that I did not know I was like oh my god r
eally I would after you know selling to her and then she gave me a good review I was just like wow amazing and then it went from 10 to 20 to 100s right so it goes high up from there then we went from just shipping to Lagos only shipping to all all states in Nigeria then we also went shipping to Nations across the world like Canada UK you know us and all so the next stage I want to really focus on this is because people don't like to spend money on Advertising they feel like they're just taking m
y money just influencers they just want to flex with my money say of course they flex your money but you get your results right you get your results so make sure that you if you have gotten to certain level and this is not for a beginner because you know I went stage by stage a beginner shouldn't just go and pay influencer just like that when you do not have substance yet and you paying influencers then you're going to just wreck your business in the beginning so when you've got to an extent whe
re you have substance already then you can now begin to pay people and another thing that you can leverage on is if you have friends that have huge following like I have friends that have following I spoke to them she would repost for me and know siblings that have huge following they post for me on social media for advertising your the core places you can advertise is first word of mouth we do but how many people can you tell then another place you can advertise is social media which is one of
the biggest strong goals now in advertising if okay we are ladies here but I'm sure you know Ronaldo and Messi now don't know there was a hard I think last year or something that was Ronaldo and Messi they used now how and was posted on social media so you realize how much big companies a big company like Louis Vuitton feels like Ronaldo and mercy are are useful to still take their markets no further so you need to understand that advertising and you know advertising generally marketing is very
very important for your business even if you're small just strive do a bit then another thing I think people do now is they do skids to sell that just do where the one that you can you know you can afford that at the moment and do it and as you begin to afford more do not say you're making um let me see you're making 2 million and your budget to um advertise is 20,000 my sis you're joking you're really joking you're making 2 million and you don't want to spend at all you're you're only using 20,
000 to advertise no you're making your 500k should be advertising because you it will spread like wildfires you are using your 500 that 500 will bring you back another 3 million n do you understand so make sure that if you're in lifestyle business or you're an entrepreneur follow this stage to help you just see it will look like I don't want to say look like just but it to look like but it not be FAS though but if you follow it little by little you get that point where you begin to ex Exel you b
egin to sell more and of course there's always another Next Level there's always another Next Level so one of the things okay I think I've said is for for someone in fashion here one of the things you should pay attention to pay attention to strength pay attention to trength pay attention to tr fashion fashion entrepreneurs don't just say oh this style this very full this full length I really love it I'm going to make 500 copies of it that's my Rewards pay attention to Trend what do people like
at the moment pay attention to it that will help you to be able to know what to bring what new designs to turn out know in Seasons so next thing I would um like to talk about is how to thrive in lifestyle business during economic artship um I was talking yesterday I telling someone that this time last year I think dollar was like 769 or so for us in Nigeria but in you know has gone to another level as at now so um all over and it's not just here in Nigeria right it's not just here in Nigeria eve
rywhere across the world there is economic me and in one way or the other so don't think it's only you I'm the only one running business I'm sweating God what am I no it's all over the world not just you even if you don't want to go say all over the world all over Nigeria there entrepreneurs that are still experiencing a lot of you know I don't want to call but a lot of challenges here and there so number one thing if you're going to flourish in these times that we are in is be positive make sur
e that you're positive make sure that you're not say oh my business will die oh I spent 500,000 on just you know um diesel in the past this make sure that you are speaking POS of course there's reality I'm do not don't acknowledge what reality is at the moment acknowledge reality but also make sure that you're speaking positive every single make sure you speaking positively speaking positively number two thing is and I'm really going to Dell on this because people do not understand how to affect
people make sure that you're surrounded with Brilliant Minds Brilliant Minds um you know it's really amazing that we are here today all 44 of us together spending time sharing life blessings with each other this is where you should be at make sure that you're surrounded with people that know more than you even if you know more than but make sure that they people that really that have goals I think I said the other time that you should have your goals Wren down I'm reaffirming it again now that
if you're a business like LIF entrepreneur and you are just we are running with the wind what today let me just start this business or let me just start this in my business make sure that you have goals goals that you know you have to follow over and goals that will keep you on your toes and even as you reach as you eat your goals make sure that you strive for more if you reach maybe you said oh in this month I'll reach 500 customers and you've got 500 customer then you next Target is 1,000 righ
t make sure that you are you're reaching for more so make sure that people around you people that you know search their their their brilliant mind go-getters people that are that want to do much more people that that want to expand people that see themselves globally right people that see themselves not just in their local right people that see themselves pursuing Global goals doing much more opening more stores reaching more customers impacting more people make sure that you are surrounded peop
le that are grounded like that even if you don't have people like that make sure you start going for conference and talk to the person beside you hello my name is moo I do this I do that what do you do of course in purpos like that you meet someone that is likeminded do you understand somewhere like this today of course many people that are like me that likeminded you understand me so make sure that people that are around you are likeminded brilliant people people that do not are not about medoc
you are not medoc at all number three thing I would say is in in times of hardship make sure that you up your game so people feel like in these times when it seems like profit margin is reducing this the time to delay back no this is the time to do much more this is time to push more this is time to launch more product this is time to shoot more content this is time to collaborate with other people reach out to um um and say oh I want I want us to collaborate and do something really huge right
this is time to do more don't say because things are a little harder then you are laidback do not be laidback make sure that you show up at your business every day for people that have small business can be easy for you to just wake up 12 today I can't post I can't wa she waai tomorrow no no no in these times of economic you should do much more it's funny that in this time is when some people would make this time when some people make much more money is in this that make make much more impact ri
ght so up your game if you're in lifestyle business up your game do more shoot more content collaborate more make sure that this time is not when you are just you just wallowing yourself with no rise up telling today you're not doing Mone rise up Sis Sis rise up and do much more and you'll be shock at the results you be I'm serious you'll be shocked at the result you just wake up on there you be like is this me they talking about but you'd have done the work because you have to do the work nobod
y can do it for you number fourth thing um I'll say is increase your prices increase your PR my coach would say something that a great business is a profitable business a business that will stand the test of time a business that be sustainable is a profitable business immediately your profit starts to doing do then check make sure that you check and be sure that you're not selling your your goods or whatever at the Landing cost do you understand me you you bought something for five n selling for
six n what's happening that's wrong make sure that you calculate everything the money that you spent on diesel the fing in your car everything that you spend calculate it make sure that you know everything your profit margin is the way it's meant to be so in these times of economic action of your increase your prices increase your prices because obviously um in these times it's obvious that your profit margin would have reduced if your profit margin was n before and then you buy raw materials f
or 15 and they're selling to you 100 that means there's no profit so don't say because you have 200 million in your account just buying goods and you sell them they giving it away don't know they are giving it away all right don't be that don't be that woman don't say because you've been giving maybe someone um your husband is the one that gives you the money and you selling it I'm pting everybody in the nation right at the moment they need to F so my good I sold at um um I bought at 10 million
I would just sell it 10 million no sis the greatest businesses in the world are profitable business they are insanely profitable right that's why they keep going that's why some business like M go for hundreds of years right because they are profitable there's no more profit how do they pay STS how do they feed if there's no more profit your business will close now so if you're going to try in lifestyle these times then that means that you have to you have to up your you have to increase your pr
ices I know I'm I'm very empathetic like sometimes I'm just P people but really this is business you need to up your price as an entrepreneur you're one of your main focus like um um Miss person I spoke the other time said that you have to make sure she said she wants to impact people life you're impacting people life you spend money money is being spent here today if you're going to impact's life you spend enough money right so make sure that if you're running a business that you're making prof
it from that business I hope we're getting me I can see the feedbacks thank you absolutely we enjoying thank you so the next thing I would like to talk about is of course there's thriving in economic arent there's now thriving on a normal day so guidelines to trve in your business to make sure your business Works number one thing is before you stock a product if you're in um if your maybe sell cement make sure that the cement you're about to start selling is the one that everyone uses don't stoc
k 100 bags of saying guys I just brought 100 bags no let me give an example of myself if I'm going to stop a particular product we do a sample first right so um let's say let's because I have names for my products right let's call it the Moa SK oh no let me someone else's name let's call it the Remy SK so if you're going to launch the Remis the first thing that we do is make it and show people when we see the feedback from people then we know that oh people want this your business is not about y
ourself it's not about what you like it's not about your PR it may be sometime s but mostly about what your customer likes so if I have a business and I'm launching something I have to make sure that I have customers that are willing to pay for it you don't have customers will willing to pay for your you stop 1,000 C I don't know what you do with 100000 1,000 of those things that you stop so first things first if you drive in your business make sure that you stock products that people want and h
ow do you do that I've used my example you first launch it first a soft launch oh we have this product see how many people react to it if you have over 1,000 people react to can go go on and produce 2,000 right you can go on and produce 2,000 and you you sell it off right you make your gain number two thing is for small businesses that's become like the norm for people to skip quality so because you're a small business and just started you don't have so much money then you skip quality you make
things that are Beyond below quality so if you would drive in your business and when I'm saying Tri I mean that your business will stand the test of time do you understand me your business will stand the test of 10 years 20 years 30 years of because I've not gotten the I'm saying for the number I've been in business for about seven years if you stand time for seven years that means that you have to first test know be sure that there's someone that wants to buy your product before you launch it o
ut right create awareness for that product first see the response and then from there you are able to know if you have a market for that product so sorry I've gone back to this point because it's really it's really very important but the second thing I talking about is quality make sure that the quality of your product is good make sure that it is good when we first start um the ready to wear version of M of course we said launch with products that were they were good quality but they were not t
he best right we said with that first we said with that for like maybe six months or something then we took it up a notch so even if you're starting with something that is basic make sure that that you are Reinventing yourself every day sis reinvent yourself every day reinvent yourself every day reinvent yourself every single day number three thing is when you're starting don't beat yourself up too much you are new not everybody knows you not everybody knows your name not everybody knows your bu
siness so don't start feel like ah nobody sees me nobody sees me let me just close this business it's not even what no everybody say one day now put St small so even if you're feeling like your business is insignificant put in work work at to work put in work so when your business is relatively new be rest assured that little by little people will get to know you and they'll begin to patronize you number four thing I'll say is be consistent I spoke about this earlier be consistent show up at you
r business every day don't say today you're selling Pants next week you're selling ice block upper week they selling I don't know what else to say all right make sure that you are consistent so every single day every single day my name is I'm I sell these things my name is moo I sell these things my name is this I sell these things I sell these things before you know it people start to look look at you and say mo your skirts more your outfit MO outfits and then when they need this thing they rea
ch back to you like they they know that this person is you can put these two together Mo M out right make sure that you are consistent I also wanted to talk about earlier about the fact that I'll talk to fashion designers now sorry if you're not a fashion designer if you're a fashion entrepreneur make sure that you are showing up in the best version of the of things that you s some years ago my you know I i' had gone for a meeting and my mentor was like Mo if you're going to um if you're sing ou
tfit right make sure that you show up in the best version of your outfit right so then making people see you they come at me I love what you're wearing can you make this for me even say that they say where did you get it from you're like it's me I made it myself right so if you're someone that you do something make sure that you are showing up with that people know that this is you and they can always come back to you for it don't show up with if you're you do interior and your house is not does
n't look like you're an interior designer no now when people visit you they will not even know they will not even recommend you because they feel like maybe she doesn't know what she so make sure that if you're doing something be the face of that thing work at it so much that you become the face right and of course as your business expand there will be more people sales people social media people and all those things yes but that time that in the beginning sis or whatever stage you are at make s
ure that you're representing your business with the whole of your heart and showing up for it every day number five thing I already spoke about the beat mentorship one of the people that propelled me so much to do this with like my mind my sister-in-law who's my business coach she have you posted that clothes that you wore yesterday why didn't you post it it looks really good post it post it make another one people want to buy it mentorship is very important in lifestyle entrepreneurship you can
not do it on your own and then I I hope you know the difference between mentor and role model a role model is someone you see from AF maybe you liked your lasto or and you see them from AF like I love them or you don't have access to them so a mentor for you on this call is someone that you have access to can you call that person are saying oh my mentor my mentor can you call that person at the moment can you say hello ma hello sir I really need this advice on this um Step I'm about to take so i
f you're going to to thrive in your business then make sure that you have a mentor and make sure that you have a mentor that wants you don't push yourself on anybody don't push yourself on anybody make sure that it's someone that you that wants you someone that wants your progress right someone that wants to see you high up there so don't of course have Role Models Ro models will make you see you know you're seeing so far and this person has gone Global this person is all in all the nations in t
he world of course it's good but make sure that you have a mentor if you're on this call today you don't have a mentor yet get one one get one I'll show up in your dream if you don't get one so um the last thing I would like to focus on so sorry a minut please miss Mo can you hear me yes please so actually your session is supposed to end by 11 but I'm sure you like you said I think you just want to touch on one more thing so I'm guessing you're about done in minutes just the last all right so I'
m just going give you a couple minutes okay so I'll just end with this um there's a you know a study that statistic brain did and the study came up with you know like a research that it did and the research came out with this percentage the percent of the percentage of businesses that would Exel and would still Tri after four years it's just about 7% right that means that 53% of businesses would go extinct after four years so I'm I'm really like for my business people here I want you to be part
of that 47% I want you to thrive I want you to grow I want you to you know become so big that you begin to Shi states to countries in the world but see you have to in the work so I'm done thank you very much I appreciate the feedback thank you thank you so much my God thank you so much I promise you personally and I believe I'm speaking for everywhere when I say I have learned so much this morning my God thank you so much thank you so much I I I don't know what else to say to be honest but I bel
ieve I was looking for everywhere I mean you can see the um expression in form of claps in form of heart emoji thank you so much Miss this is amazing we're so glad to have had you this was an amazing thank you so much all right so without Much Ado I'm just going to ask I'm just to the audience now anybody with questions for the next five minutes we're just going to be taking questions does anybody have questions uh please if okay so before we go ahead with that I don't know if you are intentiona
lly raising your hand because you have a question or that is a mistake please if it's a mistake you can lower your hand and if it is not stay on it anybody else questions me but I see that you already raised your hand anybody else with questions I just want to take I just want to know number of people we have with questions right now so um all right so um has up please you can unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question all right hi great session thank you for for coming on on and you
know I've learned quite a few things um you know you're in the lifestyle sector so obviously you know it's totally different from what I do um I was just you know wanted your thoughts there was um a podcast I watched last week with um Jeff Bezos who's the head of Amazon and you know when you spoke about you know having smart people with you and so on and he was saying that when he goes for meetings he he no longer speaks first because that sort of changes the mindset of everybody so what he doe
s is that he speaks L and the the person in the lowest ranking in that meeting is the person that speaks first because they probably have the best idea for change you know so which I thought was quite Innovative because in in you know here maybe in our own boardrooms in our meetings it's always the AAR that will speak first and and that will influence everybody so I thought oh okay this is something that is new so I mean I I wanted you to speak to that and also you spoke about qualitative um do
you know doing qualitative work which even for us as Skil tensive we're always sort of champion for doing you know qualitative work because at the end of the day that is what speaks for you that is what helps your business grow so I wanted you to maybe go back and really reemphasize on that because there's a saying that says you know quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten so I I want you to just you know reemphasize you know those and what your take is on maybe speaking you know
looking at maybe the the stuff that not so that's not so high and you know what you think you know should be their role in in the workplace thank you thank you very much ma'am so for the first um question about jeos I feel that is really good I think that is a very amazing know take from him for me when I'm working with um my people that we work together ask them we bring there a style we're about to recreate ask the fashion designer or the Tor that I'm working with what you think about this ca
n you break it down for me so when the person breaks it down sometimes you even get more insight into it so but as as the CEO if you talk first nobody wants to say CEO is wrong right nobody wants to say em I think that the style is not like that no but if you allow them to talk then you get fresh ideas you get people different perspective and then you you know you do much more so that's why I say if you have people around you know that smart you know even if they are still growing up there these
little ideas they can bring to your table who change things who switch things up so that that also takes us to delegation if you do it all by yourself you might not come with fresh ideas I'm sure je Vis does not do everything by himself right there a team of people that do it together so if you have people around you ask for their you know what they think about what you're doing get their ideas and another thing you do to help them know reward them by also doing those things like even if you wo
uld Now work on it and make it better make sure that you don't just trash that and say no this is wrong if you're a CEO and making your your um what's the people that you work with and you just down the ideas and you're creating a very pungent environment and then you realize one day that nobody talks nobody talks when you're talking but if you as someone that like Jeff wer said you incorporate ideas together then you see much more growth you see expansion and you know things get better then I a
nswer your question okay so the other the other one I would like to talk about is the um the Quality quality is so important it's extremely important it's so important if I buy something for me today and it's good I will come back I have customers have come back two five six times I'm not I'm I'm not exaggerating don't think I'm I'm not exaggerating because he know they get quality for me and one of I not I did not mention was that customer experience if if I I us treat customers like I'm at the
other side so if I'm interacting with someone I'm trying to make some something for someone I make sure that the person is satisfied right customer experience is so important so if you you're making something and the quality is not good get ready for erect business I'm sorry I like to be very upfront in four years your business will no longer be like the statistics that we talked about it's just research and it works that way make sure that what you turn out every single time is good and then i
f you have just 10,000 make sure that you use it well and do something good and put it up front don't be about making one million copies and the one million copies are not good small businesses should learn that make sure that you're want if you're making two copies two copies you touches someone's and wor of much yes someone said oh mo someone referred me to you because they have gotten value from me so make sure they giving value value will make people keep coming back to over and over again w
hy do you keep people coming back thank you very much thank you so much Miss Mo thank you up for that question um anybody else want to have questions please go ahead now you can just raise your hand um I can see the expressions of Applause thank you so much guys so um does anybody else have question for Miss Mo Let Her Go if you have questions you can just raise your hand please um anybody else want to ask question okay I think I'm just G to go ahead and ask mine and the truth is Miss Mo I'm ask
ing this on behalf of I mean my sisters can't be here right now they're also fashion designers and I think they both went to the market I think they went to s for Fabrics right now so I mean I'm I'm in the office right now and none of them around because I think they went to the market so I wanted to ask how were you able to find people that worked with like you I I remember when you said you were trying to expand and you were looking for um Tailors and other people that could do what you did an
d would make you know take off the burden reduce the workload on you so how are you able to I mean you said that it was scary I think I remember you saying it was scary to actually let go because it was a question of but my sister currently experiencing the same thing and they're like how are they going to do it how they going to find somebody that can actually do things the way they do it so how are you able to overcome that and how are you able to find emphasis on find people that could actual
ly walk in line with your vision because there are taor out there and there fashion designers out there there is a v difference the bridge is much so how are you able to find designers and not tell us because then the story is long so the FL is yours well okay so first off um um if you're going to find te L Los that would work for you you have to try do try and error sorry I'm using that Nigerian term you have to work do it take a risk as I said you take risk take the first risk see if you work
so I'm just going to say um use my story as an example because if I'm saying it like this you look like it's impossible so what I did was I went around where I lived then and looked for tailor gave them fabric fabrics I knew were not so expensive gave it to them showed them what I wanted them to do like GI like I think three showed them what I wanted and I went back there to check it right of course I didn't even tell them that oh I want you to work with me blah I just said make something for me
let me see let me see your work and then they made something for me they were the first two zero I knew that if I start if I know there's there's a there's the um Co um because there's someone that you employ that you know that you can always teach you can mentor the person you can help the person to improve do you understand me like you can help the person and there's the other one that you know that the the work I would do with this person the work I'll put in with especially as a small small
business the work I'll put in would be a lot and you don't have that time do you understand do you do you understand so one one thing I I want I would advise that to do is First Look for ta law get Fabrics are not so expensive experiment with them see if they can get what and it doesn't have to be exact at that it doesn't have to be um reprodu exactly right the people I use now when I started with them they were not producing exactly what I wanted but he produced something similar clothes the f
inishing was good it was clean do you get me so if you use someone make that there are people that they already in line they fing that line you're going on then if you it will not be more it would be easier to now push them more in that regard push them more that oh I don't want I don't want this like this do this like this then another thing is pick people that are teachable Pi pick people that are teachable there are some employees that they know more than you and they're never willing to lear
n so don't don't pick them as especially as a young woman know sometimes if it's a woman above a certain age they respect them but as a young woman people that are teachable that will listen to you an employee that is teachable is better than the one that is that's already um what's it called experienced and established in that sphere if you have someone that is going to towards the line that you're going and they teacher pick them over the person that is experienced and is will not listen to wh
at you're saying so as a young or a woman in the lifestyle business people that are table next thing I'll say after you pick them then you have to monitor them I'm sorry people don't want to he this part you think you I know I told you I went to relax but no I wasn't relaxing I wasn't closing both of my eyes you have to monitor them over and over again may you monitor them for like six seven months on the eighth month you can close it you can just say hello um this this get this done go to this
take them to where you get things show them the route for like six months seven months and then they'll be able to reproduce what you're reproducing maybe not exact but after working with them two three years then you're able to produce exactly and another thing I will say is that make sure that you treat treat your staff well don't be those people that oh you're you're celebrating um whatever and then you you're you're eating um whatever I don't know I don't want I don't know what examples use
but you have a place you with delices you're serving them Min Meats rubbish they will not love you and then there's a way that when when an employee values you loves you they would do the work with the whole their heart right you do it with the all of their heart so make sure that you you you value them by taking care of them p and charge your customers and pay them well that's me that's how I am I'm just saying myself CH them and pay them so that everything is going smoothly you have peace of m
ind that's it what else did you ask um yeah I think that was that was that was ask thank you so much M I think we've run out of time for even question and answers I mean because we I would love to go on and on I already have another one muted right here but trying to we're trying so hard to keep up with time but I will enter your DM on inst free enter my DM I'm here I'm here for you guys so glad have connected with you here today and I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone when I say it has been a pl
easure having me here with us um I I think mrma posted your Instagram the link to your Instagram to Instagram page on in the chat box I don't know if you guys can just go to the top you should find a link to an Instagram page the and if if at all you just want to go straight to Instagram and sech you can just type m o a d y did I get it m yes m o a d y underscore yes just say all right I'm let us go to Instagram let us go and follow let us encourage we are grateful thank you for giving us this m
uch of your time today do not take it for granted we understand that you're an entrepreneur and there will always be called here and there but you gave us your time we do not take it for granted thank you so much M me I we enter your DM free feel free all right thank you so much maam um everyone ladies please can we express our gratitude with emojis in the chat box thanking Miss Mo for this amazing session on lifestyle entrepreneurship we are great yes we can see the love we can see the Applause
thank you guys so much all right thank you so much Miss Mo um I'm going to let you go now but I you have other things I need to attention thank you so much for great all right ladies I hope we have had so much fun this morning this is just the beginning we're just getting started so I hope that um so right now we're going to move on to um testimonial um distribution of part videos that um that was power the for by and skill tensive so please and please um let's us take this while we watch the v
ideos I'm sure we're watching on our phones and whatnot so while we have our phones and we're moving around we can just make you know take a drink of water or something and enjoy the video and I will be back in a couple of minutes cheers bye currently on mute the video we can't hear anything so I don't know media team can you please help us unmute the video so we can hear what is being said thank you so we're here for international Women's Conference Outreach by TRL we're going to be talking to
girls on menstral hygiene being an inclusive woman and also going to doing a free sanitary this is n precisely Mass I e that well done once again miss Mo and the moderator Robert so right about now we'll have a z up we'll be introducing The Honorable on the call thank you so much a over to you maam okay thank you so much um everyone and thank you to our previous speaker I have to say I was really excited to to listen to her session she's obviously making great strides in the entrepreneurship spa
ce and I think you know the lifestyle area um is an industry is a creative industry that's sort of coming up and you know making an impact in our economy so thank you for that and our next speaker is um The Honorable commissioner for basic education in um Casina state so I'm very excited to actually introduce her she's uh an Amazon I have to say somebody who is making great impact so I'll just read you know uh bits from her profile um hadiza abubakar erwa has been a key stakeholder across the ba
nking um and fund management sector of our economy and also of education for over two decades she's been a passionate Nation Builder and has pioneered and supported so many initiatives particularly targeted at Youth Development vocational education youth UPS Skilling and career growth she has set up the leading montauri and early childhood centers in Nigeria called wooden TOS International School in 2009 she has since been at the help of Affairs of the organization for the last 14 years contribu
ting towards nation building one child at a time so she resigned from her role as MD in June 2023 when she was appointed The Honorable Commissioner of basic and secondary education in Cas State based on her Stell performance as a private sector professional in her role as honorable commissioner hadiza has championed several impact initiatives some of which are first of their kind in the state these efforts haven't gone unnoticed as she has gone on to be nominated by the Nigeria Governor Forum fo
rum's education unit to serve as the focal person for the Northwest Zone in the committee of State commissioners of Education of the 36 states of Nigeria Hada finds time to engage in other passions like writing periodic newsletters and sharing inspirational video content of um to discuss of a program called discuss with has on the community which now has over 3,000 members with online impressions of over 40,000 so she's been instrumental in facilitating several entrepreneurship initiatives that
have created a more conducive business environment and empowered women entrepreneurs to become a force to reckon with in their respective communities she's also a Ted speaker with her topic on navigating through Al Copic men mechanisms postco in 2021 to boost her recognition with members of that demography so we're actually really excited to have Hada on and The Honorable commissioner ha Hada er um who is really making great so very excited so on behalf of Skil T safe training and development co
mpany and the tun Rema leadership Hub we welcome you to this um program thank you so much and we're grateful that you're here thank you thank you the good morning everyone I I'm going to address you as dis so yes please um permit me um so like we always all all I've learned to say um permit me to stand on all existing protocols it's fast become something that um we're always saying um thank you so much for having me on this platform I'm really excited to share um My Little experience thus far um
and like you rightly said at DIY um little did I know or think that um I would be in a position um that I am today but I am grateful um and I am very um opportuned because it's it's now giving me a much wider platform to do more um in terms of Education in terms of giving back um in terms of just being there for my fellow women um in fact at the moment every time in C when we talk about the girl child girl I'm like well what about The Boy Child um because I feel like you know we are we are mean
t to raise um both of them the boy child and the girl child so it's been quite a journey it's been quite an experience um as a woman I have to say it took me a while to actually find what my purpose was um what what is my purpose in life what do I want to leave as my legacy what do I want my children to see me as a mother um how do I want my parents to see me as a daughter and then in the society in general when you leave this earth what would you like to be remembered as and um has always reson
ated with me since I was a child I always felt um I always felt really sad when I see um young children walking on the streets they're not in school and I always used to say to myself if by God's willing inshah if any any any chance I get I will make sure that um every child goes to school and here we are now every child you know should go to school and have quality education um our whole Mantra our whole mandate is um in Kat especially is to see that every child is given the same opportunity as
the next child that is in any private school and they're able to compete with children um globally actually so it's it's all about what can we do how can we do and who can we do do it with because it has to be a collaboration um I can't do it alone um you know even on the state level I am constantly looking for um forums and platforms um and organizations that can um collaborate with us in the state to make a greater impact um so yeah like I said it's been a journey my school um it's my baby it
's my passion I wanted to just um make sure that the foundation I think the foundation is very important um of education and that sets the tone so I'm very happy to see these little ones come into school and actually watch them grow um and become you know who they become until so they move on and I'm very proud to be part of that process in their lives because um Foundation is everything you know with I'm a Montan by profession so my school is actually um a montauri school and we all know Monsou
r is uh you know learning by through play teaching children how to be independent um how to have self-respect um so it's all it's like a holistic um environment and I am trying to actually take that model to Kat um it's be it's difficult because obviously I have over three million children under my um my my um my my my office my home basically so it's quite difficult to take that model maybe I could do that in the private schools because I'm also in charge of the private schools in Kats um but t
he public schools you know right now we're trying to identify what are the issues what are the gaps um for one we know literacy um it's it's a really um it's a huge issue the reading skills their writing skills is something we really need to to work on um so generally I feel like it's opening more doors for me right now as the commissioner I'm meeting other women in all different aspects of um career path um I just came back from New York I was at the CW csw 68 oh my God I met so many women who
are doing so many great things um they inspired me to want to do more um to learn more um and share knowledge and the most important thing that I took away from there is that we have to be each other's um Keepers we have to be able to support each other we have to be able to encourage each other um so you know I have you know you look at women like you know Angi or well you look at somebody like Dora um you know these are women that have are make they're making um impact they're telling their st
ories through their work and um I'm looking at them I'm looking at people like anti Amina and the UN as well um you know even women like you are dizy that are doing you know putting these sort of programs and initiatives together um we're telling ourselves we're telling our daughters that you know you can make a difference I I think for me it's more of what what can we do to make things a bit more better um I know at the workpl not even in in Nigeria and Africa even worldwide it took a while bef
ore women could have a say um for instance in Saudi it's just recently women are allowed to drive um women are allowed to work so you know we've come a long way um but I think we have more more more um more to give I don't want to say we have more to give than the men but um you know it's it's it's a great it's a great um time in my life because then my voice can be heard um um and um I like I said it's it's something like for the discuss with has um let me speak briefly about that I have few co
usins that seemed lost in terms of what they wanted to do in in careers and what they want to you know sometimes I feel they the genes and the Millennials they just want things to be handed over to them and I keep and I started asking them questions well what what would you like to do what would you how much money do you think would be enough money for you to be able to live your lifestyle um how do you see yourself in the society adding value and they just seemed lost I just and then they're li
ke well yeah has why don't you tell us so that was how discuss with has give I give birth a discuss with has it's it's a platform where um you know I I speak my truth I tell you my experience in whatever it is that you're going through um I think that's one thing we also need to remember we have a lot of people that Mentor people out there but you have to be able to resonate with what they're saying to you um and be honest with them so I used my own personal stories and struggles my strengths my
weaknesses to help others and um you wouldn't believe it sometimes when I'm speaking to them I now find answers to my own issues or something that I've been struggling with so it's kind of given me an opportunity to reflect um on what it is that I'm also going through so that was how discuss with has um came about um I get private messages um we we have a you know social media platform where we're putting things out there so um you know the thing is as we progress we can see more and more activ
e involvement in women's participation in governance in our state the governor has um five of us um in his cabinet and to be honest he seems to be very proud of it you know wherever he goes he's like look at them my my Commissioners and we're relatively young um in compared to the other Commissioners that are there um we're all in our mid-40s I think the youngest commissioner is our Commissioner of Justice she's 36 so um yes and it's see so he's giving that opportunity for women I think he's als
o Al recognize that in certain areas we can Thrive we can do better um perhaps than the men and I think most of us are technocrats none of us are polit politicians um he did he did a vigorous background check so for me to to come in as commissioner of Education he I think I worked with him for six months as a consultant um without knowing what he wanted me to do but it was sort of like he was testing me and pushing um my buttons and giving me assignments um and then you know here we are and it y
ou know the the ministry is such a huge one um you know I have like seven parles under me um sometimes it it does get overwhelming I sometimes I put blanket over my head and I'm like I don't know if I can do this but um I Tred to you know the end result is what I am after um the Legacy that we're going to leave the impact that we're going to leave um the push we're going to give his children um and then quickly um don't so that I don't take too much time coming up a new initiative again he's the
governor his Excellency Mar is very um Advanced forward he's very technical he wants um the state to the schools to move to e-learning schools um because we are really behind with that in the north so um he's willing to you know train and retrain the teachers um equip the schools with computers interactive boards um take them out of C state for them to see what's happening in other um States and even outside the country um so you know he's got myself as the commissioner of Education he's got a
female for commissioner of uh women affairs he's got a female for obviously sa girl child then we have the um the justice and then we've got um um he's he created a model like smeen we have that in Kat now and it's called cada and it's actually run by a woman so like I said he's actually empowered um women to come and help him you know move cin a state forward in such a way and you know he always tells us it's a sacrifice you're giving back to your state we're happy to do that you know we we wan
t to give back and we want to see our children Thrive um definitely so I'm just going to stop I'm just talking all over the place trying to say everything all at once but um yeah so far it's been it's been quite a journey and I'm grateful I'm thankful for this opportunity to be part of the so many women on this platform that are doing great things um and uh learn as well from from each and every one of you so thank you very much I thank you thank you honorable commissioner it's been great to to
have you on the platform and um one of the things I actually want to ask you is that was it diff I know you said you were a consultant with him for six months but was it so difficult to sort of adjust in terms of the governance aspect you know you're you're moving from really the private to the public sector and how hard was that for you to adjust based on maybe your modern versions cultural uh issues and so on so that's one question for me and also I can see there's a hand from haami who also h
as a question for you so you can maybe take the question fromi and then answer as well thank you hello okay so nice to have you on board thank you for joining so what you do actually quite um resonates very well with what we do at um skill tensive training and development company basic education is very very dear to our heart we believe that every child deserves to enroll in school and stay in school that's very very important now I just wanted to ask you know how do you see the future of women
and youth in governance if evolving evolving you know particularly in your state of um ktina where you you just told us that you have five women in cabinets what opportunities will will emerge for those women for women um in this field what are you doing push for women to be more to be actively engaged in governance are there any um specific resources or organizations you might recomend there are women on this platform who are seeking to advance their careers in governance are there is there any
thing that you know you can advise resources or organizations that you know they can key in with I know you've talked about smedan or smak and all that you know but um you're you're operating at the base level of uh basic education yes but you know there are women wanting to advance in their own careers how can they um using your own story how can you um how can their future be um upscaled in this aspect okay thank you adami um okay so I think yes um moving from private to public sector was a co
mplete shock to my system um one and then obviously leaving my family um my husband my kids and moving to Kats yes I'm from Kat um but we've never lived there so the entire shift from when I moved just after the inauguration up until about 3 or 4 months I honestly cried myself to sleep almost every night because I felt alone um I didn't have friends and honestly the um the work environment was not what I was used to first of all there were papers and papers and papers and papers and files and fi
les stacked up ways its higher and I'm like where am I going to start from I had so much resistance with the men um all the directors were men I had 11 directors that worked for me um and they resisted so much whenever I call for meeting they would not come on time they would send their assistant directors so it was almost as if they were pushing my buttons they were testing me to see um and at first I was always wanning to cry to his Excellency and he just looked at me like okay yeah you need t
o you need to grow a thick skin you know they would push your button so I struggled a lot with that and then I decided okay I'm going to have um a 3-day Retreat where I'm going to get all the directors all the technical assistants all the people the major stakeholders the um heads of the parastatal we went to CaRu I outlined every single thing that I already I envisioned I put it out there for them to see we spoke about it for three days and I said these are my expectations this is the ministry'
s expectation this is his excellency's expectation so everyone key into this Vision I am not here to play politics I am not here to stop you public servants from getting your little tokens here and there I am here to do the work and I cannot do it alone I need you guys to be on board so the first thing is I Tred to change their mindset I Tred to change the way they saw um not even me what the governor wanted to do um so it you know we had that Retreat and I think from then on um even for me pers
onally I started to feel at ease because then you know people are keing into my vision we're having regular meetings um of course you would you would imagine everything that was being done before I'm saying we're throwing out the window we're doing it the new way we're we're digitalizing everything we're keeping reports in on the system I had the directors they had to train them to use the computers I scheduled meetings every two weeks so before I even went into the schools into um the field I h
ad to deal with the HR System in the ministry I have um 223 staff in the ministry um so each department you have director of schools director of quality assurance so it I was doing it um bit by bit um because that is what it is if they don't come on board every other thing that I would want to do any new initiative it will never fall through we would start but they would regress because I can't be in all the seven different departments and I was given the opportunity if I identify someone that d
oesn't have the capacity I can change them as the commissioner so and again I was struggling do I want to come in and start weeding out people before they say the commissioner is firing or or moving people around but to be honest with you I really had to you know with prayers and um Family Support um I had to say to myself well I can't fail failure is not an option I'm not here to fail I'm not here to to make friends I'm not I'm not at an age where I need new friends um I just need everyone to j
ust see what the vision is so we kept having fortnite meetings going back to the drawing board and I think eventually everyone sort of saw that you know it's making sense um this is what we need to do of course you still have the one or two that they don't really care they're just after whatever they're going to put in their pockets um so that was that you know emotionally it was draining mentally is training I I I now had a boss I've been a boss myself for almost 15 years so that was a differen
t um shift for me as well I mean he can just call at 900 p.m. and say come in for a meeting and we're at his office till 2: a.m. um so you know it took it took a while before um I adjusted to be honest but alhamdulillah I think now I've gotten into a rhythm where I would stay three weeks in Katana or two weeks and then come home for like a week um so we we we have a system now that kind of works for me um next question from adeli um so i' like me the the thing that I saw there was that it was al
most as first of all we have this you know in the north especially kaso these places they don't value education they don't see the importance of education and most of them you have by 15 14 they've they've gotten married so what we decided is conversation went for on for a very long time even with his Excellency how do you change the narrative and the first thing I said to him was we need to start having sensitization programs so we have three senatorial zones we have da we've done two in Kats i
t's a lot of planning it's a lot of work and then of course you have to remember we're trying to be safe because we have the insecurity issues to to to think about so sensitization program is where I will take a number of people it's a team there will be someone who would speak to them in housea um they then I would you know speak in English and then um we just want to show them the importance and value of education and one thing the governor always says is when we go out together we're doing a
flag of he's like so children can come like commissioner and be speaking English and becomes commissioner so you know it's it's almost like intentionally we're beginning to change the way they see things my most important thing is the importance of education and the value what it can do to them as a as a person what it can do to them as a society um at large and even to their families so one of the things we're doing is we sensitization and we're only nine months into our Administration so we ha
ve a lot of things that we want to map out and roll out under the women's um Affair commissioner we have a lot of skill acquisition programs that she's running and um you know she's just started like I said it's only been nine months so we do a lot of skill acquisition where we're teaching them you know things that they can learn to earn a living um as well and then they can go and become Master they become master trainers and then they start to train other people in their communities um we have
that we are also I am also looking at I said to his Excellency I would want to pick out um few girls that are really doing exceptionally well to go on an exchange program abroad I want to give them that opportunity to see the endless opportunity that they have um if when and if they do well because it's you know it's all tied together you know you have to do well and I'm not 100% person who is on 100% academics I want to be able to like I said I'm I do it holistically so yes academics is good b
ut I know in the next I have a feeling the next 10 15 years it's your skills that will take you far so I am bringing in digital literacy um skills and trainings and I'm saying to him we need to invest um there's so many things out there and I'm also trying to bring back our technical schools we used to have them when I was growing up in kaduna um I'm trying to bring that back so you know under the education sector like I said we've sort of outlined we have bullet points what are the things that
we need to fix you wouldn't believe it we will I walk around the classes and I'm speaking to a child in js1 and I'm asking her questions in English she doesn't understand what I am saying and I'm thinking this is a girl in js1 what are we doing or what what are we what are we doing here you know when I asked the principal the principal say oh it it's from the the primary schools so okay primary schools what's going on first of all the caliber of teachers we need to change it's going to take a ve
ry very long time for us to face them out because in Civil Service they go by their grades you can't just dismiss them so what we decided to do was we would be giving them exams every two years and if you don't pass we weed you out um so we do have quite a number of initiatives but like I said it's still early days um there's a lot and we've realized that we need to Pace ourselves and take it one step at a time we have to be realistic what is feasible what would work for now um so I try to use m
yself as an example when I'm speaking to these young girls I tell them like I said I I I like to use my own personal story so that they can see that they're able to to achieve um even more than I have so I want them to be able to to really think outside the box so um for now it's just sensitization honestly and making them see the value and importance of uh of Education thank you so much honorable commissioner we appreciate you coming uh onto this platform today to educate us more on what you're
doing you know the role of governance and um you know really furthering the conversation when it comes to investing in women accelerating progress and you know um really strengthen the theme of this year's iwd so thank you so much on behalf of Skil tens and the TR leadership um HK you so much great to have you it's been great to have you thank you so much I'm going to hand over to um midday so that she can introduce the next speaker as well thank you so much so because we're trying to keep the
time thank you so much I appreciate thank you thank you so much ma'am thank you we have had an amazing session today I think everyone can attest to the fact that we've had an amazing session so um I'm just going to go on to introduce our next speaker our next speaker is going to be coach UA Albert and she's a BSD and MBA holder she's a cross functional digital payment professional with over 22 years experience in business development product management sales and marketing customer service strate
gy and operation I believe right now is a good time for us to collab um we our profile is so long my God you guys have no idea um she started out our career in unified payment service limited as a training she grew through the ranks moving across various roles in the organization customer service operations sales and client relationship management amongst others she left as head payments and acceptance infrastructure um she also in 2016 joined Express Payment Solutions limited where she spent ov
er five years holding different executive management roles he later joined itex integrated Services a digital payment solution provider based in Lagos where she was a chief growth officer overseeing business expansion and growth in Africa she also joined keeper Africa as executive director of payment services to lead to payment services team to try the pro of keeper Payment Solutions for smes in Africa she is currently the VP routing and switch in for flutter W technology limited she's also a Fo
under she's also the founder of keep line Consulting limited a consulting firm which empowers small and mediumsized businesses to develop and execute business strategies to drive Market launch growth and Foster operational efficiency she's a life business and executive coach working with individuals to claim Clarity and direction for personal goals and development she works with small businesses business owners and executive to maximize the personal for growth and Market leadership she's a prove
n effective leader skilled in development coaching and oversight of high performing multi-disciplined and quality oriented team my God I hope we are excited I hope we are very excited because oh my days this this this profile is I mean I mean I don't I don't know what to say so I'm move on I just more about her she's successful she's a successful executive with the ability to leverage Trends across Industries and markets to derive Solutions and approaches focused on creating value for customers
and businesses business profitability for the company demonstrated ability to streamline processes for efficiency and productivity I hope we're excited in fact I wish I could just forward our proile for everybody and then we could just read through and at this point I expect that our Applause is going to be through the road our excitement is going to be through the road uh let me just read this final um part about her and then we can welcome coach Tony Albert to take us so she obtained a high pe
rformance leadership certificate from Cornell University USA and she serves as an associate member of Nigerian Institute of Management he's also a certified customer service Professional Service quality Institute USA and a life coach with a degree in computer science from Uno State University now University of AD and a master's degree in Business Administration from the prestigious university of Legos ladies please can we welcome coach Tony Albert with thank you you know everything let's just ke
ep it coming you're welcome m thank you thank you so you indulge me I'll be presenting so that we can you know really deal with this good day everybody I'm excited to be here thank you for the invitation thank you for this opportunity to speak to us from the point of view and and feel the in the house and I want us to continue with that uh energy even as we today ftech space the speakers before me they've done wonderful job by laying a good foundation for you know what we're going to be talking
about and uh that's that's it so we go ahead okay so quickly we'll just be looking at fintech the fintech industry we'll be looking at challenges faced by women and striving in the fch space as uh women so what uh if you look at fintech what do we mean by fintech what we mean by ftech is the financial there is that Financial aspect and there is technology aspect so when we bring both together that's what we call fintech so in the FTE space they are is the economic industry that leverages technol
ogy to deliver financial services so what do we mean it's all about technology there's a whole lot that happens in the fch space with tech technology so what that means is that you have the financial services like account opening by making pay like making payment receiving payment but how do you do that without somebody physically visiting you or you taking out cash to be able to do that transaction so the fex would usually use technology to bring that to r at the comfort of our houses or not go
ing to the bank just by means of card or means of wallets and all that so that's what the finex do and the businesses the companies that actually technology to bring that to us they are called the fintech so there's fintech industry there's ftech companies you know themselves and what do we have as benefit uh if we if I take memory Lan there was once time that exchange was a means of you know getting so you you go to somebody that has R able good so that way I can e and you can e yeah after some
time we went to Car Cash trade and all that after cash around 2001 1998 2001 we had boom of in the country not really to store value on it before you able to use it and again by 2020 202 And1 we had the Nigeria where I reside draw money from and happens on Onin the so what they most of us we agree that today you able to do some financial transaction without the comfort of your office anywhere where you are so the servic was faret so what do I mean by farfetch some people even in the state or co
untry where they are they have to travel a long distance to be able toess financial services but with the help of that's you know there were many that developed and it was possible people toal Services of course new of doing things have to go to the bank to go and take number want to make deposit and you go to the bank as early 6 a.m. in the morning that doesn't happen anymore that's part of you brought to us efficiency ability to know use techology ensure that some processes or some things are
done with from the user point of view you also brought reduced costs because they are able to collaborate operating cost per for is actually lower than have so you can imagine if you have to to the branch to do to that means that the branch would definitely have to recruit stuff and them there to attend to customers but there are things you can do without even going to a banking Hall there are you can do you don't even need any human being to have contact with any human being for you to be able
to do that so it has brought in reduced cost customization also people are able to do transaction as it relates to their industry if you're in the shipping there are things that the Fest can do for you if in the education sector there are things that the Fest can do for you and this way we have been able to see personalized service for individuals or even uh sectors that you know people operating so what types of f do we have uh we have payment and remittance fintech that's like the flutter wave
of this world so they help you when you use your card in a store you actually don't know what happens at the back end you just know money leaves your account and the customer gives you the goods as a user that's what you see but the people that you know provide the infrastructure provide things that makes that possible they the payment F so they allow you to be able to do that transaction with ease and you're not worried about how will the money leave me to go to the store that you are purchasi
ng from that doesn't happen so those are the fexs that are for payments and remittance so from Nigeria I can send money to someone in the US I can pay for school fees in Canada or whever that's the fintech and remittance you know uh uh finex payment and remittance fintech for wealth and investment we also have fintechs that are into wealth and investment they facilitate the buying and the selling of investment so like stock trading apps that you have on your phone you can actually invest in some
companies you can you know go to money markets you can make some Investments and all that you can even you know enable in Nigeria for example you can enable direct debit so that at the end of a particular time of the month your account is debited and is taken to an investment account so those are finex are investment and uh W management uh industry also you have FX in the insurance industry right they are the people that provide platforms that helps to streamline and make you easy for us to use
insurance policies so you want to buy a policy you can actually do that from the comfort of your phone without having to do so much so those are Insurance fexs lending and financing like you a a woman for example a female founder that wants to raise money you can do crowdfunding what do what do I mean by that you can get 1,000 people to give towards that business and you take that money and invest it in that business so that process in itself is actually financing platform anything that has to
do with finances also lending there are people to online without even having contact with the organization they taking the loan from so those are lending and financing uh fex we also have embedded Finance which is something that is new in the industry today so it's possible you're hearing about pay buy now pay later people comp for example what they do they provide that platform where people can get is not advancing you funds to buy something and you pay lat usually the e-commerce platform so if
you go to uh a for example want to buy clothes and you have picked all you want to buy can subscribe to their service and they pay if you don't have the money at that point in time and able to get the clothes there and they collect their money back in bid after the transaction also have the re there are people that provide platforms for monitoring for Regulatory Compliance for companies that are in ftech to be able to comply with the regulation for their industry they also provide uh kyc know y
our customer Solutions so now CBN for example have said if you making if you're opening an account for example of whatever sort your bvn or n must be validated these are people that provide that service so they give that platform for people to be able to validate your details before those accounts are you know uh opened so as women or individuals how then do we play in the fintech space all of us one way or the other we actually playing in the f space and uh one is that we can play as investors
so what investors are people that invest in fex so you have Flo away for example that have investors you have other fex that also have investors so they put in their money either for social impact or returns or for Equity or they give it out to these companies as debt so we can as women also be involved in this providing funds for fex to be able to run their businesses two we can be a board member we can be on the board advisory I'm advisory of some uh of this companies and board member being me
mbers of the company they don't they are not involved in the day-to-day running but they are part of the company such that they monitor what is being done by the management of the company they they chart a way forward for that organization so they are board members they are also found female Founders so in fintech you have fintech that are founded by females that's the owner in quotes of the business so women can actually serve as Founders and we see as we go for the challenges that this women f
ace when it comes to you know fing ftech in uh companies also we can be Executives we can be mentors so Executives mean in the management team you're involved in the dayto running of the organization you see to how the organization makes profit you see to welfare of the workforce you see to strategy of the organization those are things that the executives you know they do and also being mentors uh speakers I heard have talked about you know mentors and this is actually necessary and important fo
r us as individuals Beyond being a woman so next space we can also position ourselves to be mentors to the young Professionals in the fch space we can be part of the workforce I work for flutter so I'm part of the workforce right now advocacy and education we still have about 30% of women in Nigeria for example uh that are not financially included and globally we have women that are not financially included we have women you know bias about in certain industries so when we talk about advocacy an
d education we're looking at how can we get involved as in educating women about financial services about investment about managing your personal finance and all that and that is uh a role that women are strongly playing in now so that we can all be included in the financial sector and lastly we can be consumer and I tell you today if you are a business owner and uh your business still not leveraging the able to rece to then I say that you're not doing explore as well so these are roles that we
can as women in the F Tech space to a bit of statistics for us to see what is happening in the finex space women representation in the fintex space and it's a bit uh it's a bit it's not so scary because there's improvement over time but is still a bit very slow it's relatively slow women involvement in the f space and I'll start with leadership so from what from research and what we have seen six .1% are female found that's founded by women only 6.1% globally and this global data 11 are board me
mbers 19.3 are C that means they are part of the executives in the organization 5% of fintex all over the world only 5% of them are women are in the CEO position as women now going to funding we talked about the woman being able to F found start industry and ftech Industry definitely need funds to run and when it comes to women getting funding we have 1.5% priv nobody are solely so that means when ands only of fex funded by women are have been able to receive funds and women founded FMS receive
just 1.3 of the total money so in terms of the number we're talking 1.5% in terms of the funds that got we're talking about only 1.3% of the total fintech Venture funding so if you look at the funding that was done about 97 billion like7 billion only about 1.1 actually went to women Founders so that is a whole lot of Gap that still exist and the call is also for all of us to encourage each other and see that women can actually pay in this space the work force generally and again this didn't star
t now it start of course Way Way Back In terms of telling the girl child that you cannot be an engineer there are things that you cannot do and all that and I will take myself as an example even when I joined the fintech over 20 years ago which was when that was just starting in Nigeria the role that we had to play in was in Customer Service okay so you have the good voice you have whatever so let the femal stay in fact it was customer service that we were actually doing then but today we have w
omen that are in engineer in we have women that are in product we have women that are in testing we have women that are in quality assurance within the fch space But as a 2018 we still have 37 of uh the fch work force that are women and that is a far cry from you know what is happening and all the Innovation that is you know going on today yes there are women represented different sectors however the population of women in Tech space is still very low globally we have 26% of women are excluded g
lobally but when you look at developing economies like Nigeria you still have about 32% that are financially excluded and these are statistics that we have seen and is as at 2021 that we have this Statistics it shows that there's still a lot that can be done you know by us as women in the fintech space so what challenges have this women faced or what challenges are we still facing in the fintech space today one is we have that gender bias and stereotypes so if I look back when I was starting out
my career after my masters I was like God I don't want to walk with a woman I don't want a woman to be my boss as me talking as a lady then and you know if I'm talking this way I wonder what others will be saying so I prayed and I did everything but unfortunately when I resume which was an advantage for me on the long run so when I resumed after the prayer and fasting that God I'm starting this job and I don't want a female boss right I was introduced my boss and she was a female I was so they
were doing induction I was just looking at this woman and saying God but I told you I did not want a but I thank God that you know I started with her because till now that friendship is still there she's been able to do a whole lot and all that so it's uh there's that bias there's that stereotype there are things that we have been told even as a girl child that you can't do you're not expected to be in the engineering field you're not expected to do this why are you writing code why do you want
to do this so it's still there and um yes I remember what some me I click on this is what can you mute your microphone please thank you so there's that gender bias even in funding why we have so low uh companies that have been founded by women receiving funding is also because of the buyers because even investor in the investor sector also sees that you know investing in women can be a bit of risk because women are not uh up to quickly take risks and all that so but from statistics it has shown
that organizations that are led by better by 25% than the organizations led by men but again the investors mind are when we have more women coming into the investors then we can take up you know some of this fund them more low representation in leadership like we have seen from statistics also that not so many women are in leadership position in the finex space and if I take uh our country for example there are few finex that are women Le that means the woman is the CEO and all that thank God fo
r the banking industry uh that is changing the story and the landscape in the country in Nigeria for example and uh that has really helped and it also throwing more like to the fact that women can take more leadership roles also lack of access to mentorship and Professional Network when I started out 22 years ago there were few people you could look at and if you are looking at ourselves we looking at ourselves from the point of customer service so there was nothing to actually uh Propel you to
want to do more in that space as a then but there are women that have risen to uh management level leading departments now that you know the young professionals you know can uh look at and become mentors for those young professionals Al the Professional Network if you don't have women in a space you can definitely create a network so that has been a challenge uh and the narrative is changing uh little by little yes progress is been made but it's still relatively slow lack of access to funding li
ke we have explained and maintaining balance societal expectations so as a woman there are expectations from the society in terms of what you can do the fintech space I must say it's uh a bit challenging because you definitely have to learn new things generally I'm not sure of any industry that is not challenging as it were but you keep learning new things to you know say relevant and this means that you definitely have to be able to balance what you do balance the job balance the family front b
alance your personal goals even with whatever you want to achieve so these are some of the challenges faced by women in the fintech space and I can assure you it's not only the fintech space but in other Industries as well so how can I strive as a woman in the fex space how can I strive as a woman in the fex space believe in yourself your ability personally from few surveys that I've done that's personally now I see that when you talk to a woman and you talk to a man even when the man is you can
see that this guy is missing out is not is not really like saying what should be said they will still go ahead and talk but the woman is thinking about what do I need and how do I say it how do I become diplom rtic about it I'm not saying 100% of women that in that position but if you take about 50 women right you will still see that some do not fully believe in their capacity as women so we must believe in ourselves we must believe in our ability we must believe in our capacity we must be conf
ident and we must overcome impal syndrome that is very very important because the moment you see that I can't do this some have that capacity they have the ability to be able to do so much but they just do not believe in what they can do and this has actually impacted women seriously in any industry having you know had discussions or interaction with people from other industries that are not only fch so this is an aspect anybody trying to strive in any industry in every in any sector or whatever
it is must believe in themselves two is develop the required skill so there's a bit of technicality in the fintech space yes in like any other job there's that technical part of it and you must develop that skill I'll tell us about some years back the certification I got in customer service was not uh sponsored by my organization so every year I look at myself and I have to put something on investment I must invest in myself so is it part of learning is it part of training is it part of confere
nces or events that I must attend so that was what I did and and when the opportunity came to lead the customer service team that's actually you know came to me because I got that by virtual of uh learnings or certification that I've gotten so we must learn we must develop our skills we must be able to speak to be an authority in that sector that we are in and we keep learning and investing in our professional development so as human Beyond being a woman you every time invest in yourself it migh
t be by virtue of sitting with someone and understanding what they doing and that is very very key the moment you stop learning then your value starts decreasing so we must continue to develop our skill there is no part of the fex space that you want to say oh I must I will remain here because it's a sector that you know relies on technology and what we know with technology is that before you know it it becomes ulate you keep learning and learning and relearning on learning and until your skills
are remain relevant in whatever field you are get an industry mentor and build Network in fact this a game we have heard from other speakers mentorship is very very important in life so what does your Mentor do with you they share experience with you a coach will bring out will make you understand the potential that you have and help you to develop that to be able to use for yourself but a mentor shares the experience with you the PES and pitfalls that they've had you will not actually repeat t
he mistakes you know that they have made so definitely we need a mentor we need that person that can guide based on their experience and I'm particular by industry Mentor so you're playing in the fex space get a mentor in the fex space eventually my boss that I prayed against became my first Mentor so beyond the job yes we we had a good relationship and today if I must say she's somebody that if nobody else wishes me a birthday uh sends me a birthday greeting I can assure you that I will get fro
m her even if she's the only one I will get something from her so that relationship transcended beyond the workspace and I'm seriously uh you know grateful for it but that was not how I started it to say Okay I I wish to work with a woman so we must get a mentor and we must build Network why are we building Network you definitely cannot be a silos and develop as a person God did not make us to operate in silence so we need each other to be able to learn in building this network is also you know
attending conferences and all that being able to learn that's why we also building Network and there are insights that you need that you just reach out to somebody on your network and you're able to resolve that problem by rubbing Minds together so we definitely need to build that there's nothing like oh I'm an introvert I don't uh I don't like to meet people people I don't like to make friends I think that's uh that is that is gone and gone forever so in whatever way you can build that Network
whichever industry you Opera in you need to build that Network and please ensure that you have a mentor four is tell your stories pick up always step out of your comfort zone and seize opportunities tell your story if you don't tell your story I don't see anybody will tell that story for you that's the truth so we must tell our story how do you tell your by the output that you give out so one is Tell Your Story by the work you do the Excellence you bring into that work the deligence to bring int
o it the commitment the dedication that you bring into it I tell young people that I Mentor that see you might think all these things are going unnoticed they are not unnoticed somebody is taking notes and when the opportunity comes you will see that you'll be able to assume you know that opportunity so it's important for us that we don't say stay complacent we don't stay in our comfort zone because that's going to really help if you're in the fintech space what is happening in the industry you
need to know what is happening in terms of Regulation you need to know beyond your job beyond your job role you should be able to contribute more as somebody in that industry so I speak with young people I ask them so your company what license do they have they tell you they into payment so yes they into payments what license do you have from the CBN because the CBN license sees all the payment of Intex in the country in Nigeria for example so what licenses do they have they are not aware they d
on't know anything about it yes just staying in your comfort zone some people you ask them about the product of the organization and they can't speak to it with passion right these are things that will not make anybody you know to strive whether in the fintech OR in another space you must know your organization you must be able to speak to what your organization does to leverage your support system to maintain a work life balance like I said sometimes it can be demand demanding I work with three
fintech startups working with startup is a different story on its own it's demanding you have to roll off your sleeves you get your hands dirty you get things done and you know and uh if you don't have a support system when I mean support system I'm not talking about your spouse or whatever I'm talking about people around you it could be your spouse that would help you to you know take care of things when you actually need to be there because I've worked with u ladies that when you're asking oh
so why is this not done I have to take my child for immunization all that is good sisters but the truth is you must position yourself in such a way that you are also you know available so fintech or no fintech be available be known for excellence be known for that Integrity be known for that commitment but you would not uh stress yourself out if you leverage the support system that you have whichever support system you have around you leverage it and you're able to achieve more Ure you remain r
elevant and add value always without value there is nothing we're doing as humans that's the truth my first my first male Mentor told me told the only thing I'm going to tell you if you take nothing away from this relationship that you have that we have ensure that you remain relevant and I'm telling everyone whether you're an entrepreneur whether you're in the fex space whether you in 95 if you are not relevant you definitely cannot even add any value so it's inval value addition that makes us
to be able to strive if you are in whatever sector even if you're in the food sector and you are not adding value you're not relevant to things that are happening you know now definitely no customer will come to you so we need to remain relevant whatever sector you find yourself ensure that you remain relevant in remaining relevant is that you also take up young people you know to Mentor you also delegate to people to test their ability to bring out the potential in them you also go beyond even
to understand what the organization starts stands for so in this you are also an entrepreneur there's something called entrepreneur now you are in an organization and you are thinking like the business owner and that brings you to the point where you able to understand the business in your industry so for example if you if you're a lawyer for example there is a business Behind law so it's not all about going to court there's a business that run the there's a business behind the fintech industry
so you must understand but as a as as an industry what else can we as an industry and women in that IND we remove conscious yes please I'm sorry sorry to interrupt you I sincerely apologize but we are running out of time here so I I just wanted to bring to your no yes all right so if you can help us round up as soon as possible so we can have our next speaker soon as well I would really appreciate that thank you so much thanks okay so we remove unconscious recruitment bias when you when interv a
female and you're asking when are you getting married how many children do you have that's a bias already then would take more advocacy as an industry which is what is happening now Financial inclusion the stem advocacy you know Science Tech and engineering and Mathematics you know girl child getting involved then we can have more people in the F Tex getting involved in funding being investors to female Founders and also supporting them we also as companies Embrace mentorship program Implement
policies that promote diversity and inclusion and uh that will be all you can follow me on Instagram I do one-onone coaching we have read uh my profile and uh I'm willing to work with anyone setting up in the ftech space wanting CBN license or speaking at events so thank you thank you thank you so much Ma I I mean I was trying to indicate because they were doing it and I needed more energy in the Applause section so please can we just put our hands together for Coach toy Albert thank you thank y
ou so much M you have done a profound job this uh this afternoon already we really appreciate your time with us we appreciate the commitment thank you so much and the slides they were so helpful we really appreciate it so right about now I'm just going to take questions as fast as possible do I have anybody with questions please because we need to introduce our next speaker so we can round up as soon as possible so do I have body question I think if she doesn't mind if she could wait maybe we ca
n just do like a joint Q&A after you know the next speaker so that they could both just answer questions or other people that have presented as well all right all right all right I think that works session after after the last speaker all right all right all right so um um question if you can just pleas stay with us till the end of this session we should be done by we should be done by um maybe 110 120 we should be done so uh if you can just stay with us till the end and then maybe we can take t
he questions together M thank you so much all right so right about now we I would be introducing our next speaker and she will be talking to us about and her topic is understanding workplace Recruitment and career development now that's a topic I am very excited and interested in and our speaker for today is Mrs Amur tafa uh she is the client partner at Peterson and partners so um if Mrs Amino is with us right now we am oh I'm sorry I'm so sorry i s am here so Mrs Amina if I sincerely apologize
for the wrong pronunciation that's fine thank you very much thank you so much you're welcome for me here so good morning everybody just to to clarify first and foremost you mentioned that I'll be speaking about Recruitment and um I the what I what I have here is the women in leadership and its challenges all right yes I've also sent through a presentation I don't know if you're able to share that yes the media team is able to um manage that I think they are they are available right now so um oka
y I've sent it across yes was sorting it out okay are you ready okay before that I mean just not to waste everybody's time and time is precious maybe just a quick introduction of of who I am so as um W has said my name is Amar um I work for a business called pedison and partners when an executive Search firm with the footprint in 51 countries Emerging Markets focused so executive Search really means um Senior Management recruitment I have been in this business for the last what 20 OD years so I
think I have a sense of what I'm talking about so what I um what I have I think in terms of a topic today is women in leadership as well as their challenges when I when I um got this um this topic the first thing I thought when you say women in leadership and you say challenges already the word challenges gives you that negativity I think what I would probably say is women in leadership and their realities okay so if you could scroll up to the next um slide please so I plan to to address the var
ying issues faced by women in leadership in the corporate world at the same time sort of highlighting some workplace challenges and you know the external externalities what I have is a you know in terms of topics really that I want to talk about there's no specific um Rule and thumb everything I'm talking about today is what is already out there in the world so when I have the first thing saying pregnancy discrimination I'm not regarding that as the most important aspect is just the first thing
that I put down on the on the slides so women in in leadership and in terms of the workplace they undergo pregnancy discrimination what does that mean so basically this you know bias towards women who are expectant it you know you have that bias against women who are who are you know having children and then there's also reduction in pay and Mobility other aspects that you can look at is when you look at social behaviors so when you're in the work environment for example you're a single you're a
single woman who um their work functions and so on and you're invited and you can make time and go to that at the same time when you know when you get pregnant uh when you have work functions you know you tend to tell individuals I'm sorry I can't maybe in terms of your health in terms of the fact that you probably got children at home that starts to build some kind of I wouldn't say negativity but a sort of bias towards whether it's you know um asking you to you know to maybe stay stay stay st
ay at work later than than normal so there's that discrimination to women when when they're pregnant okay the next uh next slide please so gender pay Gap a lot of people say ask this question is it myth or reality it's commonly referred to as a myth but it is a reality I will give you um you know some examples so you know as you all know now I work in the recruitment field a couple of years ago I was lucky to put on put in the leadership of a major Telco in Nigeria itself and in the within the m
ajor Telco itself there were um four um males and one one female when it came to uh giving the salary as well as the the letters of office what I noticed I don't work for that organization I am the provider of a service but when I looked at the the letters of offers it was incredible there were three there were the males all had in terms of like 300 and something thousand and the female was offered 250 for what for for for what particular reason because that individual is absolutely qualified in
terms of what they're doing at the same time another example I can give you just two days ago um there's a business that's undergoing a transformation they want to IPO and they're looking for a CFO majority of the individuals that I put as a short list are male their preferred candidate is a female they gave her an offer yesterday which she has declined the offer is at least $100,000 less than what they would have offered the mail so that's just a little you know something for for you to to thi
nk about when you look at um you know positions within organizations you have what you call the mean medium and the mode and it most often times when it's a female that's about to occupy that position they tend to give them a lower salary for whatever reason so these are some things some we need to look at training whether it comes to the hi individuals or the leadership of what organization to understand that just because somebody comes from you know has a different you know whether there a fem
ale sex for example it doesn't mean that they're inadequate when it comes to to the job the job description says this and you've interviewed individuals that means that the reason why they in front of you for the next for the next level means that they have made it um okay so creation of conscious advancement opportunities for women you know you have to look at why we women are not being given the opportunities sometimes it's culturally we look at ourselves as we're not maybe capable the way we'
re brought up from our families is like the male child is always looked at as more important than the females so when you look at IND you know organizations they need to start also continue instilling some of these Solutions where you introduce the pay scills to be on Parallel for both male and female and basically unifying the pay structures across the sea Suite next slide please who's doing the the movements okay now this this topic is obviously very very Rife um at the moment because of the t
he you know the a changing narrative when it comes to the me too movement there are different types of sexual harassment um and it all depends on you know your own maybe thought process there's what you call workplace sexism you know and as I said it's it's more evident now because of the mewo movement so there are times when you look at um sexual harassment because it um it manifests itself in different forms so your appearance remarks about your body clothing or even unwelcome physical advance
ment and at the end of the day some sometimes this sort of you know for you to speak up it you know you become you you you are now regarded as because you are now the accuser you know but you are actually the abused so by speaking up sometimes you end up having you know reduction in pay as well as Mobility because the hierarchy in the culture tends to be individuals that are male but you know one thing I think I need to maybe put out there it's like when it comes to harassment it's not necessari
ly just sexual there is harassment even even female to female which is I think generally as females we also need to start thinking about when you see a colleague of yours maybe being spoken down to you need to also speak up maybe that person doesn't have a voice maybe that person doesn't feel like speaking maybe there's an issue that's going on at home that that person cannot you know bring themselves out of so they're unable to to speak which is what why talk about work workplace culture you ha
ve to have an enabling environment where people are able to speak up and talk about such things and obviously the lack of enforcement um you know there are right now there are so many like laws and rules and regulations but it's difficult because women are not speaking up I mean in the in the UK for example when you look at some of the issues when it comes to the Met police and the harassments and the murders and all that's going on the women have not been speaking out and if they've spoken out
they're oppressed and told well you know you know your place sit down and just be quiet so this sort of you know pulls down to to to sexual harassment next slide please okay breaking the glass ceiling this is something that uhu you know is is quite close to my you know to my heart the reason why I say this a long time ago I was working for one of the major Telco businesses and it was a it was a startup uh this was in the early 2000s and when it came to the Sea the sea level positions there was a
technical role and most often times the the the notion is that a technical role should be for rale and a a male a male individual actually was sitting in that position but then there were some issues that happened and that person had to be exited from the organization step in a female broke all boundaries took the the business from uh you know it was Aid positive already however the return on investments the shareholders even saw when that individual I don't want to name that person's that pers
on but at at the end of the day she broke the glass ceiling and it sort of opened up the door for more females within Tech and Telo and we've seen you know obviously T Albert who has come on to this uh you know uh Forum earlier on and you can see that women are doing better when it comes to that however it's you know we need to sort of understand that there's less recognition for achievements by young female professionals compared to male counterparts we need to strive hard harder to show that w
e have done something better than than the M you know for whatever reason only God knows workplace Mobility now this can also be looked at as not just promotion but also maybe expatriation there are times that you have a position for example you know somebody sitting in Nigeria there's a role somewhere else in another country and the first the first individual they'll think about is a male because that that man potentially might be single or even even if he if his is M can leave his family and m
ove on to for the um for the opportunity however with the female she will always start thinking about what I've got you know there's my husband they the kid as education and so on so it's less likely for for women to be to be to be looked at in terms of expatriation it is it happens um there are so many people have been expatriated as females however the percentag is compared to men and women it's you know there's a disparity and of course you know women are being passed for promotions for issue
s that I've already spoken about whether it's pregnancy whether they've spoken up about sexual harassment whether they've spoken about the fact that their pay is less than their own counterparts and so on and when it comes to the first and second tier management positions men most often times get that promotion before before the women they the women will will probably have the same you know certifications the same training and so on but at the same time it is just a mentality that we just need t
o break okay and you know as we all know African women at a further disadvantage however I wrote this before um the when you look at now the financial services sector in Nigeria for example all the the major Banks now have female CEOs so I think you know there's a movement time is changing and so on and I just I think at the end of the day you know we we making progress The Grooming Gap okay so this is also known as the expectation or the beauty expectation Gap so there's a certain way that wome
n are you know are looked at when it comes to to how they they they dress how they look how they cook and so on so women that you know tend to tend to um have to go into the office wearing high heels they must you know have a certain way their hair is groomed they must have a certain look their nails lipstick and so on however for the men it's either just a quick haircut and just you know a nice business attire suit at the same time you have to look at the financial um uh and also the time that
you know this takes on on on on females for example that means that we are spending more money buying you know going to beauty shops and buying more more lipsticks and and so on time that we are spending to groom ourselves to look better because the expectation is a woman there's a there's an experation that the more polished you look the more capable you are however that is not the case you know somebody could come in looking I don't know if you look at even though U what's his name the Jeff ba
sos of this world are looking as as groomed as possible the who let me look about Amina Muhammad for example she's all dressed up as a you know the way Muslims dress but she's doing exceptionally well but the expectation is that if you're wearing a suit you're wearing high you're wearing lipstick people tend to Veer towards you and say this person will probably do a better job but that system myth as well okay you can move on to the next one please okay time of the month this is something that y
ou know most of us obviously know about um when women are going through this this particular you know I don't want to call it an issue we tend to be seen as overly emotional so there's that that that word of period shaming we're labeled as women are labeled as feelers and men are told to suppress their emotions for example if you're in a heated argument for example or heated discussion I would say the first thing that somebody probably say to you is is it that time of the month at the end of the
day why does that need to come into the the picture and the way the way the world is not evolving I mean there's that the word menopause that's coming to to the picture we all know about it but it's not being talked about more I I recall there was something I was watching on TV a couple of you know weeks ago where here in the UK they're asking whether or not employees should start giving females some time off when they're going going through manipa this is now causing a lot of discussion a lot
of upro because men are are also saying that you know they when the women are going through the menopause they also need their time off because they've been they also been put under pressure so there's a lot going on there you know at the back of that but yes there's that emotional period shaming that you know we we we we shouldn't have to have to deal with okay most people say work life balance I called it work life imbalance for a particular reason now when the pandemic you know came there was
you know obviously lack of boundaries people are working from home but then they also have to make sure that the family life is is is you know is going according to plan and there's you know Society tends to feel that as a woman you are you have to like be all hands on deck so you look after the the whole front you also look after you know if you're working you also have to have to manage both so that's this is what I talk about when I say imbalance because I mean everybody yes both male and fe
male we all have our stresses we all have our stressful you know environment and so on but at the same time the owness is more on the on female because culturally also the the the the way it's it's it's looked at is that females should be should be looking after the home but then of course now we're all career career individuals and we want to make sure that we advanced so there's that imbalance as well and then you know women tend to sort of get past on when it comes to promotion because of car
eer breaks due to family matters um now obviously because of you know postco there are so many realizations and improvements that are being put into place we are seeing it every single day there is you know the notion that um you know obviously men also have to look after their families sometimes you have the single single um single families where it's the man that is the mother and the father so those those are improvements are coming into place however it's always been more geared more biased
towards male because we females have to balance more hence the work life imbalance okay being talked over now this this particular Behavior has become normalized um it's sort of it is inherited inherent systematic the Fe that women command less Authority as influential figures you can be sitting in a in a boardroom talking about a particular important aspect and some individual will just talk over you and eventually take that idea and pass it back to you as if he was the one that came up with th
e idea and the rest of the table will go with it you know it's not necessarily intentional Behavior but it's also product of our culture because if you look at the fact of the matter is that you've always looked at men as the head of the family and therefore when you look at a boardroom the expectation is the man is the head of the boardroom however when you look around the table these days you find that there are more women sitting there whether as the chairman or the inets or the Nets so you k
now there's that aspect of being talked about which we I think generally even within organizations we need to start training individuals to understand that when somebody's speaking let that person speak get their thoughts across and then you can add your own value okay unconscious bias so this is there's so many different different ways to look at this but it's just like it's just a gender you know stereoptical subconscious attitude generally when you work when you go into a workplace you you te
nd to find that when you look at females and male for example the way a certain individual you know talks the way they act and the way they dress the management tends to Veer towards them or not just even the management the employees as well and in consciously you think that because that person takes me takes us back to what I what I was talking about the The Grooming Gap the the T automatically thing because you addressed a certain way because you are speaking a certain way it means that you co
mmand more Authority or you have more knowledge that is not generally the case sometimes you find that it's just a shell that somebody's is is hiding behind so you need to find solutions to rework you know workplace functions anti-discrimination training and better Equity practices that's a solution that I'm thinking that potentially could work okay managing different expectations so as female leaders we always you know we we Face different expectations from our male counterparts and I know that
there are some men here so please um it's not a it's not it's not bashing M it's just the reality of what we face so we have to balance respect and likeability we have to overcome preconceptions we have to deal with cultural expectations expectations means that that you know as a woman sometimes you have to take a back seat expectation not necessarily means that you have to the expectation you take the back seat in terms of commanding respect if you open your mouth and you speak sometimes you'r
e looked at as you know being too pushy you know so where do you balance that where do you overcome the preconceptions of a man coming into you know or individuals coming into a room and thinking well for some of the things that are mentioned whether they're pregnant whether it's time of the month whether they're thinking about the fact that they have they've been passed passed over for promotion whether the fact that they they're not paid as much as their male counterparts they come into a situ
ation they're speaking and they you know all these things are sort at the back of their mind and because because of the certain way that they spoken whoever is sit around the table will think well you know why do I need to respect this individual from from what he or she is saying okay um so that's it thank you very much if you have any questions for me happy happy to take them whether it's to do with recruitment or to do with women in leadership I'll try my absolute best to answer I can't hear
any of you oh can you hear me now I'm so sorry I thought I was unmuted can you hear me momam okay great thank you so much thank you so so much this was a very insightful a very U eye openening really an eye openening session with you thank you very much um anybody with questions now be nice time for you to raise your hand um CH who I can see you have your hands raised do you would you like to ask a question or is that I'm guessing that would be a mistake anybody else would like to ask question d
o we have anybody with questions directed to us miss am or okay um had I can see you have your hand ra and okay um good afternoon everyone and good morning umina lovely to hear you and see you speak um so when you spoke about first of all I like the way you said let's use the word um not we should have use challenges we should use our what was the word again some real our realities that was like an aha moment for me I was like you know actually it's true I really like that word it resonated with
me it made me start to think about a lot of things um because you're right you're absolutely right it is our reality um our realities are you know we have to deal with our family members we have to deal with the um environment at work the environment at large in terms of our society we have to deal with the Norms you know in terms of religion um you know culture so it all comes into play in and shaping um the way we do things and um what we accept and what we do not accept um so thank you for t
hat word um so my question is I think I'm throwing it out generally if anyone can give me a Headway but in specific to you at damina because you spoke about sexual harassment um so we we have this program where the gbv gender based violence that were we looking at in in in C State and I'm sure happens everywhere else in the world sexual harassment the teachers sexually abuse the girls the boys um you know it it's ongoing it's been ongoing for a very long time one of the major challenges that we'
re facing is they don't come out to speak they are ashamed they are um you know they're afraid of being you know cast aside aside and look down upon the society so one of the initiatives under the um Mandate of the commission of women Affairs to actually create gbv centers where it's a safe space that you can call in or come in and see and then we're trying to we're trying to find you know um female and male guidan counselors because you know the the boys too are getting um sexually violated um
so for me I'm just trying to it's just to get them to come out and speak up and sometimes to be honest these children actually want to come and speak up but their parents are saying no you're going to cause shame to the family um you know somewhere it's your fault and I'm thinking whether how is it their fault um so we've we've gotten a lot of cases coming through to my office saying a principal was um you know Court sexually harassing this boy or sexually harassing this girl and I'm so when it'
s not work environment but I'm thinking right now what do we do how do we even begin to tackle you know as women as mothers as sisters um these are you know it should resonate with us because they're rubbing them off their of their innocence of their childhood and mentally it's going to affect them it's going to affect them on how what how they come out as adults um so I don't know in your experience you know in the workplace or generally how does one go about dealing with these um sexual harass
ment issues because like you said it could even be a comment that someone would say to you and you know it's it's not sitting right with you but you don't know how to address it um you don't know how to react if you react in a certain way you know the normal HH I was just joking with you now you know and and I'm like well no it's it's not funny like it's you know but I we don't tend to see these things or take them seriously um so I'm just thinking what would your bet best advice be in terms of
handling it as as as an adult and then as you know for me that is having to deal with these um issues at work okay thank you Hada this is a very difficult and disturbing disturbing subject because ultimately when you when you speak about sexual harassment or you know you look at it as we have this culture of uh blaming the victim and not the abuser so we tend to fault the accuser in what you know either the way what they were wearing how they've you know come across in terms of their speech and
so on you you made a comment about sort of even when children want to come out and and and speak about it maybe their parents don't want that to happen because of the shame uh you know alluded or attribut to that I think we need to sort of step back and and look at the fact that maybe we as parents or we as the adults who are you know charged with looking after individuals we have to start shifting our mindset and it it that it just takes training it takes training and it takes training it takes
the fact that we also have to become more self-aware we the self-aware within ourselves self you know aware of the environment that we're living in and you know so sort of start breaking that culture bubble because I think at the end of the day if we look at Nigeria for example it's that culture bubble that stops us from opening our mouth however you know when you look at the developed world what what is happening is that there are safe places you have obviously the counselors you have in organ
izations you have HR has now you know become more trained and I don't know what the parameters are they use in terms of the training because I haven't had that uh but the HR has become more trained in in terms of understanding how employees view certain things because an individual can come into the office in the morning and they haven't brush their hair properly and just by you saying that your hair is out of place to that person they will regard it as some form of discrimination and we need to
look at the fact that it's not just sexual discrimination it is discrimination but obviously we're talking about sexual discrimination here is a sad case of Affairs at the moment um and it's something that has been you know is an age-old tradition whether it's in in churches in in mosques in schools and organizations and so on but at the same time I think it just it's just it's just the advancement and development of us as individuals we need to just be more present in what is happening there's
no right or wrong answer and there's no sort of specific solution it is just a you know a work in progress that's all I can say at this point in time okay Amina thank you so much um but we'll keep we'll keep pushing the boundaries and uh trying to make our voices heard definitely and see the best way that we can go about it I think for me is just to really make these um young ladies think know that it's there's no shame they're the victims and they need to speak out yes thank you very much hell
o um yeah I don't know if anyone else has anything to say I think I I saw Dr Mercy her hand is up perhaps you ask a question yeah okay go ahead yeah thank you so much um ma'am for the opportunity and thank you so much um Miss Amina for your presentation I actually wrote in the chat I said I love the fact that you changed you know it um from being challenges to realities because that's what um I mean that resonated with me a lot so um I have a question you know um so good morning from here in the
US it's 7 I've been up since 4:00 a.m. because I I just told myself I have to be part of this conversation and I just want to thank all the speakers um it's just been very insightful so um Miss Amina the question I have so I'm I'm here in the US I'm a professor I teach HR um and part of what I teach is employment laws you know the employment laws that um protect employees um I know that um so I'm originally from Nigeria right um I know that here in the us and like you said you're in the UK ther
e's certain protection for employees especially women today so whether it's um a case of pregnancy discrimination or just generally um you know gender discrimination there is some level of protection if you speak up even if nothing is done there will be sort of an investigation at least somebody would listen to you and kind to and try to find out if this thing can be escalated to a real discrimin ation case or not so I just want to ask the question on behalf of other women who are not in the US
or in the UK or in very um developed climbs where if you speak up you are I mean it's not 100% but you you will get some level of somebody listening and hearing you how do we protect ourselves I worked in Nigeria for the longest time I left Nigeria at 36 so I left as an adult where I know that um in the employees space um the the law does not really protect women um when it comes to issues that you've talked about not just um in you know um pregnancy but you know other forms of sexual harassment
whether it's overt or covert or whatever you call it how can how can women protect themselves in in environments where the law does not protect them thank you that is a that is a very difficult one and I will try I will try as much as possible to to answer okay so first first and foremost if you look at the um workplace now in Nigeria for example um when you look at the sea level HR predominantly is female so I think we tend to understand some of the challenges that that uh women women have we
have the Nigerian labor laws and this is something that you know I think dates back to you know centuries old so the change has to come from the cpds of this world so we can we can probably start you know speaking out at conferences we can go to the I think the CPD has a forum every single year where individuals go and speak and I think it's about sort of talking so it's almost like a domino effect so when you get to that session you're talking as a network sort of you mention this and it become
s a domino effect when people start sort of listening and hearing what this is what's happening in my work work environment etc etc maybe the change will probably start it's a difficult one one to answer when you look at you mentioned for example pregnancy I I do understand that you know because when I was working in Niger as well and when I was pregnant my I I believe the maternity leave I had was just three months and if I wanted more I would have to take it as unpaid leave so I took an extra
month and that was unpaid and had to go back to work four months after after having my my my first child now if if I if I if I'm please people that are working in Nigeria please you know if I'm wrong um correct me I believe that maternity leave has now gone up to I think four months or five months whereby in the western world you can have up to one year of maternity leave which is paid and then thereafter you can take you know you can take and paay leave so it's a matter of the the you know we n
eed to sort of look at uh and we've got hadiza on on on here today she's working in government it's for government to start looking at you know how to start changing the rules and the you know um the rules and and regulations that we have within Nigeria we we all work we all human beings and most of the time we we take things from the developed developed world to to place into our own developing developing countries but it only it's only what it's only what suits us that we want but if more if m
ore women speak about it these are the challenges that we are you know we are we are undergoing and these are solutions that we feel will make a difference I think you know it's a it's a conversation to be had there's no there's no um hard and fast rule about this the developed world has seen how you know how important having females within the workforce is even if it's just for the balance it works so to make sure that women still come back into work they need to change the rules and they've do
ne that so employment laws we need to you know have a look into that we need to speak to the people in education Hada for example so maybe this is where the conversation starts this is where the change needs to start from it needs to come from us really thank you so much for your question as as we get to round up I wanted to also ask um Madam to from you know regarding the fintech space my question really would be you know with the low numbers that you sh that you showed I hope she's still on th
e call um yes right with the low numbers that you showed you know with women's involvement and so on I think does it stem back to maybe lack of interest in probably the stem or what what what can our curriculum do really to help bring this issue forward so that when it comes to employment later on these you know girls women are eligible to come into this space thank you okay thank you m I think uh as mentioned the advocacy you and you know and the support that uh people that are advocating for t
he stem program now have is helping so what does that mean so there are people that you know are coming up to say can we take the girl child and teach them how to code write codes let them get involved in science subjects and all that so I think that is helping out and with the mentorship program that some organizations have so at back as let me say starting from the secondary schools go there to you educate them on why they need to come into the science space the engineering space and all that
I think that is really really you know helping a lot and um again beyond the certificate in itself people are being taught that your skill matter so I have people in organizations that read microbiology for example but they've gone ahead to learn how to code now they in the fintech space so that advocacy is what is helping to let them know there's there's nothing really so difficult in this space you can also be in this space and also sponsoring you know young uh uh girls or professionals to com
e into the space I think that is what really helping now uh like a year backway for example did about um 200 uh fresh graduates yes not but coming into the internship program so organizations are also having internship program to build people in the inex SP and that is helping thank you okay great I think um we've recently seen that the Nigerian Society of Engineers has had it or is having its first female president in 62 years so that's I think quite after 30 something men so she's the first um
chairman of the or the president of the Nigerian Society of engine which is I think a good step um good role modeling to to kind of visualize what's you know what's happening in in our communities so as we round up I don't know if anybody has any further questions before I summarize what what you know sort of morning and afternoon early afternoon we've had there any further questions for any of the speakers okay so um you know first of all thank you to all of you that have taking the time to sp
eak with us and to speak to so many people out there you know we're streaming on YouTube so it's not just today this is something for posterity and something that will definitely I think a lot of people will continue to listen to and um just to summarize some of the you know some of my own takeaways from the the various speakers uh things like you know we should continue learning learning is constant something that we have to do all the time we're also talking about mentoring the four ladies are
Spen about mentoring and you know really understanding the role of you the mentor and you know mentee and how you know we fall into that space networking effectively and I'm sure you spoke about access to funding you know and making sure it's the right sort of funding for the business maintaining a balance between um you know work life I mean I had spoken about that and you also said you know let us tell our stories I think everybody had to had mentioned tell our stories because if we don't tel
l our stories nobody really knows and understands you know what it is that we're doing and so we have to be our own you know Champions at the end of the day so it's very important that as women as Business Leaders we continue to do that within our communities and um you know like you said Madame to you know telling our stories also highlights the Excellence that we bring let us not just be shorty in what we do let's deliver Excellence Hada had mentioned it as well and you know the first Speaker
mentioned am to had mentioned it so it's very important that we stick to Excellence because that's how we really grow remain relevant and add value yes that's so key for all of us if we don't add value we really don't grow and I think that would tie into the theme of accelerating progress for this year's um you know International women's month we looked at issues of diversity equity and inclusion Yes again they they are quite important so we must in our businesses really think about that you kno
w um who are we bringing in what are they offering and how that diverse our businesses what are the you know so it's very key that we don't really stick to our comfort zone in the businesses that we do you know we lead by example that's very important and um I loved Amina uh you know as ala said it was a her moment you know women in leadership and their realities and another thing that Amina said is that when the accuser becomes the you know is the abuse the accuser becomes the abuse so that for
me I was like okay I never thought of it that way um so you know we have to really con continue leveraging on these conversations um we still have another conversation tomorrow afternoon we have some excellent speakers coming on we're focusing on entrepreneurship tomorrow so please again we would like you to join us I think we're on from like 1 to 3:30 so just a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon we would love for all of you who have been on this poll today to also join us again tomorrow so tha
t we can you know learn with each other network with each other and you know really you know further our conversations so I would really like to say on behalf of skill tensive we're ready to work with every single person that's been on our call we are here to listen we are here to to work um we've worked very closely with the TR leadership Hub who have helped us put together this program as you can see fingers cross everything technology did not let us down today so usually when we have a presen
tations we know the pitfalls um so I just want to thank all all of you once more on behalf of skill tensive training and development company and um the TR leadership hub for for joining us today on this program and um I wish you all a pleasant day uh to enjoy with your families thank you for taking time I know it's a holiday weekend thank you okay hadiza wanted to say something go ahead please Hada Hada come raise the hand okay go ahead no I'm sorry I was trying to send something else sorry okay
no problem all right so thank you all so much and we pray we see you tomorrow please uh let's come on 1:00 Nigerian time and um I think we we have some excellent speakers tomorrow as well so thank you so much ladies and enjoy the rest of the day thank you thank you so much all right have a wonderful day everyone thank you thank you ma' thank you all right everyone thank you so much thank you for joining us don't forget thank you Mom three words we have all heard at least a thousand times right
you're worth it but do you really understand what that means it's a beautiful reminder to us all that we have worth you have reason and Rarity there is value in each and every one of us including you that is precious even on the days you might not feel it you never depreciate in value those words are there to remind you so to all those watching who feel like that or have ever felt like that focus on what I'm about to say and rep repeat after me I'm worth it okay maybe that felt great or perhaps
that felt weird let's go again first take a deep breath and let it out forget the naysayers and Silence the Critics even if the harshest words are the ones you say to yourself do not doubt yourself and this time speak it louder really loud I'm worth it and the next time you hesitate before going after something you want the next time you blush and brush off a compliment the next time you doubt your place in the world in the workplace in your home or in your own skin say these words to yourself I
'm worth it and I know you will always say it like you mean it I'm worth it because you are and always will be got that e e
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