In line with its corporate disposition to sustainable women empowerment, Ecobank Nigeria is partnering Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) on the hosting of the 2015 Women of West Africa Entrepreneurship (WOWe) Festival.
The WOWe Festival 2015 with the theme ‘Vision to Reality’ slated for June 25 and 26, will provide the opportunity for female entrepreneurs and corporate professional women with entrepreneurial ambitions, to secure practical information on how to transform their businesses and realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.
The conference will also provide a high-level networking platform that connects the most influential women entrepreneurs who will exchange ideas, address challenges, uncover new strategies and dialogue on issues relating to entrepreneurship and leadership.
Tony Okpanachi, Deputy Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, said the bank decided to partner the high profile Festival because of its belief in female entrepreneurs. He was optimistic that existing and budding entrepreneurs would find the knowledge sharing from the Festival useful.
“As a bank, it is part of our philosophy to sponsor initiatives such as this. We believe this interactive and engaging dialogue from experts that have been assembled to facilitate at the conference will assist existing and budding entrepreneurs in becoming their own brands and job creators for their societies and have a positive impact on the sub-region economy.”
Tori Abiola , Founder, WOWe, said this year’s Festival brings a completely new and superior experience for women entrepreneurs as it incorporates its first exhibition running with co-located seminars for two full days. “This amazing platform will give visitors the opportunity to network, showcase products and give 10 lucky VIP guests the opportunity to pitch to investors looking to fund $1,000,000
towards women-driven entrepreneurship ventures at the show.”
She explained that the event will also feature eight seminar streams, workshops and master-classes which will focus on fashion and beauty; technology and digital powerhouses; finance and investments; manufacturing; agri-business; the creative industries – design, media and entertainment; talent & skills management; export.
She added that attendees will have opportunity to examine future trends favouring women entrepreneurship, identify immediate long and short term needs of definitive industries and uncover up-and-coming technologies that will add value and assist in business growth and overall profits.
About Ecobank
Established in 1986 and with approximately US$10 billion in assets today, Ecobank Nigeria ranks as one of the country’s top six banks. It operates as a subsidiary of the pan-African banking group, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (‘ETI’), headquartered in Lomé, Togo.
ETI has over 1,200 branches and offices in 36 countries in West, Central, East and Southern Africa, as well as in London, Paris, Dubai and Beijing. It is listed on the Lagos, Accra and Abidjan (BRVM) stock exchanges.
Ecobank Nigeria is a full-service bank, providing wholesale, retail, corporate, investment and transaction banking services to government, financial institutions, multinationals, international organisations, medium, small and micro businesses and individuals. Ecobank Nigeria currently operates over 480 branches throughout Nigeria. The Central Bank of Nigeria has categorised it as a Systemically Important Bank (‘SIB’).
