Nigeria’s finance industry has made significant strides in increasing the representation of women recently. Out of its 24 commercial banks, eight have women as Chief Executive Officers (CEO).

In its bid to further advance women as leaders in the industry, Women’s World Banking, in partnership with Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) recently organised a workshop for female stakeholders as part of the Community of Practice for Women’s Financial Inclusion.

The workshop, which was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, focused on learning from Women’s World Banking’s research, which explores recent progress and potential avenues for advancing women’s leadership, centering on the voices and experiences of Nigerian women leaders.
[ad]
Speaking at the event, Executive Director, WIMBIZ, Hansatu Adegbite, noted that the organisation started   22 years ago to push for an increase in women’s representation in leadership positions across various sectors.

“With Women’s World Banking, they have been able to research on advancing women as leaders in the Nigerian finance industry, hence you can see that there is an alignment. So, they are engaging with financial stakeholders, first in the public sector, which are the financial regulators and then the private sector, which are the practitioners.

“So, for WIMBIZ, we are collaborating because there is a clear alignment for seeing an increase in the representation of women. One of the things we are able to do is to assess our current realities by identifying the leadership gap and then sit down and look at what can be done, first as individuals within our organisations and then in the larger community. At the end of the day, we want to see a minimum of 35 per cent representation of women in the various finance spaces including investment, pensions, taxation and insurance,” she said.

Lead, Relationship Manager and Business Development, Women’s World Banking, Zino Afiegbe, said the group focuses on women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion to enable as many women as possible, particularly the low-income earners and women-led MSMEs, have access to financial services.

“We need to have the right partnerships. These include banks and financial institutions, so using a women-centred design methodology, we develop and create solutions around women’s needs,” he noted.

He noted that the organisation uses workshops to encourage institutions to build a pipeline of women leaders.
[ad]
“We have the privilege to implement one of the eight strategic imperative frameworks which has to do with women in leadership. We want to get them positioned well in the financial sector so that they can be a voice to women who make up half of the nation’s population,” he said.

Acting Managing Director, Titan Trust Bank, Adaeze Udensi, stressed that women have fared fairly.

“We are not where we want to be, but we are making all the effort. For me, women are very trustworthy and should be taught that they need to give in to the work twice as hard as the men.

“Women need to know when the strategy has to change to achieve results. That is why mentoring is important. Women need to be true to themselves, be known for something and stand out. There are a lot of roles women are qualified to get but they are not getting them,” she said.

She added that training like the one organised by Women’s World Banking was important for women to get out of their shell, step out and get other women to come on board.
[ad]