FirstBank Sustainability Centre has reinforced its commitment to promoting empowerment, entrepreneurship and financial inclusion amongst women through its sponsorship of a workshop for Women owners of SMEs in Nigeria. The event is part of the FirstBank’s SMEConnect Series – flagged off last year and it is scheduled to hold on September 30, 2014 at the FirstBank Sustainability Centre situated within the Lagos Business School, Lekki Lagos.
The workshop themed Sustainability: The New Growth Strategy for Women-owned SMEs is part of FirstBank’s sustainability initiatives and is designed to further equip women for enterprise development, promote best practice, learning and sharing among other topics. The workshop would focus on sustainable entrepreneurship and provide a road map on how women entrepreneurs can contribute to socio-economic development as strategic partners. Facilitators at the event include: Dr. Chris Ogbechie, Director First Bank Sustainability Centre; Mrs. Olubunmi Adebiyi of the Financial Inclusion department, Central Bank of Nigeria and many more reputable thought leaders
According to Mr. Gbenga Shobo, Executive Director, FirstBank, the workshop is part of the Bank’s SMEConnect series and it is organised to stimulate economic development, especially for women. He stated that “FirstBank would continuously drive SME expansion and provide small businesses with a platform that will enhance the sustainable development of their businesses in addition to funding.”
Mrs. Folake Ani-Mumuney, FirstBank’s spokesperson reiterated that the workshop will amongst other things enable women led SMES to competitively meet demands of financial success while positively impacting society through embedding sustainability thinking in their business strategies. She also stated that “creating an appropriate platform for the development of SMEs is one of the reasons why our bank established the FirstBank Sustainability Centre in collaboration with the Lagos Business School, as a specialised training centre for creating, disseminating and applying knowledge on sustainability issues based on global best practice”.
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