March 21, (THEWILL) – Still celebrating the Nigerian woman in the spirit of International Women’s Month,IVORY UKONUwrites on women who are carving a niche for themselves in fields that were hitherto the exclusive preserve of the men folk.
Media
Toyosi Ogunseye
She is one of the few female journalists who are bent on leaving an indelible mark in the field of journalism. An internationally recognised journalist and experienced manager, Toyosi is the current vice president, World Editors Forum. She heads the British Broadcasting Corporation, West Africa, where she leads the BBC’s operations and five language services in Anglophone West Africa and
Francophone Africa with a team of over 200 journalists to deliver objective, trustworthy, creative and valuable journalism on the African continent. Prior to that, she worked at The Punch Newspaper where she rose to become Editor of the Sunday title and the newspaper’s youngest editor. More important, she was the first-ever female editor in the organisation. A PhD holder in Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Toyosi is a recipient of over 35 local and international media awards. She is also a recipient of the Presidential Precinct Inaugural Young Leader Award, a Knight International Journalism Award and President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative Award.
Business
Nere Teriba
Nere Teriba: A gold refiner, Nere is the Vice Chairman/ MD Kain Smith Trade and Co Ltd that recently acquired the licence to refine gold locally, and is the first and youngest Nigerian to refine gold locally when she was 37. Passionate about the mining, consulting, mineral concession management and minerals trading industry, Nere as an entrepreneur, mediator and strategist, had worked for sustainable community solutions in several countries and is maximising her knowledge with hopes to formalise artisanal mining and reduce illegal mining in Nigeria. Using her company, Nere created a mobile solution — Zokia system, a mobile platform to register and bank artisanal miners.
Branding
Adora Mbelu
A multipotentialite, Adora Mbelu is a brand developer at Trellis Group, a brand development and experiential marketing company. She is also the founder of Lumination, an afrocentric transformational learning company. An author, Adora has published This Thing Called Purpose, a book that helps people understand the true essence of living with and through purpose. Prior to setting up Trellis, Adora worked as a content director on the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Conference, Nigeria Centenary Awards, and International Conference On Peace and Security.
She was also the project manager for Freemantle Licensed TV Shows, such as Nigerian Idol and Nigeria’s Got Talent, where she managed the business, brand, and production of the shows. She has also worked in the sports industry as the Corporate Communications Manager for OSMI during the 2010 World Cup managing all communications on the broadcast rights for Nigeria. Adora is a recipient of several awards.
Advocacy
Chika Okwuolisa
Chika Okwuolisa: She is an engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the construction industry with a special focus in metallurgical and material engineering. Chika is the Managing Director of Abuja based Hogrago Engineering Company Limited; the lead partner, Base Metal, Iron and Steel Bulletin and a convener of the International Summit on Base Metal, Iron and Steel Summit through which she advocates rapid development of the metal sector in Nigeria. She is a member of several professional bodies – Nigeria Society of Engineers; Nigerian Institute of Metallurgical, Mining and Materials Engineers; Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria, Society of Women Engineers; Technologists and Scientists; Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria etc.
In 2017, Chika who is an unrepentant humanitarian and caregiver, decided to dedicate part of her time to Brain and Spine Foundation, Africa, a foundation she built to create awareness on Neurological Medical Conditions which presently is almost non-existent. She is an advocate for early medical check before complications arise and has personally helped the less privileged with treatment which can be brain-exploding expensive. In 2020, she set up Samaritan Ark Global Foundation, a club to make others as compassionate as her, contribute their widows’ mite to reach out to those in need.
Health
Ola Orekunrin-Brown
She is a medical doctor, helicopter pilot and the Managing Director of the Flying Doctors Nigeria Ltd, West Africa’s first air ambulance service, a crucial link for critically injured people who, like many across the continent, are far away from hospital care. A graduate of the University of York in Britain, Ola Orekunrin-Brown has worked in the National Health Scheme for nearly ten years. She has a specialist interest in trauma and pre-hospital Care and her work with air ambulance services in the UK and Japan. In 2020, at the height of Covid19, her firm created mobile testing booths to boost testing and reduce to zero, the number of infections on people conducting these tests. An author, she has published three books, EMQ’s in Paediatrics, Pre-Hospital Care for Africa and Fixing Healthcare in Nigeria: A guide to healthcare policy. She has also written articles in the British Medical Journal, The Journal of Emergency Medical Services, The Niger Delta Medical Journal, the New York Times and The Huffington Post.
An international speaker, Ola has spoken at the TED global conference, the European Union, the Swiss Economic Forum, the UN, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge University and the Aspen Ideas Festival. She is also the recipient of multiple awards in her field of endeavour.
In 2008, she was awarded the prestigious MEXT Japanese Government Scholarship and produced ground breaking research in the field of regenerative medicine, focusing on induced pluripotent stem cells. She is also a TED fellow, a Dangote Fellow, an Aspen Fellow and has been honored by the world economic forum as a Young Global Leader. She is a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, international editor of the Journal of Emergency Services American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine and a LinkedIn top ten global Healthcare Writer. Ola also sits on the board of the professional women’s network, Lagos Chapter, she also sits on the committee of the British Business Group, Lagos.
ICT
Funke Opeke
Funke’s quest to change the Internet landscape in Nigeria has led her to building one of Africa’s most important and pivotal tech companies. MainOne, the holding company for Main Street Technologies, West Africa’s leading communications services and network solutions provider. She has done remarkably well by positioning the company as a highly reputed and preferred provider of wholesale internet services to major telecom operators, ISPs, government agencies, large enterprises and educational institutions in West Africa. This only happened after she successfully ran a 7,000-kilometre undersea high-capacity black glass-fibre cable submarine from Portugal to Lagos, springing forth from the ground at the shore-end landing station in Ajah, Lagos and connecting all the big operators in Nigeria and Ghana to the global Internet. The result was an instant cyber-revolution in Nigeria, which made the company one of the biggest forces of transformation in the ICT sector in Nigeria. Little wonder, Equinix, one of the world’s leading digital infrastructure corporations, acquired the company for $320 million (about N134.70 billion) as part of its expansion programme in Africa.
Aviation
Blessing Liman
She is an officer in the Nigerian Air Force and Nigeria’s first female military pilot. She joined the Nigerian Air Force in July 2011 after graduating from the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology and was commissioned on December 9, 2011. She is currently assigned to the presidential fleet of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Finance
Arese Ugwu
Popularly known as Arese Smart Money, she is one of the forces to reckon with in Nigeria’s financial sector. She is currently the Head of Wealth Management at Partnership Investment Finance where she is in charge of building the company’s wealth management division through business development and growing existing customer base. She is also a non-executive director at Partnership Securities Ltd, House of Tara International Ltd and The Higher Education Foundation as well as an associate member of Women in Management Business & Public Service, WIMBIZ. An entrepreneur and advocate for financial literacy, she is also the author of the book; The Smart Money Woman – an African girl’s journey to financial freedom. She describes the book as the 21st century woman’s guide to financial liberation. In 2020, the book was turned into a television series to exclusively bring to life what was in the book. In her quest to help young women make smart money decisions, Arese Ugwu founded a personal finance platform, Smart Money Africa. Her dream is to change the African description of poverty by educating this generation on financial literacy. Arese uses stories the average African can relate to, workshops and several media platforms to encourage and promote financial liberation. She is also the founder of Smart Money Travel which is a platform under the Smart Money Africa brand, which provides travel packages for the small millennial and assures luxury for less. Arese Ugwu in her spare time hosts a program, Your Life, Your Money on Guardian TV’s personal finance show and is also a co-host on Analyse This on GTCO’s NdaniTv.
Technology
Ada Nduka Oyom
In her mid-20s, Ada is a software developer and open source advocate who currently leads developer relations at Interswitch group. She’s also the founder of She Code Africa and Open Source Community Africa where she’s focused on matters bothered around Women in tech and Open Source respectively.
Aside software development and open source advocacy, Ada runs a podcast show for Loop Africa, one of the largest developer communities in Africa where she talks on issues bordered around tech while interviewing several personalities in tech.
Despite studying Microbiology in school, Ada’s love for tech began after she became an active member of the Google student club while in her second year at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. In her third year, she became the lead for the Google developer group chapter in her school and was exposed to amazing technologies and concepts and some of the brightest minds in tech across Nigeria.
Interior design…
Jumoke Adenowo
CNN has described her as “Africa’s Starchitect”. She has been featured in the world’s foremost architectural journal, Architectural Record and has spoken on several platforms including the Global Women’s Forum and Harvard Business School. She has been described in several forums as the face of architecture in Nigeria and has also been recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects as one of the inspirational women in modern day architecture. Jumoke has been involved in the design and construction of over 80 projects that includes government buildings, private residences, public buildings, financial institutions etc. via her AD Consulting, her architectural firm of almost 30 years.
In 2019, Jumoke was appointed Visiting Professor at the Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany, honoured as a guest scientist and laureate at the Chair of Theory, History of Architecture and Art and Design arm of the university’s department of architecture.
A recipient of several awards, she is a member of several professional bodies including the Nigerian Institute of Architects. A public speaker, author and advocate for women empowerment, Jumoke also finds time to run her oil and gas services firm, Advantage Energy.
Real Estate
Chinwe Ajene-Sagna
She is the Founder/Managing Partner of Catalyst Realty Solutions, a full-service real estate firm offering strategic advisory, implementation capability and asset management in the property sector for private, corporate and institutional pan-African clients. Her prior role was Group Head of Business Development Africa for Rendeavour – Africa’s largest urban land developers with over 12,000 hectares of land on 7 projects (averaging 1-2000 hectares) in five cities across Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, DRC, Zambia) and 250+ million USD in infrastructure investments over each projects’ lifetime. Chinwe spent over 14 years with JLL, a global full-service real estate firm which is a Fortune 500 company, as Head of West Africa out of Lagos, Nigeria. Before then, she was head of the French International Desk in Paris/France at JLL where she provided CRM and Portfolio/ Asset management services to key international clients. In Washington DC/USA she established 50-year real estate master plans for the US Military Army/Air Force as part of the US Military Housing public private partnerships initiative (over 2000+ homes). Her projects received US Congressional approval for implementation. Chinwe frequently shares her knowledge on strategy and asset management via various mediums including the Lagos Business School Strategy Department. Chinwe serves in the investment committee for Rising Tide Africa (raising the RiTA fund) and sits on various boards.
Entertainment
Kemi Adetiba
The filmmaker, television director and music video director is one young woman giving men in entertainment a run for their money. Kemi whose works have appeared on Channel O, MTV Base, Soundcity TV, BET and Netflix, started out as a radio personality with Silverbird’s Rhythm 93.7fm, moved on to M-Net as an on-air personality, before setting up K’Alpha Innovations, a media production company catering mainly to music video production and Kemi Adetiba Visuals, a 360-production company specializing in film, music videos, documentaries, online content, and commercials. A story teller, she is the director of the record-breaking The Wedding Party 1, King of Boys and King of Boys: Return of The King and the much-celebrated King Women series. A recipient of several awards, Kemi’s mum is the highly cerebral engineer and actor, Mayen
Beauty
Oke Maduewesi
The sad loss of her husband in the Sosoliso air crash has not in any way stopped Oke from pursuing her dreams and succeeding at it. A former branch manager with Zenith bank, Oke has been working in the cosmetics industry for over a decade. Through the years, she has been very focused on delivering sleek premium quality products at affordable prices to enhance the lifestyle needs of African women through her Zaron group of companies, comprising Zaron International Limited and Zaron Cosmetics Limited who are manufacturers, distributors and marketers of beauty care and makeup range of products under the Zaron brand. Through vision, perseverance and hard work, she has been able to build the Zaron brand into one of the strongest and fastest growing cosmetic brands in Africa with a business ethos anchored on integrity.
Politics
Tyna Onem
It has been almost 23 years since Nigeria returned to democratic rule, yet the country has not made satisfactory progress in terms of pushing for more women inclusion in political leadership. Nigeria continues to rank low in women’s political participation. The 2022 International Women’s Day, themed ‘Break the Bias’ was dealt a painful blow as lawmakers in the National Assembly voted against all bills seeking for greater representation of women in politics and other sectors of the society. Only after a protest did the male politicians rescind their decision, hoping to take a second look at the bills. However, from the few who are contributing their quota, one woman stands out among them and that is none other than Onem Miracle Tyna, the Councillor representing Ogbia Ward 2 in the Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
Last year, Tyna was celebrated for building a bridge linking two abandoned communities in her ward with money meant for the purchase of her official car. A rare feat one must say, especially now that politicians are only after enriching their pockets rather than to be concerned about the welfare of the people they claim to represent. She started out working as a personal secretary to the Organising Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party in Bayelsa State. Impressed by her dedication to duty and hard work, she was asked to contest for the position of councillor in her ward. The party executives gave her a free ticket to contest the position. They also sponsored her campaign and everything about the election. That was how she got into politics in 2019. She however admits that life as a female politician can be very challenging, as most people are biased towards women in politics. They think women in politics are prostitutes who are just there because of men. Hopefully for Tyna, the sky will only be the limit for her.
Fashion/Styling
Toyin Lawani
She is one lady many love to hate, but what you cannot take away from Toyin, is her creativity. She is an unstoppable creative force and she is not called the queen of fashion for nothing. Toyin, who likes to refer to herself as the transformer queen on account of the unique fashion pieces she churns out which can easily be transformed into two, three or more styles from just one fashion piece, has had some of her pieces recreated by international celebrities.
Via her Tiannah Place Empire, Toyin who recently clocked 40 is a serial entrepreneur who runs 30 other businesses aside from her fashion and styling business.
New Media
Toke Makinwa
If there is one person who understands how to leverage the benefits of social media, that person is Toke Makinwa. Toke’s presence is felt everywhere across the whole spectrum of social media, which is now the in-thing and this has translated to more money in her bank account. She is one of Nigeria’s highest paid influencers, getting endorsements from many high-profile companies. A broadcaster, Toke is the host of The Morning Drive on Rhythm 93.7FM; a television personality, she has plied her trade on EbonyLife; a talk show host she has a pan African talk show on television. An event host Toke has hosted several high profile events; a vlogger, she runs her own Youtube series, Toke Moments. She is also an author who released her book, On Becoming in 2016 and a lifestyle entrepreneur with her range of luxury fashion accessories such as hand bags, scarves and a makeup line. A recipient of several awards, Toke is considered one of the top five African female show hosts.
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