By Taofik Salako, Deputy Group Business Editor
Access Bank Plc has launched the third edition of its Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme, in continuation of the bank’s mandate to empower female entrepreneurs with financial and business skills.
The Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme is designed to provide female-owned businesses across Africa an opportunity to access finance, world-class business trainings as well as mentoring opportunities. It was designed to create an enabling environment for female entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
Group Head, W Initiative, Access Bank Plc, Ayona Trimnell, said Access Bank has been a leading advocate for women’s economic empowerment in Africa, which explains its motivation for the ‘W’ Initiative that caters to the women economy particularly in the areas of financing, capacity building and creating networking opportunities for women.
She noted that the bank launched the first Womenpreneur pitch-a-ton initiative in 2019 in line with its value proposition to be the number one bank of choice for women in Nigeria, pointing out that the bank has received more than 100,000 applications over the past two years.
“In 2020, despite the pandemic, we were able to expand the programme to other female entrepreneurs across 7 African countries with 3 winners emerging from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Zambia out of 50 finalists. This year we are making the programme bigger and better by increasing the numbers to 100 women entrepreneurs who will emerge as finalists. The programme will also be opening up to a total of 9 African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and the Gambia,” Trimnell said.
According to her, the 2021 Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa kicked off on June 21. It will run till August 13, with various exciting programmes during the period, including financial grants, an exclusive certified capacity building programme and business coaching aimed at empowering women.
“Interested female entrepreneurs who meet the criteria of having an existing business for at least one year with at least 50 per cent female ownership and between the age range of 18 and 45 years are eligible and required to fill an online application on www.womenpreneur.ng . All online applications will be reviewed and screened by independent business experts to 500 candidates who will be required to send in a 60 second video pitch for the opportunity to be selected as part of the final top 100 candidates who will benefit from an exclusive and certified Mini-MBA and grant prizes.
“The programme is designed as a three-month period comprising 12 weeks of mini-MBA training in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and pitching sessions to a Pan-African Jury panel where the top 100 finalists will pitch their businesses, infusing learnings from the mini-MBA and will stand an opportunity to win financial grants and other consolation prizes.”
As a leading commercial bank in Nigeria, Access Bank has made significant investments aimed at enhancing growth in the Small and Medium-size Enterprise sector. The Bank is also a major advocate for women in business through innovative offerings like the W Power Loan, a discounted financing at 15 per cent interest per annum, for women to grow their business as well as other Business Support Services. The Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa Programme is the first women-in-business support initiative of its kind in the industry,” Trimnell said.
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