Women in small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) have received a boost from Keystone Bank, courtesy of the Pink Network (PN), an initiative for women entrepreneurs and professionals to interact and share business ideas.
The bank seeks to use the platform as ideas incubator for women professionals and entrepreneurs to help fill the gap between the number of male and female entrepreneurs.
The first PN session, held at Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos, was attended by women in business, politics, government and public service, including PN Ambassador, Rita Dominic.
Others included Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN) President, Debola Osibogun; Nike Akande; Abike Dabiri-Erewa; and Florence Ita-Giwa.
Osibogun said Keystone Bank has “creatively set up this platform to cater for the dreams and aspirations of women SMEs and the professional working class women.
“This initiative, beyond supporting the Central Bank’s Financial Inclusion Policy, would also solve some of the challenges built around markets and infrastructure that SMEs face.”
Keystone Bank Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Philip Ikeazor, listed the possibilities that partnership with the PN offers to include financing of ventures in agriculture, technology, education, hospitality and tourism, media and entertainment, professional services and advisory.
“Once it is a small and medium scale venture, the possibilities are endless,” he stressed.
Ikeazor said a lot has been written about women, from girls in their teens, to women in middle age, from student entrepreneurs, to mom entrepreneurs, from women who quit their job to start a business, to women made redundant who started a business.
“I strongly believe that the Pink Network can offer a platform for the success story that every woman entrepreneur needs to make an impact to family, friends and the community at large.
“We want that when you tell your success story as a creator, a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, that it is a Pink story,” Ikeazor enthused.
Keystone Executive Director (Operations and Technology), Yvonne Isichei, spoke about the motive behind starting the PN.
Her words: “We were inspired to build this platform for women from our vision of creating utmost value for our stakeholders and our mission of being the preferred partner.”
