HISTORY OF THE
WEALTHIST NIGERIAN WOMAN
- Folorunsho Alakija
Self-made
billionaire Folorunsho Alakija is
the wealthiest woman in Nigeria, leading her to start a philanthropic
foundation which is helping turn thousands of marginalised widows into
entrepreneurs.
Alakija began her
working life as a secretary in the corporate world, where she moved quickly up
the ladder to take a top management position at the now-defunct International Merchant Bank in Lagos,
Nigeria. A passionate desire to start a business of her own led her to complete
a course in Fashion Design in England,
after which she returned to Africa in 1985
to launch her company, Supreme Stitches,
from a small apartment. Within a year, the brand had become a national success
and Alakija was acknowledged as the
country’s top fashion designer.
In
the early 90s Alakija decided to
invest in Nigeria’s fledgling oil industry, and founded FAMFA Oil Limited, a family-run exploration and production
company. “We were allocated an oil bloc which nobody wanted at that time because
it was deep offshore and very expensive to explore,” she tells Vanguard. “Then
we found that we actually stocked oil there in commercial quantities, and we
just considered ourselves very lucky.”
That bloc today remains one of the most prolific in the country.
With
a deep conviction that wealth brings the responsibility to give back, Alakija created the Rose of Sharon Foundation in 2008 to support and empower orphans and
widowed women. “Once they lose their
husbands, society turns their backs on them,” she tells Ventures-Africa.com.
“Their in-laws begin to mistreat them,
they become depressed, they don’t know where to turn. They don’t know where
their next meal is coming from.”
From
Rose of Sharon, women receive
financial support and educational opportunities for themselves and their
children, business training, interest-free loans to start up small businesses,
and accommodation for business purposes. “A
journey that started with three widows has blossomed into a network of over
three thousand women today,” Alakija tells collegemarket.com.ng.
So what are
the secrets of her success?
“Whatever
I take up, I always want to do it well,” she says. “The zeal to succeed in whatever I do is what
drives me. To me, passion is whatever
you derive pleasure in doing, something that comes to you naturally. When passion is involved, struggle becomes
less. And if you add hard work to
passion, you will get to the top of the ladder.”
[To me, passion is whatever you derive pleasure in doing, something that
comes to you naturally]
And what
advice does she give other women entrepreneurs?
“It’s
essential to draw up a ‘things to do’
list on a daily basis, and set priorities in executing them, making sure that
any unfinished task gets posted to the next day’s list,” says Alakija. “Remove what is bad for you. As you do this, consider what would give you
more time for yourself, your health, rest and recreation, and more time with
and for your family. Learning to say ‘no’ is a practical way to re-organise
your life. We do not have to say ‘yes’ to every request just because we want to
be nice.”
Wealth,
for Alakija, is about more than money. “Wealth is a word that quantifies and
qualifies anything,” she says. “Wealth measures one’s success in achieving set
targets and goals, including prosperity, and blessings which can be in the form
of good health, the education of children, and even living to a ripe old
age. To me, a wealthy woman is someone
who has been able to achieve some or all of these.”
This
inspiring entrepreneurial role model continues to share the blessings of her
own wealth, creating new entrepreneurs as she does so.
[It’s essential to draw up a ‘things to
do’ list on a daily basis, and set priorities in executing them, making sure
that any unfinished task gets posted to the next day’s list]
Source:
emergingstars.com
No comments:
Post a Comment