She
Leads Africa, a social enterprise ensuring that women are part of Africa’s
growth story, has announced the launch of a business pitch competition
exclusively for female entrepreneurs, which will give the most promising female
entrepreneurs in West Africa a platform to connect to prominent mentors, business
funding and new market opportunities.
“Female
entrepreneurs are unfortunately missing from the conversation around Africa’s growth
story but the continent will not be able to reach its full potential without
the full economic participation of women”, says lead organiser Afua Osei.
She
Leads Africa addresses this challenge head on with a series of programs to help
female entrepreneurs gain business fundamentals, connect to an active business
network, and increase their access to financing.
The
first initiative to increase access to finance is a Pitch Competition in
September which will screen applications from across West Africa to identify
the top 10 talented female entrepreneurs who have founded or co-founded early
stage startups. Finalists will be selected by professionals in the consulting,
venture capital, and finance industry based on the strength of the idea,
ability to scale, understanding of the market, and quality of the management
team. Special consideration will be given to entrepreneurs in the technology
sector.
Finalists
will be paired with mentors to help advance their businesses and the
entrepreneurs will be brought to Lagos to pitch their businesses to a panel of
notable business personalities including Hakeem Belo-Osagie Chairman,
Etisalat Nigeria; and Ngozi Edozien, CEO InVivo Partners; and Bola Adesola,
CEO, Standard Chartered Bank. Finalists will compete for a $10,000 cash first
place prize, one-on-one meetings with venture capitalists, legal advice from a
premier law firm, free business lines and internet packages for a year,
tablets, SME accounting software and more.
The
Pitch Competition is supported by sponsors Etisalat, Udo Udoma &
Belo-Osagie, FSDH Capital, Start Smart Ghana and media partners Genevieve
Magazine, Tech Cabal, Venture Burn, and Bella Naija.
Applications
for entrepreneurs open June 23rd and will close July 30th 2014.
For more
information please visit: www.SheLeadsAfrica.org.
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