Following its official launch in Nigeria, the working committee of 100 Women in Finance Nigeria has visited the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) leadership to discuss how to ensure that a good number of women in Nigeria’s finance industry progress to take key roles in their various professions.
Speaking on Thursday in Lagos during the Gong Closing Ceremony on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange to mark the official launch of 100 Women in Finance Nigeria, Amanda Pullinger, the global chief executive officer of 100 Women in Finance, said as the global CEO of 100 Women in Finance that she has been privileged to either open or close gong in the floor of different stock markets all over the world.
While commending the NGX for playing host to the Nigerian team of 100 Women in Finance, she called on the NGX to join the Nigerian location of 100 Women in Finance to actualise their goals of creating opportunities for women in the finance industry to have access to global reach.
She said the organisation is encouraging more Nigerian women to join the cause as the 100WF has a vision known as “Vision 30/40 which is a goal for women to occupy 30% of senior investment roles and executive committee positions by 2040”.
“Altogether, we need to change the demography of the industry by changing the perception. We are increasing women’s visibility in key industry roles for the industry and their colleagues see them as experts. This will help the next generation of career women to see that it is possible for someone like them to view the finance industry as an exciting industry and where they can succeed.
“We know that Nigeria has bad press all over the world, but I want to be telling the good news about Nigeria because Nigeria leads in terms of the number of women in senior roles in the finance industry and the percentage of women chairing boards in the industry. It is very good news coming out of Nigeria and we want to make sure that the news gets to the rest of the world to encourage women in Nigeria to enter the finance industry,” Pullinger said.
Also speaking, Adesuwa Okunbo-Rhodes, one of the founding members of 100 Women in Finance Nigeria, said that the Nigerian working committee was very excited to formally launch the 100 Women in Finance Nigeria as the 32 locations of the organisation in the world.
According to her, the excitement is more because the organisation will provide global reach to its membership as it will enable them to connect to other women in the finance industry in London, Asia, New York and other countries.
She said despite having many other local women networks in Nigeria that there is something special about connecting to that global network, which 100WF offers.
“As women, we tend to always keep our heads down while doing our work but in order to grow and progress in our career, we need access to that global network and to have a community of women who are supporting each other. In addition, the network provides access to educational resources which helps in career development,” she added.
Earlier, Temi Popoola, the CEO of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, who was represented by Jude Chiemeka, divisional head of Capital Markets for NGX, said the NGX was the first security exchange to be EDGE certified, which is the Economic Dividend forward Gender Equality.
He said that as the first indigenous company to be certified in Nigeria, the NGX is committed to the gender equality cause and is open to partnerships with organisations such as 100 Women in Finance in order to help create the needed visibility for women in the Nigerian financial industry.
He said that the Nigerian Stock Exchange recognizes women and always gives them the opportunity to thrive in their careers even as he promised to work with 100WF Nigeria to meet their goals.
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