The sixth edition of Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton programme, the first women-in-business support initiative by Access Bank’s W Initiative has been unveiled.
Mrs. Biodun Olubitan, the Group Head, Women Banking at Access Bank, while unveiling the Season 6 edition of the programme on Monday, said interested women entrepreneurs are free to apply for the programme which will reward 10 winners with the sum of N17.5 million Naira in business grants.
In addition to the N17 million business grants, Olubitan said the Season 6 edition of the programme will provide mini-MBA certification to 120 women entrepreneurs in Nigeria. The application process began on June 24, 2024, and will run until August 9, 2024.
The Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton program spans three months and includes an eight-week mini-MBA training program conducted in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
During this period, participants will also have the opportunity to showcase their businesses in pitching sessions to a prestigious Pan-African jury. The top finalists will present their business ideas, incorporating the knowledge gained from the mini-MBA program, and stand a chance to win financial grants and other consolation prizes.
Olubitan stated that “some years back, we conducted a survey on why female owned startup businesses fail within the first five years of existence and we found out that it was due to a knowledge gap which needed to be bridged by providing resources to these women to help their businesses thrive.”
She noted that this birthed the Womenpreneur Program and the program is one of the largest business growth platforms for women in Africa, explaining that the programme is a female focused campaign that seeks to provide quality trainings to business owners through an IFC certified mini-MBA as well as grants to select winners.
According to Olubitan, the main objective of the program is to help women with the requisite knowledge to grow their businesses. The program has been running for the past five years, this is the sixth year running and from previous seasons, we have received impressive and positive testimonials from participants about how the program has helped them improve their businesses and how they have applied the training received to grow their businesses.
She added that the program has produced 645 mini-MBA winners across six geo-political zones in Nigeria as well as 10 other African countries, 65 grant winners as well as 40 other consolation prize winners from 2019 to 2023.
She also said that “the impact has been enormous and has exposed the participating businesses to new and international clientele and markets, we have had participants who had opportunities to launch their businesses in the international market.
“The women have learnt useful skills such as business marketing, management and digital prowess which they have applied to their businesses to experience the growth recorded.”
Entering its sixth season, the Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton program is designed to support female entrepreneurs who have been running their businesses for at least one year, have at least 50 per cent ownership or controlling rights, and fall within the age range of 18 to 55 years.
Bimpe Gisanrin, Unit Head, Women Banking, said the eight weeks training which will be conducted in Nigeria will be replicated in other countries where the bank has subsidiaries.
She said, “The mini MBA to be supervised by International Finance Corporation (IFC) is more rewarding than the prize money as things learnt during the training will be an access to participants in the day-to-day running of their enterprises”.
In terms of prizes, Oyindamola Oyebola, Team Lead, Women Banking, said the first prize winner will go home with N5 million grants, second prize is N4 million, third prize is N3 million, fourth prize is N2 million, while the fifth prize is N1 million.
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