LEAP Africa Empowers SME Owners at Business Leadership Programme

On Thursday, 18 September, 2015, an exclusive group of small, medium business owners and Bank of Industry representatives participated in a highly interactive LEAP Africa seminar on Business Leadership. The event was held in collaboration with the Bank of Industry with Connectnigeria.com as a media partner. Speakers included Founder, LEAP Africa and AACE Foods, Ndidi Nwuneli; Founder/Chairman, Telnet Nigeria, Nadu Denloye; Director of Digital Business, Etisalat, Adia Sowho; Founding Chairman, LEAP Africa and CEO, Vertex Energy, Segun Olujobi; Senior Manager Deal Advisory, KPMG, Femi Alabi and other prominent business leaders. Participants engaged on a wide array of topics, covering the various spheres of running successful, longstanding enterprises in the highly competitive and sometimes constraining African business landscape. From improved strategic thinking skills to knowledge on corporate governance, financial management, ethical leadership and succession planning, SME owners were fully equipped with the essential tools needed to take on the business world. “Compliance and ethics allows better access to talents and enhanced reputation sustainability of the business,” stated Olujobi in the class on Ethics, which was highlighted by a heated debate on the fairness of price markups excluding costs. Alabi cited poor financial management as the main reason for business failure of most startups and SMEs. He also refuted the belief in income statements and balance sheets as primarily sufficient for accounting, stating that business cash flow must be accounted for in addition. In a practical class, Sowho helped attendees define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound) goals, understand the subject matter of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis and the Pareto principle, and identify means of forecasting and ensuring the future success of their businesses. Visit Connect Nigeria’s Twitter page for more enlightening information from the event.  

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This article was first published on 18th September 2015

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