As part of the bank’s commitment to empower female entrepreneurs with financial and business skills, Access Bank Plc. has unveilled the third edition of its Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme.
The Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme is designed to provide female-owned businesses across Africa an opportunity to access finance, world-class business trainings as well as mentoring opportunities. This programme has been designed to create an enabling environment for female entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
Highlighting the bank’s objective for the initiative’s third edition, Managing Director-Access Bank Ghana, Olumide Olatunji said: “Access Bank has been a leading advocate for women’s economic empowerment in Africa, and this is the key motivation for the ‘W’ Initiative that caters to the women-economy in the areas of financing, capacity building and networking opportunities for women”.
The Group Head for Retail Banking in Access Bank Ghana, Matilda Asante-Asiedu, further stated that: “We launched the first Womenpreneur pitch-a-ton initiative in 2019, in line with our value proposition to be the No. 1 Bank of Choice for women in Africa; and we have received over 100,000 applications over the last 2 years. In 2020, despite the pandemic, the bank was able to expand the programme to other female entrepreneurs across 7 African countries – with 3 winners emerging from Sierra Leone, Ghana and Zambia out of 50 finalists. This year, the bank is making the programme bigger and better by increasing the number to 100 women entrepreneurs who will emerge as finalists. The programme will also be opening up to a total of 9 African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and the Gambia”.
The 2021 Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa programme officially kicked-off on Monday, June 21 and will end on Friday, August 13, 2021. This will offer financial grants, an exclusive certified capacity building programme, and business coaching aimed at empowering women entrepreneurs. Interested female entrepreneurs who meet the criteria of having an existing business for at least one year as well as a minimum of 50% female ownership and are within the age range of 18-45 years are eligible and required to fill in an online application on www.womenpreneur.ng.
All online applications will be reviewed and screened by independent business experts to five hundred (500) candidates, who will be required to send in a sixty-second video pitch for the opportunity to be selected as part of the final top-100 candidates who will benefit from an exclusive and certified Mini-MBA and grant prizes.
The programme is a 3-month competition comprising 12 weeks of mini-MBA training in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and pitching sessions to a Pan-African Jury panel. The top one hundred (100) finalists will pitch their businesses, infusing learnings from the mini-MBA and stand a chance to win financial grants and other consolation prizes.
As a leading commercial bank in Africa, Access Bank has made significant investments aimed at enhancing growth in the Small and Medium-size Enterprise sector. The bank is also a major advocate for women in business through innovative offerings like the W Power Loan, a discounted financing scheme for women to grow their business, as well as other Business Support Services.
The Womenpreneur Pitch-a-ton Africa Programme is the first women-in-business support initiative of its kind in the industry.
