Business
FirstBank’s Ibukun Awosika Becomes President of IWEC Foundation’s Board of Directors
- /home/rhoncare/pointblank.ng/wp-content/plugins/mvp-social-buttons/mvp-social-buttons.php on line 27
https://pointblank.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chairman-1000x600.jpg&description=FirstBank’s Ibukun Awosika Becomes President of IWEC Foundation’s Board of Directors', 'pinterestShare', 'width=750,height=350'); return false;" title="Pin This Post">
- Share
- Tweet /home/rhoncare/pointblank.ng/wp-content/plugins/mvp-social-buttons/mvp-social-buttons.php on line 69
https://pointblank.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chairman-1000x600.jpg&description=FirstBank’s Ibukun Awosika Becomes President of IWEC Foundation’s Board of Directors', 'pinterestShare', 'width=750,height=350'); return false;" title="Pin This Post">
The International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge Foundation (IWEC) has announced the appointment of Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Ibukun Awosika as the new President of their Board of Directors. FirstBank is Nigeria’s Premier and Leading financial services provider.
Mrs. Awosika was elected to replace Miguel Valls, former President of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and president of the IWEC Foundation, who passed away last month. “The Foundation is very excited to announce the appointment of our new president,” stated Ruth A. Davis, IWEC Chairwoman and distinguished former U.S. Ambassador. “Ibukun Awosika has been a solid, steady presence at IWEC since its inception, and she is also a past IWEC awardee. Ibukun has not missed one IWEC Conference since 2008 and has lent her voice and experience not only to our conferences, but to our meetings after joining our Board in 2017. We are delighted that our Board of Directors voted on her appointment, and we’ll introduce her as our president at our upcoming 12th Annual IWEC Foundation Conference in New Delhi, on November 10th.”
The Foundation’s 2019 Conference will focus on “Connecting Women Businesses Globally: Leading the Way to Innovation and Integration”. The event would be hosted locally by the FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO) of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), which represents over 5000 women entrepreneurs and professionals across India. This year, IWEC welcomes 39 awardees from 18 countries, with a combined revenue of over US$5.7 billion among all awardees to date.
IWEC Foundation Vice Chair, Carmen Castillo, CEO of SDI International, adds: “Ibukun has demonstrated a significant commitment to IWEC over the years. Her breadth of knowledge extends from being an entrepreneur running SOKOA Chair Centre Limited, to overseeing the board of directors for the renowned First Bank of Nigeria Limited. We are looking forward to her wise counsel and to continuously drive IWEC globally as a source of support, connection and impact for women business owners all over the world.”
Ibukun Awosika heads Nigeria’s premier bank, and she is also the founder and CEO of the Chair Centre Group, an association of large companies in the manufacturing, retail, and financial security services. Mrs. Awosika further holds seats in the corporate boards of Cadbury Nigeria, Digital Jewel Limited and the Convention on Business Integrity, and she is a former chair of several other enterprise boards.
Ibukun is a graduate of Chemistry from University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria, an alumna of the Chief Executive Program of Lagos Business School, the Global Executive MBA of IESE Business School, Wharton’s Global CEO Program, and the IESE and China European International Business School (CEIBS). Ibukun is a multiple award-winning entrepreneur and the first Nigerian recipient of the prestigious International Women Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) Award as a nominee of the US Department of State in 2008. Ibukun is also a best-selling author and motivational speaker.
Ibukun was just honoured last month with the International Friendship Award presented at the IESE Business School by the Queen of Spain.
About the IWEC Foundation
IWEC is a New York-based international economic empowerment organization exclusively for women business owners, formed in 2007 with the assistance of the U.S. Department of State. In addition to the State Department, its founders include the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Manhattan Chamber of Commerce (MCC), FICCI/FLO Chamber in New Delhi. IWEC’s mission is to develop a global business network for successful women entrepreneurs, helping them gain and expand access to international markets by presenting a platform to exchange knowledge, experience and connections, and to promote dialogue among women entrepreneurs and business leaders throughout the world.
Business
Beyond University Degrees: How ChipMango is Preparing African Engineers for Global Tech Industry
A university degree is a starting point, but practical industry experience can make all the difference.
Nigerian technology company ChipMango is bridging the gap through specialised semiconductor training and real-world chip design and verification projects, preparing African engineers for opportunities in the global technology industry.
Through Boost Africa, the EIB, AfDB and EU are strengthening the investment ecosystem supporting innovative African businesses.
Watch the video to discover how ChipMango is connecting engineering talent to real industry opportunities.
Watch the video:
American multinational technology conglomerate – Microsoft – has confirmed that its services have been fully restored following a worldwide outage that disrupted access to several of its products, including Outlook, Teams and Copilot, across more than 70 countries.
The technology company announced early Saturday that it had completed work to resolve the underlying technical problem, assuring customers that the affected services were operating normally again.
The outage, which began on Thursday, affected businesses, government institutions and individual users, with more than 430 million people worldwide relying on the products involved.
Microsoft attributed the disruption to a problem introduced during a “network capacity upgrade”. The company also ruled out a cyber-attack or an artificial intelligence agent as the cause and apologised to customers for the incident.
The widespread disruption exposed the dependence of businesses and essential public services on a handful of major technology providers, with experts describing the incident as a “stark reminder” of the risks associated with that reliance.
Several countries reported significant disruptions as the technical problems persisted for almost 24 hours before services began recovering on Friday afternoon UK time.
Peter Pentz, a winemaker in South Africa, said the outage had brought virtually every aspect of his business to a “standstill”.
He explained that communication relating to his winery’s exports had been disrupted, while essential production activities were suspended because the Cape West Coast-based business depended on Microsoft’s systems for some of its daily operations.
The outage also affected individuals with important personal transactions to complete.
Georgia, from Staffordshire in England, said she had been preparing to complete her first house purchase after waiting eight months for the process to reach its final stage. However, the Microsoft disruption threatened to delay the transaction.
“The solicitor mentioned there may be a delay due to not being able to contact other agencies,” she said.
“We’re not the only one completing today – there are hundreds of houses and for them to ring everyone in time is unfeasible.”
BBC
Africa has the engineering talent. The challenge is connecting it to global technology opportunities.
Nigerian company ChipMango is bridging this gap through specialised training and practical semiconductor design projects, creating pathways for African engineers to participate in the global chip industry.
Through Boost Africa, the EIB, AfDB and EU are strengthening the investment ecosystem supporting innovative African businesses.
Watch the video to discover how ChipMango is turning African engineering talent into global opportunities.
