The Woman, the Vision, the Fashion House: 12 Things Odio Oseni’s Journey Can Teach Us About Staying True to a Vision
For three decades, Odio Oseni has built a fashion house around a distinct vision of African women, cultural identity and contemporary luxury. As Odio Mimonet unveils a new brand identity inspired by Nigerian architecture, her journey offers a powerful story about creative conviction, longevity and the courage to keep evolving. Building a creative business is […]
She Started A Blog In Her Dorm Room. Twenty Years Later, She Runs Africa’s Largest Media Empire: 9 Lessons Uche Pedro Is Teaching Us About Building a Brand That Lasts
In June 2006, a young Nigerian woman sitting in a university residence in Canada opened a blog. She was bored. She had two weeks off and something to say, specifically, that the Africa she knew, the one full of fashion and culture and ambition and sheer aliveness, was nowhere to be found in the stories […]
#InternationalDayOfTheGirlChild: 18 African Girls Doing Big Things Before 18
What does a girl get to become when she has the opportunity to find out what she is good at, pursue what excites her and discover how far her abilities can take her? Sometimes, it looks like a teenager designing a spacecraft for thousands of passengers. Sometimes, it is a young girl turning agricultural waste […]
From Model to Industry Builder: 9 Lessons From Fatimata Sawaneh on Representation, Beauty and Building Your Own Table
Fatimata B. Sawaneh did not decide to build Future Models of Africa from the outside looking in. She built it because she had been on the inside, and she saw exactly what was missing. As a model who worked with international brands and appeared on Germany’s Next Topmodel, she didn’t just experience the global fashion […]
Converge, Celebrate, Build: 12 Lessons Mfon Ekpo Is Teaching Us About Global Knowledge, Innovation and African Leadership
What does it mean to truly lead? Not to speak at conferences or collect titles and keynote invitations, but to actually build something, something permanent, something institutional, something that will still be standing and still be serving people long after the moment that created it has passed. Ambassador Mfon Ekpo has spent over two decades […]
Oke Maduewesi: Celebrating 15 Years of Zaron Cosmetics, and the Woman Who Built It Before African Beauty Was Trendy
The beauty industry had been telling African women what they should use. Oke Maduewesi wanted to create something that actually understood what they needed. Fifteen years later, that simple conviction has grown into Zaron Cosmetics, a beauty brand with a footprint across Africa and a story that goes far beyond makeup. In 2011, Oke left […]
Build, Scale, Release:12 Lessons From Olamide Olowe On Leading Beyond The Title
In 2020, Olamide Olowe was 23 years old, freshly out of college, and convinced that the beauty industry had been lying to Black women for decades. Not about everything, but about skin, about who deserved solutions for hyperpigmentation, eczema, and chronic skin conditions and about whose complexion was worth designing for. She wasn’t waiting for […]
When Purpose Becomes A Institution: 9 Lessons Damilola Feyide Teaches Us About Mission-Driven Leadership
What does it take to look at Nigeria’s most forgotten children and decide that their future is your responsibility? Not to write about them. Not to speak about them at conferences or include them in policy papers or add them to the list of problems that someone, somewhere, will eventually get around to solving, but […]
19 Kenyan Women Leading The Charge in Public Service
When we talk about who runs a country, we often picture presidents, ministers and politicians standing behind podiums but much of the work that keeps a country moving happens elsewhere, inside courts, regulatory agencies, electoral bodies, ministries and public institutions, often led by women whose names rarely make the headlines. They are lawyers building justice […]
The Funke Akindele Playbook: 12 Lessons on Building A Powerful Brand
Before Funke Akindele became one of Nigeria’s most commercially successful filmmakers, she was a secondary school student playing Bisi on I Need to Know. That role in the UNFPA-sponsored sitcom in 1998 was the beginning of a career that would stretch across acting, television, film, production and entrepreneurship. Nearly three decades later, Funke is not […]