In Part 1 and Part 2 of these series on Nigerian women entrepreneurs, we x-rayed enterprising Nigerian women and how they are taking the African continent by storm with their innovative business initiatives.
Here is Part 3 and concluding part of the series, and it showcases another Top 10 women entrepreneurs who do more than nurse a baby or manage the kitchen:
1. Damilola Solesi
Damilola Solesi is the CEO and creative director of SMIDS Animation Studios, a startup that uses 3D animations, motion graphics, and visual effects to produce animated videos. Based in Lagos, the animation studios teaches children and interested adults on how to create cartoons, animated adverts, and other educative or hilarious animation videos using 3D graphics and motion effects.
2. Oreoluwa Somolu Lesi
Oreoluwa Somolu Lesi is the founder of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, an initiative that works with young girls and women for gender empowerment. The centre deploys communication and information technologies to empower women in computer literacy and empowerment.
3. Omoyemi Akerele
Omoyemi Akerele established the Lagos Fashion and Design Week and is also the founder of Style House Flies. Style House Flies helps with organizing the Lagos Fashion and Design Week with Akerele herself being the artistic director of the creative development agency. The Lagos Fashion show showcases various talents in the fashion industry on an annual get-together and it works to project the artistic talents and creative fashion of Nigerians to the world.
4. Ugochi Ugbomeh
Ugochi Ugbomeh is a co-founder with Tranzit Nigeria, an IT-based cab-hailing and booking service. The company’s TaxiPixi can be used to summon taxis for any destinations within the state using an internet-enabled smartphone. The company has facilitated the movement of people from one place to another using taxis that can be hailed using one’s mobile phone.
5. Oyindamola Honey Oyediyi
Oyindamola Honey Oyediyi is the CEO of Fashpa, an online fashion store dedicated to retailing luxury and trendy clothes, footwear, and other fashion accessories. The eCommerce store can be used to order fashionable clothes and shoes without the need to leave one’s home, and Fashpa retails very cheap and affordable materials for all occasions.
6. Zainab Ashadu
Zainab Ashadu is the founder of Zashadu Bags, a fashion business dedicated to hand-crafted leather pieces. The fashion business uses only locally sourced leather and animal skins to create well-designed women bags that are sometimes decorated with rough-cut precious stones. The fashion company employs native leather workers and skilled artisans to make the bags in their Lagos studio, and they cater to a crop of high-net clientele that keeps the company in business.
7. Ijeoma Ndekwu
Ijeoma Ndekwu is the CEO of Redrick Public Relations, a company dedicated to media campaigns and brand strategies for local and international business clients. The PR firm is a specialist at product launches, press release writing and distribution, event planning, media content placement, story pitching, and press kit development among others. The PR company has helped many retail, lifestyle and corporate brands to penetrate their target markets and achieve long-term business objectives using results-oriented PR campaigns.
8. Ommo Clark
Ommo Clark is the founder of iBez, a software business that develops proprietary software products. iBez designs and creates innovative software solutions for medium and largescale organizations and also develops specific digital applications aimed at solving specific problems. Some of the company’s software products are designed for use in schools, hotels, banks, and business organizations among others.
9. Rainat Komolafe
Rainat Komolafe is the CEO of Babies Essence, a baby-centric business that revolves around baby showers, baby registry, shopping for babies, and other specialist baby-related services. Babies Essence is established for pregnant women and working mothers with the aim of helping them care for their babies without suffering any major disruptions to their normal life and work routines.
10. Eva Sonaike
Eva Sonaike is the founder and CEO of Eva Sonaike, a lifestyle and interior decoration outfit. The business utilizes local African textiles and design products to beautify the homes of customers and as well as create a suite of home decors that look distinctively indigenous. Eva Sonaike deploys cultural creativity to produce a melange of aesthetic textiles and accessories to design residential and office interiors. The styles portrayed by the outfit bring out the Africanness and the global appeal of traditional designs in home interiors.
