Collaborations, partnerships keys to maximizing women to women networks ― Imabong Martin, CEO Priniora, Ltd

 

Collaborations, partnerships keys to maximizing women to women networks ― Imabong Martin, CEO Priniora, Ltd

 

Starting her career in the Quality Assurance sector of a topmost blue chip organization, Imabong Martin‘s marketing career saw her moving from one leading food company to another.

Working mostly in the food industry exposed her to women, affording her the opportunity to connect to their needs, their motivations and why they want what they want. She then moved up from Brand Management to Consumer Relations, which involved finding solutions at different levels, and helping her transition gradually to building people, as she now does in her role as CEO,  Priniora Ltd, an organization that develops women, helping them to unlock and actualize potentials towards generating sustainable income,  personal fulfillment, while contributing to family wellbeing and the betterment of society.

You had the opportunity of using the CSR function in your organization to do what you are doing now. Why was it necessary to leave, to do it on your own?

In whatever you want to do, you need experience to get the technical knowhow and other competencies to make meaningful impact in the lives of people. In that employment, the company created shared values, which is different from Corporate Social Responsibility. Yes, I was into Consumer Services which, apart from generating demand, has to do with contributing to consumer lives. That job involved being the ear and the mouth of the consumer to the company and vice versa. The aspect of giving to the consumer was part of the role and not all the role. Generally, you progress in career and progress in life and this is a higher opportunity to do something that I really feel there is an opportunity for with the 100+ million women in Nigeria and the need to harness to contribute to national development.

 

What have you been doing with women in that capacity?

We started with a paid forward programme with thirteen ladies where we ran five weeks of  basic entrepreneur skills, basic marketing skills, basic finance skills and basic soft skills.

Fast forward, today, when I look at that class that we started with, we had two women entrepreneurs and event décors who are thriving today in their businesses. We have another bucket who have gone into small businesses  and also supported others.

In the last three years we have had our flagship event which is called, ‘Push Forward’.

This is to help women discover their potentials and to also give them soft skills to help them in their potentials.

We also have a structured homemaking business. We take advantage of the online opportunity and we give impact without taking wealth back.

We also have a paid projects; training, coaching and today we train for reputable companies where we train their leading women because they believe with those women being built and empowered, there is a lot they can contribute to the company and make it move forward.

What about the men?

In marketing, you need to have a target; that’s your bull’s eye. Otherwise, you will be everywhere and diluted in that sense.

Do we choose men or do people see that we have a competency to train such men? Yes. Actually, I personally trained a class of about 13 engineers and just one lady.

This year alone, we have had trainings on customer service, and it was more men than women. But in terms of our marketing focus, again, our business is focused on helping women discover potential.

We realized, 49 per cent of Nigeria’s population are women and that’s a huge opportunity.

In working with women, quite a number of them are still asking the question, what can I do? And that’s why our main focus is to help them discover what they can do and help unlock that resource at the end of the day.

The second thing that makes us unique is that we teach homemaking in a structured way. I know that there are catering outfits that teach how to cook but in terms of teaching holistic homemaking, we offer that structured training to make a woman, whether she’s about to wed or  just wedded, a holistic homemaker in a way that produces results, balance, strength; that she can leverage on to win in whatever she is doing.

What are the challenges of working with women?

The more you research women, listen to women and engage with them, the more you are able to understand their challenges and the more patient you become in working with women.

So, if I see a big challenge, there is the willingness or the drive to keep pushing despite the environment the woman might find herself in. Of course, the economic challenges are there. Sometimes she has to juggle a lot of balls and that can be pretty much on a woman’s mind.

That really is the interesting part of our flagship event; ‘Push Forward’ because we know that pushing against the odds seems to be the big thing that hampers women from achieving what they are out there to achieve.

Do you believe in gender opportunity?

What are the figures? Over 100Miliion women in the country, and that’s almost half of our population. If half of your population is not enabled to contribute, that already puts a lot of pressure on the other half.

That also means that this 50 percent, which is the women, if they are not contributing to even half capacity or full capacity, then that economy is missing something really tangible.

So yes, I believe that it’s a great thing to enable 50 percent to 49 percent of the population to bring the resources within them to the table to move the country forward.

We have an interesting structure, a creative one because we are into empowering people and developing people. We have a seasoned faculty, and a class structure that works with different partners.

We have a team of partners. I mean, men are not enemies, are they? And I’m just not trying to pay lip service to women, I have met real fantastic women and I have realized that to unlock women, I’ve got to form an impression based on what I really believe would work.

I think that a lot of work I’ve been doing recently is helping women see the opportunity in ourselves, in collaborations and partnerships, in maximizing our networks, women to women.

So within what I do, I work very well with men, in terms of advisory purposes, consulting purposes, we have strong men who contribute to what we do and also strong women, who are there to hold one’s hand and to grab opportunities with you, recommend us or work with us and grow with us.

Either way, man or woman, you will also have experiences you don’t like. So I don’t think it’s peculiar to women, and I don’t feel any itch at all working with women.

If you want to make the best of opportunity, you must learn to work with a man or woman and bring them to the full force of what you’re doing and make the best of it.  Thankfully, I think the media is doing what you are doing today.

There are very few women who lead multinationals, who lead government parastatals. But there is a next level: women who run large farms, maybe women who own fleets of small cars in some communities, women whose reach may be within states, a couple of local governments.

And these are the women who will pull the remaining with maybe 30, 50 million, who will influence in whatever capacity. 

Yes, it may be a bit challenging to go pulling every single woman, but in our different sectors, we can impact the middle level leaders who can pull up all other women they can employ, they can mentor, they can create initiatives that can bring grants, with  government influence and all of that into communities.

Yes Nigeria has turned 61, but we need to be more focused, not just in one sector, maybe not just in government or in politics.

What about manufacturing and education? What policies are we going to enable across board to enable women to contribute in all the sectors?

If we left all of that to the government, then the journey is going to take us a lot longer. Different people in the private sector need to also look at that opportunity and what they can do.

Why is everyone working with women; is there anything wrong with women?

As it’s commonly known, there is that glass ceiling, which, increasingly, different organizations are helping women to break through. 

I keep bringing this to the table that if you utilize only the strength of 50 percent of your population, your building will be challenged. We urgently need this 50 percent to work for the country to achieve its potential.

Let me add that the foundation of any society is the home. When you train a woman, you train a nation. When that potential is insufficiently enabled, you will know there is a fundamental challenge.

When the woman is sufficiently empowered, people will be impacted and they can contribute to nation building.

They can contribute to the improvement of society, they can contribute on the global stage. I think we can’t have enough of empowering women or developing them, so it’s really a huge need.

 

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