By Princess Pamela Toyin

Vantage Dymensions, a leadership and people development organisation, recently organised a workshop aimed at creating and promoting economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs in Ireland.

Held at the Bank of Ireland in Ballycoolin, north-west Dublin, the free workshop — held last month in recognition of Black History Month — brought together creative, hardworking, intelligent, beautiful, risk-taking and focused women who are breaking barriers and limits in their different careers and contributing to the vibrancy of the Irish economy.

The participants made various diverse and meaningful contributions expressing why and how entrepreneurship is key to economic progress of any nation.

According to organiser Toluwanimi Akaehomen, chief executive of Vantage Dymensions, women entrepreneurs no doubt drive economic growth. “I started this group because I identified that there was no forum, initiative, organisation or agency that was set to meet the specific needs of African women entrepreneurs in key areas,” she said, adding that these areas include and are not limited to advocacy, business growth and development support services.

Vantage Dymensions is an Irish-owned leadership and people development consultancy that supports individuals, communities, teams and organisations through tailored training programmes, facilitated workshops and seminars to enable them develop, build and implement high-performance strategies, skills and behaviours.

One of the participants was Adaku Ezeudo, chief executive of PhoenixRize, a consulting firm that provides cultural diversity training as well as consulting for companies and public sector organisations. She said the workshop was very empowering.

“This is what many of us have been looking forward to: African women entrepreneurs coming together to make magic happen. The energy in the room was palpable”.

Akaehomen added: “It was encouraging, inspiring and motivating to see everyone share their success stories, what factors enabled these successes, their challenges and how they navigated through those challenges.”

It was a gathering well overdue, noted Yemi Adenuga, group chief of D-Dymensions Communications, and founder and president of Sheroes Global. “It was good to see African women entrepreneurs unite with one voice to support one another to grow and make inroads. I was very happy and I commend Toluwanimi, the brains behind the idea of this event, for this laudable initiative.”

In her own remarks, Evelyn Nomayo, founding CEO of North East College in Drogheda and the Phase Innovate social enterprise, advised the network’s management to keep to achieving their set objectives.

“I believe if well done, it will raise the profile of African women in business in Ireland, thus recipients will enjoy better patronage in their endeavours.”

Nomayo who also serves as regional ambassador of Technovation Ireland, organisers of one of the world’s largest global tech entrepreneurship competition for girls, added: “Hopefully healthy collaborations will blossom.”

Adding to this, Adenuga said: “I am hoping that this gathering of African women entrepreneurs will grow to deliver more support for members and [that] many more women who believe in the initiative will join us to begin to build the businesses and project the successes of smart working and resilient African women entrepreneurs in Ireland.”

Akaehomen noted that the feedback on the event “was 110 per cent positive. It was great to see dynamic women owning their own spaces, generating innovative ideas and demonstrating a growth mind-set for business development.

“When I conceived the vision and then began to put things in motion for this first event, I had no idea that it would have such as impact from the very beginning or that it would be so well-received.”

- Princess Pamela Toyin is a journalist, author and TV presenter who has gained experience since the mid 1980s working in various fields and interacting with people of different tribes and ethnicity. With her passion for diversity, she is propelled to report a diverse range of issues that facilitate intercultural dialogue and integration, which can change social, economic, and cultural stereotypes, and believes there are lessons to be learned from everyone. Talk to her on +353 (0) 87 417 9640 or email echoesmediainternational@gmail.com