Yemisi Izuora
FBNQuest has reinforced its commitment to empowering women in collaboration with She Leads Africa (SLA), a community for young African women looking to build successful careers and businesses, as it supported the popular ‘SLAY Festival’ event which took place in Lagos.
This third edition of the SLAY Festival featured mentorship and interactive experiences that cut across business, investment, career, technology, arts, beauty, fashion, food, wellness, community and music. Since the inception of the Festival, over 4,000 women have been brought together to learn new skills, build their networks and connect with their favourite brands.
Initiated in 2017, the partnership was established as an innovative approach towards educating and engaging women on the importance of investing and estate planning. The overall objective is to ensure that women imbibe wise investment and financial planning habits, in order to enable them be more deliberate about preparing for the future and achieving their short, medium or long-term financial goals.
Commenting on the alliance, Lolade Sasore, Head of Communications and Knowledge Engagement at FBNQuest stated, “We believe strategic partnerships are an important tool for achieving real impact, and we are committed to collaborating with reputable organisations to deliver wider and more sustainable results across our different businesses”.
“We started this partnership with SLA over two years ago to help women become more aware and confident about investing, because we know there is an immense opportunity for economic growth and social impact when more women invest for the future. According to a survey by Canadian digital investment platform, Wealthsimple, women have been found to invest 40 percent less money than men do on average. Our journey therefore begins with educating them about basic approaches to investing, as well as the available financial solutions, so they can make informed decisions on what might be most relevant to their situation”. She added.
In line with the partnership, FBNQuest Asset Management was on hand at the Festival to talk to participants about different opportunities and options for investing, such as mutual funds and digital investing platforms like the FBNEdge mobile app. FBNQuest Trustees also enlightened participants on how to leave a lasting legacy through formal structures such as living trusts, education trusts, and wills.
Co-founder, She Leads Africa, Afua Osei said “Through our partnership with FBNQuest, we are are sharing knowledge and opportunities to connect to the financial solutions many women are looking for as they grow in their careers and businesses. We would like to support our community in building long term wealth, which is why the training sessions on investing and estate planning, have been so successful. Our partnership with FBNQuest, has been a great collaboration and we look forward to sharing more financial services knowledge with our community.”
To create awareness for the importance of investing through this initiative, FBNQuest and She Leads Africa launched a webinar series, created a downloadable investment guide, and have been partners in a series of educative conversations at the annual SHEHIVE and SLAY Festival events.
These have focused on practical ways to invest, investment solutions tailored to specific needs, learning to live debt free, and the power of estate planning.