Yemisi Izuora
The Leadership Project, in collaboration with foremost PR and Advertising firm, Zenera Consulting, to organize the maiden edition of the West African Business Leaders’ Summit (WBLS); an event pivoted on profitability, leadership, and innovation in the business space.
The summit, which is scheduled to hold on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, in Lagos, seeks to purposefully endow business owners, executives and entrepreneurs with crucial skills necessary for thriving in the ever-evolving 21st-century business environment.
Speakers billed for the summit consists of world-renowned experts anticipated to furnish attendees with practical knowledge and insights to enable them to improve the quality of business decisions made in their respective roles.
This includes the lead speaker, Mitch Barns, a 3-time World Economic Forum speaker/panellist, notable for his expertise in deploying data and analytics to identify market and consumer trends. Barns is the founder, Second Half Advisors and former CEO, Nielsen Holdings.
Also speaking at the event is Toyin Sanni, the Group CEO, Emerging Africa Capital Group. Sanni is a multiple award-winning business leader and published author who leads groups that provide advisory and capital raising solutions for infrastructure and development across Africa to achieve sustainable economic growth.
Other speakers who will be sharing notable insights through videocast at the summit include: Vice-Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, and a highly accomplished banking expert with multi-industry experience across the corporate sector, Carla Harris; as well as co-founder of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and a top player in the international hospitality and property industries, Horst Schulze.
According to Meka Olowola, Managing Partner of Zenera Consulting, the conference is in line with its strategic objectives of leadership and innovation.
“This year, one of our strategic objectives is to promote ZeneraEngage; our business conferencing expression aimed at serving our clients through the organization of bespoke, high-profile events that deliver maximum value to their target stakeholders. Moreover, we have always had a potent desire to strengthen entrepreneurship by equipping business owners and corporate executives with the requisite skills to excel in the constantly evolving 21st-century marketplace.”
Olowola added that, according to widely quoted statistics, 75 per cent of businesses usually fold within their first five years. This alarming trend, he asserted, can be stemmed with the acquisition of critical skills that maximize innovation and profitability.
Moreover, the Convener of The Leadership Project, Godman Akinlabi stated that “the platform is organised to fill the leadership gap while empowering SME’s and mid-level executives of corporate organisations in Africa. We are connecting entrepreneurs with the resources required to raise their leadership quotient, providing them with robust knowledge on how to lead businesses locally and internationally.”
“We are focused on raising leaders who are not only interested in successfully running a business, but those with a sincere desire to leverage their innovative skills in improving their various sectors for all stakeholders, while positively impacting their communities, the nation, and the entire subregion, ” he added.
