Let's create more mentorship avenues for young women --EchoHouse CEO
The Chief Executive Officer and Founder of EchoHouse Ghana Limited, Beryl Agyekum Ayaaba has called for the creation of more avenues for younger women to interact and learn from accomplished women business leaders in the country.
She said this would help the young women gain firsthand experience of how the women they look up to have been able to navigate their way to the top.
Speaking as part of a panel of accomplished women during the Pan-African Women Conference organized by Access Bank, she said “sometimes, it can be very scary, it can be very confusing, and sometimes you don’t know who to talk to.”
“At EchoHouse, we have set up something we call She Unit and we bring all the girls together and we have conversations, and once we start talking maybe there’s something that I say and they are like ‘oh my god this is same thing that happened to me,” she stated.
She said this provided an insight for the need of women of all backgrounds and ages to interact and build community.
Maintaining the need to be accessible to young women, Beryl said when young women look at leading women from the outside, they could be intimidated and that most young women were unaware that what they are going through today were things that the older women have endured before and could provide them with guidance and advice.
“Some of the things that I have had to find out in a hard way, I just want to tell someone else so that they don’t take five years to discover it. I am always saying that if I did it in 10 years, I think maybe you should do it in two so that you do not have to do all that I had to do,” she added.
Speaking up
For her part, Ibukun Awosika, the Founder and CEO of The Chair Centre Group, who was the keynote speaker of the conference called on leading women to actively speak up for other women when they find themselves at the decision-making table.
According to her, there is a need for a critical mass of professional women who would provide the roadmap for young women to follow in their footsteps.
Other speakers of the Pan-African Women’s Conference included Joana Bannerman, Head of Business Development for UEMOA Access Bank, Pearl Nkrumah, ED Retail and Digital Banking at Access Bank.
Claudia Lumor hosted a cocktail session that featured more leading women such as Miishe Addy, the co-founder and CEO of Jetstream Africa, Irene Ochem, the CEO of Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum, and Roselyn Ngissah, an actress and entrepreneur.