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By Chukwuma Umeorah
The Board and Management of First Bank of Nigeria Plc has reiterated that it remains committed to creating an enabling environment that allows women to thrive and succeed.
Its Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, stated this during the FirstBank Women Network 2023 International Women’s Day event themed “Embrace Equity’’ in Lagos recently.
Adeduntan revealed that the bank had searched for ways to create an enabling environment that allows women to blossom, thrive and be the best they can be, and launched the FirstBank Women Network in March 2019.
“The single objective is and remains creating an enabling environment that allows our ladies to blossom, thrive and be the best they can be such that they can contribute their own quota to achieving the bank’s vision of being the African bank of first choice. Clearly without the women’s contribution, that vision will be unattainable,” he said.
According to him, the theme, “Embracing equity” is apt and speaks to how the bank promotes fairness, justice and creates an inclusive environment that allows us all to thrive and bring cognitive diversity to play.
Adeduntan said, “We have made very good progress in addressing the gender imbalance in our institution, we are not yet where we would like to be but we are very clear in terms of our direction, what we are doing to ensure more women go through the pipeline and get to the top.
“Our objective remains that in the very near future, we will have the first female CEO of the first bank and I could see that in the making. I see resilience, tenacity, and an urge to succeed which for me is very important.
“The leadership team is fully committed to supporting women to ensure they become the best they can be. A critical or integral part of creating an environment is ensuring that our female colleagues play a key role in the development of our institution.”
Delivering a keynote address, the President, Africa Finance Corporation, Andrew Alli, said it is important for women to participate in all aspects in the development of the nation’s economy.
Whilst stressing the need for corporate executives to encourage girls and women to embrace opportunities in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, Alli noted that the opportunities in the STEM education were enormous and if properly tapped would enhance Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Alli said that the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector had recorded tremendous growth and presently contributes about 18 per cent to the GDP from two or three per cent recorded in the years past.
He, however, noted that female participation in the technology space was not encouraging.
“So, I think that this is the time to try and change that narrative around what happens in technology companies; though, a number of those companies are already starting to do this,’’ he said.
