By Christy Anyanwu
The burgeoning business collaboration between the visioner of Design Week Lagos, Mrs Titi Ogufere and President, Wood Hall Capital, Mrs. Mojisola Hunponu-Wusu, is an elegant demonstration of the beauty of shared passion.
It is even more exciting that the event which the duo put together recently in the run up to the International Women’s Day marked yesterday, showed that working together can achieve great goals that significantly contribute to the effort to expand the economic space for women, and make positive things happen and create opportunities for others to explore and attain success.
It is this regard that “The Design Den” represents the new for financing and industrializing the design industry being championed Design Week Lagos, to foster success of building Made in Nigeria.
This year, Design Lagos Week witnessed some of Nigeria’s architectural landmarks while paying tribute to the inventiveness of their creators. The National Theatre in Lagos, Cocoa House in Ibadan, the Central Bank of Nigeria building in Lagos were among the landmarks featured with a brief history of the structures included
The event featured an impressive line up of manufacturers, designers and interior makers like Taeillo, Savalani Furniture, TRT Aredo, Smart Owie, Abiodun Shonibare, Fadhi Yusuf, Tunji Lana, Donna Duke, Kofar Mata Mata Dieying Pits Kano, Chira Pottery, Aisha Kuranga, among other beautiful works that were very beautiful sight to behold at the various stands.
In her remarks, Ogufere explained that the Den is for designs and how they could fund them to scale. The Den is a reality show that will allow the designers to develop business plans and structure, which would then be assessed by the judges through five seasons using various parameters. Afterwards one or two winners would emerge.
“Why we are doing this partnership is because WoodHall Capital has a lot of structure that the design ecosystem needs. Nigeria has a lot of creativity. And while on the tour, the founder of WoodHall kept asking how viable the products were and that could they be scaled and used primarily for the Nigerian market and much later exported.
“One major challenge in the country is that a lot of things that could be produced by creatives here are imported. That means that if people are producing these things and we are able to scale the products, the sky would be the limit. It means we would have job creation, be able to have businesses that can thrive and then we can grow the economy,” she said.
According to her Woodhall would then provide funding as a loan to the winners to be able to scale their products. The firm would also provide access to the market and help the designer find off-takers. So, Woodhall would hold the hand of the designer all the way through, from concept to process, design and mass production.
“We are selecting only five designers for the first season of The Den. The show itself would give a lot of visibility to the designers, a lot of market access,” Ogufere said.
President, Woodhall Capital, Mojisola Hunponu-Wusu, giving further insight to the collaboration said: “The whole initiative of the Design Den is to create a pathway to scale. We are saying to the creatives, bring your ideas and let us listen.
“For those who are shortlisted, we are giving them full financial advisory service and financial literacy. If you are going to scale, you need to know how to make money, attract money to your projects, how to deploy the funds and then marry it to your creativity. Creativity that does not have funding is just a concept.
“So, how do you attract funding to your creative space and processes? We help you to look at the market, get access to what the market needs and give you reality access to scale your products. If you cannot scale, you cannot growth wealth.”
Buttressing her interest in The Den, Hunponu-Wusu said: “We are here as WoodHall Capital in conjunction with Lagos Design Week to brainstorm on how to scale and ensure that funding comes. Funding would help the creatives through their processes, help you go to the market and also help you identify who your off-takers are. Many of the creatives are insular. As such, we help them to identify potential hotels, building construction workers, and help them brand themselves as part of the scaling process and tell their stories using the multiplicity of channels available for such. Our job here is to help know that they have a narrative and story to tell to potential off-takers.”
She noted that people like herself and Titi Ogufere only do what they are doing because God has put the inherent love of Africa in them, and which they cannot just explain it.
“When we go to other countries that excite people, we don’t get excited. But when we are here, where we can create solutions to existing problems, where we have value to add, we get excited. We realise that we have purpose here and we are living the purpose,” she said.
WoodHall Capital is a financial services firm that mobilises international funding for banks, businesses and government. It set up a finance house that focuses on the creative industry and spotlighting it to attract funding do it could achieve its potentials as a big money spinning sector of the economy.
According to Hunponu-Wusu, the motive of her partnership is geared towards helping businesses in the design industry attract funding and investment to increase their operational footprints and expand to different markets.
“We have to test if you actually have clients and customers to see if people would actually pay for this to ascertain the financial ingenuity of some of the assumptions you’ve made in creating your products. So, more than just a series, there is financial literacy, there is market access, there is global visibility, but there’s actually market access and market feedback data on whether or not, maybe you should be doing something totally or slightly different. It helps with information on maybe you should advise this person to focus on the corporate space where there is a huge gap, with the offices that are coming up today, and people are going back to work after working from home for some time,” she said.
Hunponu-Wusu, an investment banker with over 25 years of experience said she was literally blown away by the sheer beauty, mastery and depth of designs dotting the exhibition centre.
“I have spent 32 hours reflecting, because I was overwhelmed by the quality of creativity that we saw today. I could not articulate myself back when I went round the pavilions. Just the intentionality of some of these designers to showcase the best of Africa and the intentionality of reflecting Africa. It is easier sometimes to do commercially viable Western things. But what we saw today, I saw people passionate about what Africa has to offer and bringing their skills to almost be a marketing arm of everything good and creative in Africa. And that really excited me.
So, everything from bedrock, to artwork, to chairs, to the various uses of pieces of wood, to conference tables, to ordering tables, to bathtubs. I am really thrilled. Heather, the ladies from Northern Nigeria, showcasing the best of everything that Nigeria has to offer in Africa,” she added.
However, the series, Design Den, will be on YouTube as a series and widely watched across the world.
She opined that part of the reason behind the initiative is the projected positioning of Nigeria and Africa as the bastion of creativity and design.
“And I think, just in a few minutes, our role here, particularly with the game, Design Den, is to take this conversation beyond this exhibition and begin to build a narrative that showcases some of the best we saw. Showing that to the world, ensuring that not just for Woodhall Capital, that we have access to funding. And we can develop some of the prototypes that we saw today. We saw cars, we saw chairs, bench chairs, 3D design, creative design. And how can they scale? They need access to capital so that the world can see industrialization and the applicants themselves can industrialise.
“For us at Woodhall Capital, we have decided that we put our money where our mouth is. If indeed we want to showcase Africa to the world, the funding has to actually start by Africans for Africans. It is a pleasure to have this unique partnership with Design Week Lagos.
“We are looking forward to actually being a judge on some of these cases. I am very interested in the creative sector. I am looking forward to us beginning to see some of the things that are going to be exhibited. And showcasing the best that Africa has to provide,” she stressed.
Ogufere hinted that one major challenge in the country is that a lot of things that could be produced by creatives here are imported. That means that if people are producing these things and we are able to scale the products, the sky would be the limit. It means we would have job creation, be able to have businesses that can thrive and then we can grow the economy.”