The first edition of Under 40 CEOs International Women’s Day MeetUp held in Lagos on Sunday 8th March, 2020 at the Lagosia Restaurant Ikoyi.
The venue was filled to its capacity with business leaders and entrepreneurs from various sectors anxious to learn about running a profitable business and scaling up.
In an intimate session, the guest speaker Kofo Akinkugbe shared her journey of how she started her career in the banking industry, remained in the financial sector for over 12 years until 1997 when she left to start Interface Technologies, a security management and biometrics technologies company.
With a mathematics major, and an MBA from the University of Strathclyde, she successfully ran Interface Technologies Ltd. (ITL) for nine years, before establishing SecureID Nigeria Ltd, an offshoot from a small department in Interface Technologies and the first VISA certified plant in sub-Saharan Africa.
She laid everything bare and some our favourite lines from her session are:
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“I believe in starting small, dreaming big and scaling fast”.
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“Whatever business you are doing, think of it as a global business, and make sure it becomes one”.
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“Once you are an entrepreneur, you have to keep learning, the day you stop learning, the business stops”.
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“If you are in business to make profit, that’s good, but that is a short term approach. If you are in business to leave a legacy, then that different and huge”.
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“Sometimes your vision may change and there is nothing wrong with that, its always nice to be bold enough to say this isn’t working, let me do something else”.
Kofo Akinkugbe is recognised globally for her entrepreneurial success story and strong business track record. She is one of Africa’s thought leaders in the subjects of entrepreneurship and innovation in the technology sector.
The Under 40 CEOs International Women’s Day MeetUp was hosted by the CEO of Nakenohs Boulevard, Wunmi Williams.
