Nume Ekeghe

FundQuest Financial Services Limited marked this year’s International Women’s Month with a renewed commitment to economic empowerment, hosting the inaugural FundHER by FundQuest Conference.

This initiative brought together over 100 women-led Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), providing them with actionable business insights, high-value networking, and, most importantly, access to funding.

Delivering the first keynote address, Dr. Jennifer Seidu, Principal Consultant, JV Management Consulting Limited, underscored the critical hurdles female entrepreneurs face: constrained access to funding, market expansion limitations, regulatory roadblocks, and operational inefficiencies.

She lauded FundQuest’s decisive intervention through FundHER, recognising the initiative as a timely and much-needed response to the financial inequities that women-led businesses encounter.

Group Head, Brand Communication and Customer Experience at FundQuest, Joan Ediagbonya,  also reinforced these concerns with data, pointing out that while women own 45 per cent of SMEs in Nigeria, only 10 per cent have access to formal funding. Quoting Michelle Obama, she emphasised, “No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.” 

Similarly, Ms. Olubukola Olaigbe, CEO of Veedic Nigeria Limited, shared how accessing financing from FundQuest facilitated her logistics firm’s expansion, proving that with the right financial support, women entrepreneurs can achieve remarkable business growth.

Speaking on the future of FundHER, Mr. Abiodun Akinjayeju, Managing Director and CEO of FundQuest, made it clear that this initiative is here to stay. In his words; “If you educate a woman, you educate a nation; if you fund a woman’s business, you are funding the economy.”