Presidium Transforming Lives

Barbara is the CEO of Presidium whose vision is to create effective business leaders , enhancing the quality of support they receive through the provision of innovative and cutting edge solutions irrespective of geographical location. A Managing Director at Eddie’s and Creative Chair of the Celebrity Night Out, she was nominated as an emerging leader by Gotni for providing mentorship leading to the development of creative and innovative enterprises. An alumni of the Heriot-Watt University Scotland, the University of Cape Town and the Lagos Business School, she won the Federal Government’s prize for Youth with the most innovative enterprise and the 2nd place on the Etisalat Market Access Pitch Competition. A Fellow  of the Institute of Management Consultants,  a Certified Management Consultant of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes, Zurich Switzerland, she received an Honorary Doctorate degree from the Commonwealth University, Belize for her contributions towards business and education.

In Africa, Medium and small business enterprises fail within a span of 3 years with at least 5 employees loosing their jobs, leading to 25 people becoming extremely poor in the process. Of the businesses that fail, 70% of them are led by Youths and women who are often under served and marginalized in the MSME ecosystem in Africa. This is a terrible waste of a vibrant group of people as youth is not supposed to be a time of despair but a time of optimism where all of life lies ahead with hope. Presidium proposes a multi sided digital platform empowering entrepreneurs irrespective of geographical location with automated solutions to enable businesses flourish and investors receive a high rate of return within the shortest possible time. Enabling entrepreneurs reach millions of dollars in annual revenue, attain billions of dollars in gdp while creating trillions of jobs in the process. 

Youth unemployment is an everyday reality for more than 100 million young men/women around the world impacting on health, education, family , environment, resilient and quality of life. It has ramifications not just for the young people directly affected but also for the families they support and in the long term their community/national development. World Bank estimates that over 800 million jobs will be required by 2030 to absorb the growing workforce and MSMEs have been recognized to be the most important contributors to job creation and economic development worldwide. In Africa, MSME'S account for up to 90% of business with more than 50% of employment, contributing to 40% of national income in ITS economies. Africa has an estimated population of more than 1.3 illion people that is growing over 2% annually with more than 60% of the people in many of its countries below  25 years.  These numbers show that the investment potential of the African Continent can and will only be unlocked by financing the MSME sector. This reality is underpinned by the fact that Africa’s population is predicted to double in just over 15 years with an estimated 1.6 billion youths that will be unemployed by 2035. 

A simple, secure, speedy multi sided digital platform that enables MSME’s gain tailored specific real time access to finance, new markets, free resources  and capacity building using artificial intelligence, block chains, internet of things, machine learning, big data, USSD, voice and sms irrespective of geographical location. It connects diverse stakeholders -venture capitalists, angels, grant providers, mentors, business development consultants and MSMES - in a shared economy where entrepreneurs can grow their businesses and even investors can enhance their investment returns as well. The platform enables convenience based on user preference through apps and has a 24/7 live chat, logistic service for emergency response and an online social community that discusses best practices.  This platform untangles red tapes that are a feature of unconduicive business environments and provides youth/ women led MSME’S a path to a productive future, thereby reducing unemployment and eliminating poverty. 

Presidium platform serves users in the urban, semi urban and rural areas. Leveraging on innovative digital technology, smart logistics, business knowledge and project management to provide real time support, it enables MSME's gain access to finance, new markets, capacity building and free resources while diverse stakeholders in a shared economy can achieve their goals within a short time.  By using focused group discussions and key informant interviews across several communities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, Presidium has also been able to raise the voices of MSMEs – the marginalized and under served segment - thereby allowing for diversity and inclusion in the creation and adoption of effective solutions for the sector - especially on the delivery of the sustainable development goals. As a result,  a Technical and Vocational Education training system was developed to aid efficiency of entrepreneurs that Africa needs for the creation of wealth in order to emerge out of poverty. This system has responded to the requirements of different industries and caters to the needs of learners from different sections of society. System documents have been adopted by 50 communities as a poverty reduction strategy document, promoting self employment through skills development and innovative solutions. 

Balanced and inclusive societies can only be brought about through frameworks that adopt people-centred, holistic and multistakeholder approaches in which all voices are heard. Presidium believes that no group should be left behind by reaching those farthest behind first while tackling the world’s most pressing challenges. Providing integrated approaches focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable people in rural/urban areas, dealing with their challenges in systematic ways and  working together with several stakeholders to transform societies, Presidium mobilizes communities, unleashing the greatest and most under recognized  resource for development  - people power, particularly the leadership of women and youth. 

I was inspired to take action on this project after witnessing many Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises fail and at least 5 employees loose their jobs leading to 25 people becoming poor in the process. Of the businesses that fail, 70% of them were led by youths and women who were often underserved and marginalised in the MSME ecosystem in Africa. This is a terrible waste of a vibrant group of people as youth is not supposed to be a time of despair but a time of optimism where all of life lies ahead with hope.  According to the IMF, access to market, access to finance, capacity building and unconduicive business environments  hamper MSME'S to survive beyond 3 years and

the World Bank also estimates that over 800 million jobs will be required by 2030 to absorb the growing workforce with  MSMEs recognized to be the most important contributors  to job creation and economic development worldwide. Further researches revealed that investors will rather provide funding to MSME's looking for seed than fund ventures seeking pre-seed for their ventures as they term them to be risky. Based on these, I developed the idea and started seeking funding, active collaborations and partnerships.

According to a recent publication by the Business Year Magazine, Nigeria is on track to be Africa's first trillion dollar economy by 2030. I want to rewrite the narrative by creating an impact while inspiring and influencing tomorrow's world. Since our vision is to nurture millions of entrepreneurs to reach millions of dollars in annual revenue, provide  billions of dollars in gross domestic product and create trillions of jobs by 2030, I am particularly excited as this project would help to facilitate the use of a digital platform that could elevate humanity, catalyzing positive and transformational change across the MSME ecosystem in not just Africa alone but eventually on a global scale.

Development of MSME’s requires a continent specific model and a local knowledge footprint of business with experience across several sectors. I possess 20 years progressive years of experience in both the public and private sector of the economy. With a history of beign an executive at two different MSMEs and an Assistant director at a Federal government agency on trade and investment, I possess the capabilities to deliver this project as I have collaborated with different stakeholders noting each's specific requirements and incorporating same to the solution that this project provides.

As the CEO of an MSME, leading of team of 25 with limited access to finance, I led the company to deliver results leading it to win the Federal Government's prize of the Youth with the most innovative enterprise. Based on that, I still gained partnership with the  Federal Government's Subsidy Reinvestment Programme and secured collaborations with WISE-P project where  I provided vocational skills training to under resourced entrepreneural youths enabling them to build creative and sustainable businesses in an emerging market.

While working in the  public sector of the economy, I developed a facility management proposal that won the approval of management which led to the creation of a Facility management unit with 15 support staff dealing with work overflows and meeting critical deadlines. This unit executed a system of scheduled maintenance actions that cut operating  budgets by 50% under a period of 1 year. 

SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) is the convergence of four technologies that is currently driving business innovation. With SMAC  we will be forming the  basis for an ecosystem that enables a business to transition from local business to e-business and then  digital business. The four technologies will improve our business operations and help us get closer to the customer with minimal overhead and maximum reach. The proliferation of structured and unstructured data created by mobile devices, connected devices, sensors, social media, loyalty card programs and website browsing wiil aid us to create  new business models built on customer-generated data. It will be the integration of social, mobile, analytics and cloud together that will enable us create a competitive advantage and new business opportunities. The use of DARQ (distributed ledger technologies -blockchain, artificial intelligence, extended reality and quantum computing) will enable the digital platform to deliver extraordinary capabilities to business, products, and services. We will engage the impactful use of artificial intelligence to adopt behavioral algorithms that will create a pleasurable user experience which will ensure repeat platform visits and translate into larger sales. Other technologies like block chains will help security of data and information which will prevent large scale leakage and internet fraud.

My projectly currently serves 250,000 entrepreneurs transforming 10 million lives . In 1 year we hope to be serving 2,500,000 entrepreneurs with 100 million lives transformed. In 5 years, we will be nurturing 12,500,000 entrepreneurs while transforming 500 million lives

I plan to work with DIVERSE STAKEHOLDERS TO ACHIEVE OUR AIM.

Barriers that could exist are as follows: Government Policies, threat of new entrants, threat of subtitutes, limited resources, multicloud security, innovation an digital transformation, lack of user buy in, funding and data protection

Use of innovative and new technology and leveraging on the aid of mutiple stakeholders that can provide limitations to these barries. use of system plug ins that are security sensitive and use of reliable technology to provide a user interface design that is sustainable.

Positive Planet Uk - Providing Post Covid 19 support to their women venture accelerator in termsmof experiential mentoring for rising entrepreneurs in tech enabled businesses

Network Silicon Syndicated Fund to source for tech enabled businesses in Africa's emeging market

Global Eco Start up system

AWIEF

We will be leveraging on the Freemium, broker, data reselling  and the Subsription model to gain recurring revenue and sustainable partnerships.

Financial sustainability will be based on recurring revenues from our grants, prize funding and partnership.

Prize FUNDING AND GRANTS

300,000 dollars