Amaka Obiefuna

The Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) says it plans to “launch a pension women’s network to enable the females in the industry interact with each other more, network and build a strong community for career advise and support as the need arises.”

PenOp seized the opportunity of this year’s International Women’s Day, which held in March make this announcement. The webinar hosted by PenOp was an assembly of women professionals to teach them the path of growth. The programme featured a number of senior executives within the pension industry.

The panelists included Idu Okwuosa; CEO of Access PFC, Joy Ojakovo General Manager at Progress Trust CPFA, Ighojovbe Oghenekaro CEO of Agip pensions, and Blessing Ogwu CEO of UBA Pensions.

PenOp is preparing women to ascend leadership ladder in their desire to positively contribute to national development. The female leaders spoke about challenges on being in a leadership position as a woman and how professionalism, tenacity, great support and continuous learning got them to where they are. The audience, mostly drawn from females within the pension industry, had a lot of questions on this subject matter as various women want to learn and advance in their careers.

Advising young women during the panel discussion, Idu said ‘take the highway, choose your fight and don’t let the distractions get to you and you’ll make it to the top. ’As a woman, you can’t do it alone, you need to build alliances, have a support structure to be able to grow and to lean on when need arises,” Joy added.