Biola Alabi makes Financial Times’ Top 100 Global Female Executives list

The Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Biola Alabi Media, Biola Alabi, has been named in the FT & HERoes 100 Female Executives list for 2018, in recognition of her tireless commitment to gender diversity and inclusion of women in the African workplace.

The prestigious annual list celebrates female role models who are actively playing their part to increase gender diversity in the workplace as well as supporting the increase of women in senior business roles.

As the only Nigeria-based woman to be included on the global list, Alabi joins the ranks of some of the world’s most powerful female executives from global companies such as Deloitte, IBM, Amazon, MasterCard, WPP, EY and more.

In over 20 years in business, both in the US and in Africa, Alabi has championed women in the corporate workplace through extensive networking and mentorship, as well as leading by example Alabi’s consultancy company has an all-female leadership team, and boasts over 75 per cent female staff. As founder of Grooming for Greatness, a leadership development and mentorship programme designed to harness and develop a new generation of African leaders, Alabi, ensures a minimum 70 per cent female intake, and provides professional and leadership development opportunities for aspiring women in Nigeria and across the continent.

On receiving this accolade from the Financial Times, Biola Alabi says, “I have always placed a strong emphasis on doing what I can to support and nurture talented women in business – through mentorship and creating opportunities for others to excel in business and the workplace across Africa. I am humbled and honoured to be recognised alongside so many outstanding female executives who are championing gender diversity and inclusion. Yet I am also aware of how much there still is to do to increase the representation of women in business at all levels.

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“Let me be frank;  ‘Africa PLC’ cannot and will not advance at the pace it should without the amplification of female roles in senior positions. Until we see parity in leadership teams and in the boardrooms, I will be resolute and vocal in my mission to bring women to the forefront of corporate Africa”.

Currently a non-executive board member of Unilever Nigeria, and a member of the advisory board of the Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Alabi held the role of managing director for M-Net Africa for over five years where she headed an 80 per cent female executive team before venturing into the realm of entrepreneurship; building on her business and entertainment background, to launch Biola Alabi Media, as well as move into movie production.

In the last two years alone, she has produced two of Nollywood’s biggest recent hits, Lara and the Beat (2018) and Banana Island Ghost (2017), and is also the executive producer of Nigeria’s number one food travel documentary-series Bukas and Joints, currently airing across Africa and in the USA. Biola previously worked for Sesame workshop, the producers of globally renowned children’s programme Sesame Street; where she was surrounded with strong female leaders that encouraged and supported her.

She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader as well as a Yale Greenberg World Fellow and was named one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa by Forbes Africa in 2012, and the 2013 AABLA West African Business Woman of the Year.

Founder of INvolve and HERoes, Suki Sandhu, says: “These lists have been created with one aim – to create gender parity in workplaces across the globe.

“The role models we’re recognising aren’t just those who have achieved success themselves; they are those who are committed to lifting others with them as they climb, and ultimately fueling the female talent pipeline.”

All of the 2018 Champions of Women in Business were nominated by peers and colleagues.

Nominations were then reviewed by the FT & HERoes judging panel.