Episode 13 Afua Osei, Co-founder She Leads Africa, Her journey and the laser focus on the success of African women

 

On today’s episode of Building the Future, we have Afua Osei, Co-Founder of She Leads Africa.

She Leads Africa is a community that helps young African women achieve their professional goals with engaging online content and pan-African events.

Afua’s journey to entrepreneurship has been an interesting one: from working in the Office of  First Lady Michelle Obama and working in other political campaigns to consulting for Mckinsey in Lagos and finally starting SLA with a fellow McKinsey consultant, Yasmin Belo-Osagie.  Through it all, Afua has always been interested in jobs that allow her to work with women.

On this episode, you’ll learn:

  • More about Afua’s work with Michelle Obama and how her experience working with the First Lady shaped her views on branding and communications.
  • How business school opened her mind to the opportunities that abound outside of politics
  • The ‘aha’ moment for SLA and why SLA is focused on African women instead of the entire African population.
  • Why the first iteration of SLA was not successful, how SLA v2 came to fruition with help from her co-founder, Yasmin
  • The science behind approaching potential sponsors and partners. Afua doesn’t reach out to sponsors and hopes one of them takes the bait.
  • How SLA makes money
  • And more

 

Selected links from this episode:

She Leads Africa

McKinsey

Yasmin Belo-Osagie

The Muse

Paystack

The Thing Around Your Neck – Chimamanda Adichie

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Episode 13