Inspirational: Meet Nigerian Business Woman, Affiong Williams, Who Is Using Business As A strategy For Gender Activism
A Nigerian businesswoman has made name for herself following her unique approach to solving the challenge of economic empowerment and unemployment issues for women. The versatile entrepreneur, Affiong Williams is the CEO of ReelFruit, a company that processes and distributes locally grown fruits. To let you in on how successful her company has been, its products are in over 350 stores, airlines, schools, and hotels across the country, but what is even more impressive is that Williams’s company is made up of 100% women at the management level and 64% as normal employees.
The 32-year-old was listed by Forbes among the Africa’s Most Promising Entrepreneurs in 2015 and her ReelFruit company won an international Women In Business Competition in the Netherlands. The budding entrepreneur uses business as a strategy to help women transverse obstacles and make a decent living without having to be dependents.
Affiong has now made name for herself as one of the few Nigerian women using business as a creative tool for gender activism. She runs one of the country’s leading dried fruit and nut companies. According to the US embassy, she uses her business to create opportunities for women and small farm holders.
Affiong started ReelFruit five years ago with the intense passion to not only grow it into one of the country’s leading dried fruit companies, but one of the entities that make women reach their full potentials and overcome obstacles.
One of the challenges she said she faced was having people to believe she was building a serious business not just a lifestyle enterprise.
“It was really difficult to get people to think that I was building a serious business versus a hobby or a lifestyle business,”
Affiong said.
“I believe it’s companies like ReelFruit who are moving Nigeria forward in terms of creating jobs,buying raw materials from smallholder farmers, reducing unemployment and most importantlyreducing poverty,”
She said.