Afrigather Nabou Fall is the founding father of Nabou Fall Akademy – an academy of management teaching and transformational communication. She can be the CEO of Vizeo, a strategic communications company working in sub-Saharan Africa since 2007 with shoppers reminiscent of Orange, Airtel, Canal , Western Union and so forth.
She spent the important of her profession as an govt at a number of telecommunications firms reminiscent of MTN in Côte d’Ivoire and Congo Republic for 15 years. Fall began as Advertising Supervisor then moved to Gross sales and Advertising Director, Deputy Basic Supervisor and Basic Supervisor .
These experiences have allowed her to develop essential management expertise reminiscent of environment friendly communication, crew administration and empathy. Her cross cultural expertise has fostered sturdy adaptability and agility in the way in which she handles skilled points.
Nabou Fall is a sought-after public speaker in addition to a famend private growth coach, TEDx speaker, writer and mentor in varied girls’s empowerment NGOs. She collaborates with a number of magazines as a consequence of her dedication to the empowerment of her African sisters.
Fall leads Wimnet, a community aiming at constructing digital expertise for African girls, and he or she is the previous president WIC Cote d’Ivoire (Girls Funding Membership) . She is likely one of the co-founders of Impression Hub Cote-d’Ivoire.
She holds a grasp’s diploma in Finance and Administration from the ISG Paris and can be an Engineer specialised in data methods and networks from the École Supérieure de Génie Informatique de Paris.
She additionally obtained a management certificates from Harvard Enterprise College, a Boardroom Africa certificates from IOD London, in addition to a Girls Buyers certificates from idep and CEA.
Nabou is a Licensed Private Branding Strategist (CPBS), a Licensed Digital Branding Strategist (CDBS), an ICF coach and a licensed licensed Emotional Intelligence & DISC practitioner.
Nabou Fall is passionate and dedicated to the emergence of girls’s management in Africa. This has led her to be chosen by the Gates’ basis as one of many goalkeepers comitted to SDG 5 .
Nabou ‘s mission is to make use of the ability of private branding as a instrument to alter positively the notion of the African continent. Her motto is ‘Empowered Girls Empower the World’, and her ardour for studying and writing has led her to publishing novels in french.
Make a journey down reminiscence lane and share your childhood experiences with us
I grew up as an solely and lonely youngster and I used to be very sick and till the age of 9, I used to be spending most of my college years in hospital. Having misplaced my father after I was 4, I consider I learnt to heal by means of loving different folks and caring in some methods about human beings typically. As a young person, I used to be buried in books and writing. I didn’t have many mates and I used to be very secretive with out being shy, nevertheless, I turned an open grownup with the necessity to join and perceive others with a view to higher know myself .
Why Engineering?
I used to be excellent in Maths and I used to be fascinated by computer systems and the way in which they developed rapidly, in addition to the infinite prospects they had been permitting simply after a number of traces of codes. So, I engaged in Engineering with ardour for pc sciences, programming and expertise. Whenever you code, you are feeling highly effective since you are creating one thing that impacts the way in which folks do issues. It was a really thrilling journey nevertheless, my profession was a complete shift as I stayed in telecommunications however did most of my company profession in gross sales and advertising and marketing.
Inform us about founding Nabou Fall Akademy and its influence to this point. Any motive behind selecting to make use of ‘Akademy’?
I selected to make use of ‘akademy’ slightly than ‘academy’ as a result of I needed to be distinct, I needed to create that as a part of my model. On founding NFA, I used to be teaching, facilitating and coaching lengthy earlier than I launched the Nabou Fall Akademy, however dedicating an entire firm to residing my function of remodeling folks by means of teaching and coaching them largely in management and transformational communication is likely one of the most fulfilling actions in my life to this point. I see women and men who after our programmes ship me testimonies about how they “Dare to shine” and “Present up” as leaders of their organisations, and the way it helps them attain the subsequent stage of their profession, and that’s what I stay for, reworking folks and permitting them to train their full potentials as leaders. I’ve developed particular programmes for firms addressed to girls executives who self censor themselves as a consequence of limiting beliefs on account of our African training, and I can affirm that the influence is the same as the metamorphosis of the caterpillar right into a butterfly. They personal their energy and blossom into their true self free of all of the layers of disgrace and blockage constructed by tradition and training.
Learn additionally: Charlotte Ashamu – Director of International Programs at Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (IPCH)
Inform us about being CEO of Vizeo and the way you’ve got been in a position to entice the calibre of shoppers that you’ve got?
As a former telecoms govt, my first shoppers had been my former employer. However to take care of the shopper circulate, it’s service supply and robust networks which have helped with enterprise growth. Nonetheless, what we do know at Vizeo is extra strategic advisory in communications and consultancy. We depend on an enormous community of pros in varied nations for implementation. I consider that relationships constructing and sustaining is a core success issue for us.
15 years within the telecoms sector with MTN and Vodacom, what was your expertise and what is going to you all the time keep in mind them for?
I used to be fortunate to be a part of two start-up operations of MTN each in Côte d’Ivoire and in Congo Republic. These experiences have formed my entrepreneurial mindset and I learnt handle folks and transfer round cultures with out shedding myself. I used to be fortunate to do an internship at MTN in South Africa within the early years of my profession and I strongly consider that company life is the very best college of life. You study to navigate by means of folks’s feelings and your individual, and handle the range of instructional backgrounds with a view to attain a standard goal. It wasn’t all the time simple, I used to be a really younger director with out management expertise and instruments, however I learnt by doing and interacting with others. I used to be managing folks older than me as the one feminine director in Congo Republic, and I needed to step up with out being too aggressive, however was additionally aware of the cultural biases of males within the company world. Nonetheless, my biggest satisfaction has been to essentially create equal alternatives for girls who at the moment are heads of departments and administrators in varied firms.
Inform us extra about main Wimnet, what you do and success story to this point
Wimnet is extra like a capability constructing entity aiming at bridging the digital hole of girls . Wimnet is a platform of over 3000 girls from 29 citizenship residing in 43 nations. They’ve been educated on digital expertise and we’re quickly launching an thrilling coaching program with a companion in Nigeria aimed toward Nigerian girls entrepreneurs who wish to do enterprise within the Francophone ECOWAS area.
What’s the Girls Funding Membership (WIC) about? What had been you in a position to obtain as President?
The Girls Funding Membership was initially launched by 4 girls in Senegal in 2016. Later, myself and a gaggle of girls launched the Cote-d’Ivoire Chapter finish 2018.
The WIC is a gaggle of girls who make investments collectively an equal sum of money with a view to spend money on girls’s initiatives.
We’re 100 girls in Senegal and about 20 girls in Cote d’Ivoire, and now we have an funding fund based mostly in Dakar referred to as Wic Capital, at present elevating cash and independently managed aiming at investing in Girls’s firms based mostly in Cote-d’Ivoire and Senegal.
As banks hardly lend cash to girls, the Girls Funding Membership is a manner of involving ourselves as girls traders and catering for our wants.
Share all there’s to learn about Impression Hub with us
With 3 different superb girls, we based an incubator in 2018 referred to as I-Hub. We utilized for Impression Hub license in 2020 and we’re a part of a community of lots of of incubator worldwide. We’ve got incubated and accelerated 300 entrepreneurs since we began. We implement this system Academy for Girls Entrepreneurs in Cote-d’Ivoire financed by USAID. We’ve got additionally developed many different programmes financed by multilateral and bilateral cooperation companions and personal companions.
We gained the title of finest African accelerator in 2022. We even have a co-working area, assembly rooms and workplaces that we lease at inexpensive costs to entrepreneurs.
As a Licensed Private Branding Strategist (CPBS) and Licensed Digital Branding Strategist (CDBS), how necessary is branding? Secondly, how does CPBS and CDBS intertwine particularly in right this moment’s world?
In 2020, we had been all locked in our houses and all we needed to talk was the digital area. Throughout that interval, it was essential to discover a solution to stand out and private branding discovered its function in a really noisy world broad internet. As a communications specialist who has had a really sturdy model, I consider that it was a part of my mission to assist others present up and shine to develop their companies. In 2023, folks have to know who you’re, what you do, the way you do it, what values you stand for, which experiences you’ve got and what experience you developed. They join with you thru your mission and your imaginative and prescient. The best way to dig these data and articulate them in a compelling story that may be shared offline throughout networking occasions or on-line on skilled platforms, is what teaching in private branding does. I’ve seen that too many sensible persons are not displaying as much as be identified or to even encourage others, simply because they lack the information to do it in a strategic, related manner.
We’re in a world the place your expertise should be proven to be identified and the range of digital platforms and networking occasions are right here to showcase them precisely with a view to get a return on funding.
Do you concur that digital branding is the brand new frontier? Why should everybody (people and firms) faucet into this rapidly?
We stay in a digital age the place we’re all interconnected and if one desires to achieve their goal, they should have a correct on-line branding technique. Digital permits an actual time communication and a multi audiences goal with the range of platforms accessible. Digital is a less expensive and value efficient solution to join together with your viewers with out breaking the financial institution.
