 Thank you so much for your amazing wealth of experience, Mr. Mike Hill. Next on our list of keynote speakers, I would like to bring to the mic Ms. Sholakwe Akinpelu. Ms. Sholakwe is a highly accomplished business leader and gender finance expert. She serves as the CEO and co-founder of Hervest, a fintech company that provides inclusive finance to African women through goal-oriented savings, impact investing and credit options for small-holder women farmers and women-led SMEs. Joining us today to speak on the topic Building Generational Wealth is Ms. Sholakwe Akinpelu. You are welcome. One time I saw children were drinking from something next door and it was brown water. So you can have a philanthropic initiative that has been kindly joined us by signing up on therichawoman.com on our richer woman network, which is our tech-enabled community. You can also send us an email on info at therichawoman.com. Please don't forget to follow us everywhere on at therichawoman. Would you like to connect with like-minded women with similar goals and experiences that enables authentic friendships which would give you the support, encouragement, motivation and inspiration you need on your journey to wealth? If your answer is yes, then kindly join us by signing up on therichawoman.com on our richer woman network, which is our tech-enabled community. You can also send us an email on info at therichawoman.com. Please don't forget to follow us everywhere on at therichawoman. And go about solving it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Ms. Telma Aheel. Thank you for your time and thank you for sharing with our amazing community. If you would like to connect with her, please go ahead and share the tidbits that you have gotten from her session and let us tag us with the hashtag, therichawoman festival. Next up we are introducing to the microphone, Ms. Sholakwe Akinpelu. Sholakwe Akinpelu is a highly accomplished business leader and gender finance expert. She serves as the CEO and co-founder of Hervest, a fintech company that provides inclusive finance to African women through goal-oriented savings, impact investing and credit options for small-holder women farmers and women-led SMEs. Today on therichawoman festival, she will be talking to us on the topic Building Generational Wealth. Welcome Ms. Sholakwe Akinpelu. Everyone, greetings and thank you so much for having me. It's been an interesting past one hard listening to Ms. Hammond and Mr. Kio. Congratulations to therichawoman team and big congratulations to my dear friend and sister. It's a pleasure to be here and I would say congratulations for being here as well. As I believe that this would be a mind-shifting session for us on this epic day. And then it can be said that last year either I attended this festival and then in another 365 days I am counting significant changes that I have made for myself, for my household and for my community, especially as regards finance. It's a pleasure being here again. My name is Sholakwe Akinpelu and I'm the CEO, co-founder of Harvest. We are an inclusive fintech for women as the name says harvest. So it's critical and say yes, it's her chest of money, it's her protection against different dark periods and it's well vested essentially in women. And today I'll be sharing with you generational wealth building. I'm actually an author aside from being founder of Harvest. I'm actually an author of the book Street and African Women's Guide to Building Generational Wealth. And while I will bore you because I have limited time actually about why I wrote the book and the insights. So I will go straight into how we can build generational wealth as women and I'm suspecting that they are likely allies on the show or attending the festival this morning. So basically I'd like to go to some little history lesson because to address an issue you usually want to look at the background challenges or the hindrances that as hindered a lot of women or a set of people into participating as much. It might be interesting to let you know that Nigeria is ranked amongst the priority list when it comes to financial inclusion for women. Our sister country, country like Ghana was on that list before but they have been able to close the economic gender gap. And so we are on the priority list on UNDP metrics alongside countries like India like Bangladesh where a lot of women are financially excluded and financially underserved. And so looking at why a lot of women because hey we are here. This is ours. We've had amazing ladies who are based in the drill speak and then we are smart exposed people. And so you're wondering why are Nigerian women or why are African women essentially are not adopting financial services. I'll just like to go into the pre-colonial African woman. The pre-colonial African woman, this is the one I started doing research about my book I realized is a powerful woman who made great financial decisions. The pre-colonial African setting in itself was even matriarchial in most cases, as you would see with in history, when she put off Egypt, the potters, the child potters in Ghana and different women who did amazing things in history of Africa. But then when the colonial masters came, they could see the strength in numbers, they could see the strength of the typical African woman. And so I believe, you know, they weakened the matriarchal strength of the African woman and, you know, in terms of studying education, when they introduced that the encouraged remain to take more of the secretarial studies, so make no mix and all of that, and then flick the power into making what we see now a patriarchal institution. All of us know that this has played a significant role in the social construct and in how a lot of women adopt finances. And I'll tell you how, look at her music, look at media, when you listen to songs and then what he hears, she must chop my money. It means that you know what, as a woman, all you need to do is just sit pretty and hook, you know, a rich guy that he can literally eat his money, right? And then everyone prays, when parents pray or wishes, you know, the prayer is more about to get it married, I'll take care of you. And in taking care of you is mostly about the finances, which isn't bad in itself, you know, but then, you know, there is nothing harmful in both partners being financially independent as well. It just strengthens. Running a business, what a brave thing to do. It takes gods to chase your dream and show up every day to make it happen. It's inspiring to bring someone with you on the journey, to believe your dream is big enough to be passed on to the next generation. To keep going, even when you are standing face to face with challenges and limitations that threaten to weigh you down. Even when you find yourself wondering, if you are on the right path, you must believe that your dream is possible and your legacy in good hands. The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund is here to help you make your dream come true, no matter how big it may seem. And when your dream comes true, you will be glad that you never get... It doesn't leave the freezer and all of that. They are good, you know, you have to save, you have to, you know, be mindful and conserve resources. You have to live within your income. It is essential, but what I tell people is that you have to expand your means, right? Live within your means, but expand that means. And so for women especially, yes, I know that there are some biological functions and even some unconscious bias that affects us in the workplace or even in entrepreneurship. But then you have to break through those barriers and self-develop. We can't say this too many times. You have to self-develop, you have to set yourself up for the future. And this is where I encourage, you know, adopting technology. I always say techniques women and women in tech. Techniques women for round decision making for building holistic solutions. And women need to build tech because again we've seen that there are so many tech rules that are in demand. And because they are in demand, they pay competitively. And we need more women to be in future proof carriers as well. And which is why I do what I do as a volunteer for the country manager. Women in tech where we are skinning more women about 2500 of them now for free sponsored by brands into adopting technology. And so yes, I've mentioned self-development that is, you know, increase your develop yourself, take the right trainings. There are tons of issues. You have no excuses today. There are tons of course there are none of that. Transition or adopt technology in what you're doing currently See how you can transition, you know, out of where you are into more resilient roles. And because time is money, I want to take a pause and ask all of us on the call to reflect, especially on appearance. So let me just roughly guess that the median age of attendees on the call is somewhere around 40. And if you have parents, so you think we're talking about parents that are in their late 60s, 70s, 75. And how are they still the strong dad, the agile mom that used to know when you were younger, when you were in high school, right? Have you seen, you know, about the complaints, if it's not diabetes, it's hypertension, arthritis, you know, different age-related diseases that happen. And so yes, while we take care of them, we pray for them, we bless them. It is a reflection of, you know, the forth, the coming years, in another 20, 30, you won't be this agile. So what are you doing with your time and the resources that you have now? It is very, very essential to take, to reflect and think about that. Remember that we are the generation that said that our children are not going to be what's the word now, our retirement plan. They will bless us. It's in our culture for our children. But whatever they do is going to be an addition. So you have to just have to, for the love of you, right? You have to be very, very financially resilient. And that's why you have to expand your means, embrace the side hustles. You know, there are just tons of things that you can do with the new media now. And then set yourself up for the future because you cannot save or invest money that you have not made. And now that we've gone past that. And all of these are documented. So, you know, the richer woman has just brought you a master class of my book. You've not gotten it. And this is me summarizing, you know, the book for you. Now that we've gone past that, you have to put that money to work. Okay. I always say that money is spiritual. It's an emotion. It's power. So if you just put the money away or just touch the way, or you do not, before the money comes, have a plan for it, a healthy plan, right? Otherwise, when that money comes, trust me, there are too many things contending for that money. Black tax, pink tax, you know, your greed, your vain parts, there are just too many things, right? And that's where budgeting comes in. Plan for that money. If you don't budget for that money and then you spend and then you bring out your, for instance, you print out your bank and then you are now, what you're doing then is reconciliation is no longer budgeting. That money is gone. Like they say it's gone, right? So you have to budget. And when it comes to budgeting, there's this, I'm sure you've heard it before, 50, 30, 20 rule of budgeting that says that 50 goes into, you know, your needs, your essential needs. Being basically, if you go back to, you know, social studies, shelter, clothing and food, right? And then 30% of that goes into your month. This is where you want to indulge yourself. Okay. You want to dine out. You want to travel. You want to do all of that. And then, but whatever happens, this is that 20 should always 20% should constantly go into savings and investments. Now I say there are no hard and fast truths about this. Based on your reality, you see some people can afford to actually save and invest the way, you know, 40%. And that's fine. And based on your reality, if you're being truthful to yourself and you're not over-indulging, some people can just, you know, because maybe the black tax or the boarding around them, all they can do, and I have to talk about that, all they can save away is 10%. That's from where you are. All right. Having said that, remember I said black tax. And because this is, we're talking about African women, we're talking about their peculiarities and nuances. And that's why I always say that, you know, a broad template would not typically work for us, right? We are Africans. We are the people that don't, you know, take our parents to, you know, we don't, we don't say, oh, oh, we don't call them and say, hey mommy have paid your rent. Hope your, what you're saying is when is your rent to you? How can I help and all of that? So yes, we essentially have black tax embedded in our culture and you know, we do. But so we cannot essentially avoid it too, to me, because a lot of us even are beneficiaries of black tax itself. Some people will, you know, benefit, they were able to go to school because of communal efforts, but you can control it. And that is by saying that helping people, family extended family with a plan. So I'll give an instance. Someone wants and says, for instance, someone comes in and says, I need to study or I need to go to school, I need some money or I need, you can't just keep indulging that person and keep giving them money. You need to say, okay, how can you get a skill? How can I support you so that you get a skill and then with that skill you are self sustainable and you too, you can pay forward. So yes, those are the things that we need to look at and we need to look at. And see how we can regulate black tax. If you want to really automate that, the best way to do that is to... And anyone still hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, thank you. Sorry. So the best way to do that is even to have that in your... Thank you. Thank you to all our amazing listeners and those who are watching. Thank you to all our amazing listeners and those who are watching. We know how unpredictable network can be. So one thing I got from what Miss Sholakwa said is start from where you are. So start from where you are. If you're a woman and you're thinking, how am I going to save? How am I going to invest? There's something you can do. So our network is... We mentioned savings and all of that. We need to look at, even in cases where we have children either biological or non-biological, or we have dependents. How do they manage this money? We've had families, we've seen families, first generation, second generation, where the wealth has really gone through. But we've not had enough of that, especially on the continent and in Nigeria particularly. Where we've had that in the west, in Asia, we don't really have that yet. And so we need to develop savings and not just a consumerism but a production culture in our children earlier on. Show them how to save money. Work them to take them on your budgeting journey. Teach them to have a mindset of abundance. Teach them to have a mindset even of producing. I'll give an instance. My son loves gaming, he's eight. He kept saying that he wanted to buy some money. He wanted to buy some, you know how they do game and they want to buy lives. Like you just need to put your card and buy some things. And I said to you know what, someone builds that game and they put your money on it. Why not consider you building a game that people would actually bring money to you globally? And from there, you know, he grew more resilience in his coding classes and then he's thinking, okay, how can I make this? And he's gradually working into becoming a product manager and a software engineer along the way. So it's important that we teach these children all that I have mentioned to and it's not really too early to do that. Yes, after all this is said, we need to have generational wealth that can be passed on. It is essential to have a wealth. It is essential to create a wealth. And so I'll round up here. I know that, yeah, that is something that I don't want to consider, but it is critical, it is fine. And it is not age-related, right? And then you can decide to have a living trust to where the wealth is actually activated while you are alive or one that comes when we are old, when we are age-relieved, fulfilling lives and then we are gone. It is nature, it is what happens. It is what validates our mortality but just ensure that the money is getting into the right hands and then it's going well as planned into the next generation. Again, it's been a pleasure being here and I wish you all the best and congratulations against the richer women community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much, Mr. Lakwe. I mean, for that, it was a master class condensed. So everyone who's listening, if you have taken down notes, please follow our social media.