#ELLE101: #WomenInBusiness Twitter Chat with Sophia Bekele

ElleAfrique Women in Business

On 6th May 2016, Elle Afrique a blogzine for the hosted an incisive Twitter Chat with Sophia Bekele, Business Executive and Philanthropist.  The #WomenInBusiness chat proved to be very enlightening for Women.  As a seasoned entrepreneur  Miss Bekele had a few nuggets of wisdom to share on women in business and what some of her experiences have been thus far.

She touched on the importance of networking in business.
“Networking is the subtle building of human capital through connections. Traditionally Business has been built and expanded via networks, tech has helped scale that, like we are doing now. Your network is your net worth, so keep it alive.”

On advice to women in business, Ms Bekele said,
“You have free voice, free mind, freedom of expression, use it, be fearless! Have a vision, document your objective, work at it day by day. Challenges will never stop coming your way; grow a thick skin and never lose hope.  Failure is the new normal; I call it not getting what you want, which is where your most valuable experience comes from.  Don’t stereotype, a diverse workforce is the new normal be prepared to be surprised where your next best talent will come from, Never stop learning, never grow up, never stop asking, always stretch your brain as it takes more. Walk you talk, don’t just keep talking, most keep talking as a smokescreen to avoid walking”

On leadership, Bekele says, leadership is a key position of responsibility and ethics. We need more of it in the world today.  Ethical leadership is lacking.

On facing challenges as a woman in business?
Bekele advises that from being undermined, you have to always make effort to flip to your advantage.  Also learn about managing conscience and unconscious bias in other people’s experience with gender, race, smarts, attitude, etc.. across industry and people

You can follow Ms Bekele on twitter at @sophiabekele and @dot_Africa or click on the hashtag #elle101 to participate or keep the conversation going

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