In this eye-opening episode, Rihanot and Tiaraoluwa sit down with Rewa of The Pink Room, a female-focused financial literacy platform, and dove into the world of money, investing, and how women can take control of their financial futures. Discover the secrets to building wealth and learn why financial education is the key to breaking the glass ceiling.
Read and listen to the episode below:
Welcome back to The Counter Narrative, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories shaping our world and empower voices making a difference. I am Rihanot Ojo-Oba Ojo-Oba and with me is the incredible Tiaraoluwa Oluwabukunmi Fadeyi.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Hi Rihanot Ojo-Oba, how are you?
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: I’m doing well, how are you? Happy New Year by the way.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi; Yes, Happy New Year and welcome to our wonderful listeners.
Today we’re incredibly honored to host Rewa, a dynamic force in both the finance and visual arts sectors. With 15 years of experience spanning Western and African markets and a celebrated artistic career, Rewa has made a significant impact in both fields.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Rewa’s heritage-inspired art has been showcased globally and she’s a leader in the finance world as a director at Chapel Hill Denham and a business coach for the female founders group program
Rewa, welcome to the show.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi; Rewa, could you dispel some common myths about women and financial literacy or independence?
Rewa; Sure, so the first myth I think in the domestic sense is that women who are financially empowered are considered or perceived to be less wifely or wifey. Wifely I think is the word and you know, because people think if they have knowledge, they may talk back to their husbands, etc. They may not be as domestic but I don’t think that’s true. I think that it just means that they are more of an asset to their partners.
The second myth I think in the financial services space where I occupy is that women are less able than men perhaps to understand complex financial concepts to run a business or head up divisions. Again, I think this is a terrible misconception, that’s both in the domestic space now, and, you know, as I’ve just mentioned in the more sort of corporate space.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: I think that it is, I think you’re just very insecure for you to say that if your wife has more money or more degrees, she’s going to be less wifey. I do not think that word should even exist.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Yes. And also the part where you mentioned how there’s no difference between, how a male and a female grasp financial terms.
And so, yes, it’s also because people feel, “Oh yeah, yeah. Woman, this is, this is the thing they say like, oh, you’re a woman, you have a smaller brain, so you cannot take all of these things.” But when you look, when you look at, research, you look at studies that intelligence is not gender biased. Like it literally comes to anybody. So it’s all the myths and all of that.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Yes. And that’s why we, we, we had a conversation about, we had a conversation about someone saying that a woman cannot fly a man because a man and a woman have gotten the same education, but you think that a man is a capable pilot, but a woman is not.
Yes. There was that conversation. It was, it was very, anyways, away from all that.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: So you initiated a pink room project. What inspired this venture and what future development is in store?
Rewa: So, the reason I started The Pink Room was because like I said, I wanted to ensure that the women who were around me or choose to be, you know, to come and learn. Okay. Would be just as empowered as I am. I’ve been working since I was 16 and I haven’t stopped since, and it’s been largely to my benefit and so I wanted to impart some of that knowledge, you know, to my friends and other women.
Because, you know, I think there’s a saying, and I’m just paraphrasing here that when a woman has a dollar, a whole village, uh, benefits as opposed to when a man has a dollar, then he benefits or the local bar might benefit, you know? So I thought it was important to disseminate the knowledge that I’ve accumulated over the years and, you know, uplift other women, because when a woman is uplifted, her community largely benefits from that empowerment, and in terms of what you expect, you know, so The Pink Room just has quarterly forums and it’s open to all; a free event where I speak about macroeconomic events and how this impacts you directly because, you know, people often hear these headline numbers.
Oh, okay. Cardoso and the CBN have increased NPR, you know, by 400 basis points.
What does that mean for you? Most people don’t really know. So the thing with The Pink Room is it’s fun. It’s Bite-sized chunks of knowledge and, I talk about how these headlines macroeconomic data, directly impact you as an individual, your family, or your business.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi; That’s a wonderful initiative.
So you work in Chapel Hill Denham where women account for 50% of the employees and 40% of leadership positions in the company. How is that like? How does that feel and does it make you feel like women can have financial independence and also have a good home?
Rewa: So I think it’s good because, for the younger ladies in the company, they see what is possible and permissible for them so I think you know they see women MDs, women directors you know just women in positions of leadership they see that okay for them. It’s possible too so I think it’s good for that reason uh, what’s it called sort of, role modeling it’s good for role modeling for younger women, and then I think you know in a wider sense for the company.
It’s also very good not PR, PR may be the wrong word but it sends the right message you know obviously Chapel Hill Denham is a foremost investment bank in Nigeria, a foremost independent bank in Nigeria and I think we wouldn’t be where we are if we didn’t have the staff compliment that we do. Because I think men bring something to the table women bring a different nuance to something to the table so I think that that harmony works very well and you know we sort of see it in how we operate.
My boss, Mr Bolaji Balogun, is very good in that he’s always been a sort of key promoter of women in the workspace you know, just championing the cause of women, women entrepreneurs, women leaders. Well, you know you’re going to have a lot of women in the workplace who are trying to make a way for themselves so I really do admire him for that.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: That’s wonderful, you know because a lot of companies have like generally in the world, we know that oh we have lesser women in leadership positions. even in companies, you see that there’s a difference. There’s a stark difference between the male and female employees, there’s a stark difference between so it’s nice and refreshing to hear from someone who works where it’s a bit balanced. Thank you for that.
Rewa: I know it’s very intentional Chapel Hill Denham is very intentional about the gender compliment which is an amazing thing.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Fantastic so Rewa, what tell us what are some frequent financial missteps women make and how can our listeners stay clear of them?
Rewa; Oh god so many, you know and I think we’re all guilty of that. So for the last pink room, I sent out a survey, you know, some of the questions were very personal you know like sort of what do you earn? How old are you? Do you have savings for retirement? but the two key questions I asked were “Okay, do you currently have any savings whether for retirement or other and the majority of the women said no. The second question was what is your retirement plan? and I was a bit cheeky about the answers. I put my children I put my husband and then I put you know my job and other business and
The majority of the women you know because I could see the correlation who had selected no savings, had selected their husbands as their retirement plan.
For their emergency fund, again, it was the same sort of thing, but obviously without the children’s answer. So what is your emergency fund? And for some of them, they had said, okay, the options were my parents, my employer, my church, and then I put my spouse. And the majority of the women, again, selected their spouse as their emergency savings fund. And so I think that that is a really huge pitfall.
How can you be empowered if something major happens in your life and you need emergency money? You’re having to go and beseech somebody. And yes, you may be one of the fortunate women, who has an understanding husband, a kind husband, a generous husband, who will help you all to help your family out. But sometimes that’s not the case. And men will use this to abuse their positions.
So I think it’s a huge misconception, certainly that married women make, that they feel, okay, because I’m married now, my husband should take care of me. And I think that’s a huge pitfall. And yes, you should take care of yourself and your children, but you should also be prudent in the way that you manage your own personal affairs to ensure that in the event of his demise, or if something happens, anything can happen, you’re able to care for yourself as well as your children.
And this is not just for emergency funds and not just for retirement funds, but just in general.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Are there more, we were talking about having an emergency fund. Now, are there other mistakes women make when it comes to financial independence?
Rewa: Yeah, I mean, I think some of them will give all their salaries to their husbands. I’m like, what, what are you talking about? You know, I think they say, “Oh, my husband will handle this”. Oh, I’m not thinking about, you know, they don’t query the matrimonial source of funds. They don’t query how the money is entering the household, or how the money is being made. They don’t query whether there’s enough, you know, whether their children, their savings for their children’s education. They don’t raise questions. Because they just think, “Oh, my husband’s the breadwinner. He’s going to handle this and it’s nothing to do with me”.
And I think that that’s a really dangerous place to be. And it’s a slippery slope as well.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi; Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You know, we had a conversation about this, giving your salary to your husband thing on Twitter, like, some weeks ago and it was like, oh yeah. Some people felt that it was a normal thing, but we were of the opinion that it was something about financial abuse, because when we go to. Give all your salary to somebody, you do not have access to it.
If you ever need, if something happens and you ever need to leave. You have to go back to the person you gave it to, to take it. So it’s, it’s really like a circle. You cannot escape abuse if you’re so yeah. So thank you very much for the answer.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Especially if you’re not sure of the partner’s kindness or maybe it’s when they have the money to change and maybe they would never change, but it’s just risky to put all of your earnings in the hands of the person. Yeah.
Rewa; You don’t, you don’t want to be in that position. You know, you, I mean, you need to have F you money, right? I’m not allowed to swear on this, but I think you get my meaning. You need to have **** you money. So if a situation is terrible, it’s, you know, endangering you, you need to have a form of escape and how are you going to do that? If you’re living financially, living under somebody’s thumb.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Yes, that, yes, that makes sense. So, I’m going to take you back to the question I asked before about the gender equality rating at chapel.
You mentioned Chapel Hill Denham is the foremost investment banking organization in Nigeria. So do you think that the gender parity that you have in any company is part of the reason for this? Because when we had a conversation with Ben Weber, who is the CEO of Humanize, he does like a thing where he checks gender characteristics or how people behave in companies when it comes to like gender and you mentioned something to us during our conversation you said that companies that dedicated to having gender equality,
They tend to make more money, they tend to be better at what they’re doing. So do you think this is one of the reasons why Chapel Hill Denham is one of the foremost really?
Rewa: Yes I think so I mean I think McKinsey had a report a little while ago that looked at some of the top companies in you know north America and they found that you know the companies that were in the top quartile in terms of revenues, you know where they had more than 25% of women sitting on the board, they were more likely to outperform their peers who didn’t have that same compliment.
You know there was something else about they enjoy profit margins 10 times higher than those that didn’t have you know 25% or more women leadership on the board.
Those are just elusive statistics I remember from seeing that study. It was McKinsey that conducted it. So I think you know the stats are there to back that ultimately when you have a high women’s staff compliment or female staff compliment, it’s ultimately beneficial to your company and you know I mean it’s women like I always say, we bring a different we did bring a different skill set we bring different nuances to a business and the same thing with a man, both are mutually exclusive you should have both but to have all exclusive men and they’re just driving the decisions they tend to sort of not see things in the way that we do nor do we see things in the way that they do.
Which is why it’s complementary to have an equal sort of balance of both and you know as i said, people can refer to that McKinsey study or many others that have been done in this space to show that when women are in leadership positions or make up a huge compliment of your board, your company just tends to do better than your pair who does not have the same statistics.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Okay thank you very much for the answer so we noticed that despite women’s reliability in repaying loans there’s still discrimination in loans, like in accessing loans for women and also in interest rates some loan companies some traditional banks get women to pay higher interest than their male counterparts. What do you think is responsible for this?
Rewa: oh God even just hearing that makes me so annoyed, makes me so so so annoyed. I think it should be illegal, you know, to engage in such practices but it’s also very disheartening because again women are really the engines of society.
you know if you go to markets, women are like the Shables or the Mitchell stands in in Germany. it’s like women are the the cogs that keep the entire machine kind of running you know and to offer them loans and give them you serious rates or above men I think it’s just it should be illegal and I think it’s a disgrace.
I think it’s a massive pity as well because as you said statistics show that women are more likely to pay back and pay on time than a man is.
Women are just a lot more responsible with their money. even to sort of bring it home, I think when I look at myself and my co-male directors for example, I’m always about saving monthly putting money aside for myself, for my son’s education even though he’s still very young, I’m very sort of prudent in that manner.
I believe in building small building blocks whereas my male counterparts they’re like “No I have x amount of money i’m going to just throw it into this business” You know, men are very sort of they’re very daring and adventurous. they don’t sort of think about the smaller components whereas women are a bit more uh they plan a lot more in that way.
So I think that it’s a pity and it’s disgraceful that any company would engage in the practices that you’re speaking of when actually we should be giving women preferential rates even because we’re already—access to financing, if you look at the statistics is already so minimal compared with that of men that the few that can even then get the financing you know look at what some financial institutions are doing and yeah it’s disheartening, to say the least.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: I think one of the reasons why that exists why women pay higher rates after they’ve collected a loan is because the society or some set of people think that women do not have what they use the money for and they see men or husbands as breadwinners and the world has changed, things have evolved and we’re saying you know what in most households now we have co-breadwinners the man is providing so is the woman.
But because of what the woman is using her money for so if you loan a woman money and you collect a higher interest you wouldn’t do that to a man because ah he has a lot to do he’s paying rent, he’s doing this, he’s doing that. that’s the whole system is deeply rooted in gender inequality and it’s really really unfair to women.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi; yes and it’s like and it’s really it’s very concerning because we have studies to show that women pay back and they pay back on time. So why wouldn’t you want to give people like that more money? It’s like a very bad business decision for you as a company to even do that. That’s why I understand all these microfinance banks will target just women because they always get their money back.
It’s really a bad decision.
Rewa: And this is why you need women in positions of leadership and power because imagine both of you were then sitting on the board of a company that was engaging in such practices you would then be the voice of reason to say “Hey well listen guys according to statistics here you go.” you know so this is why we need more women steering the ship so that these malpractices are diminished
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: I agree we have to dismantle it. so Rewa tell us how can women enhance their financial literacy, particularly in budgeting, loan savings, and investment are there specific tools or resources that you recommend?
Rewa: Well, first of all, I say come to The Pink Room, but seriously I think attend forums by people who maybe are positions that you want to be in or people that you know speak upon the matters that are relevant to you and again that’s why we do The Pink Room because if we talk about things like that you know budgeting, investing, all of that good stuff, financial well-being financial literacy.
I think in this day and age of social media, I would say be very careful in taking advice from financial gurus on social media. Some of them are very good but again some have discovered that eyeballs and likes are the place to be and they don’t have the pedigree or any sort of history of working in the financial services space.
But you know for clicks and likes, they go on and they go on Google and they learn off Google and then they come on social media and give advice and a lot of them don’t take the advice that they actually dish out as well.
So I’d say just be wary of you know taking advice from a social media financial advisor that would be one of them.
Attend forums and network a lot and you know there are many courses that you can do; Udemy for example, has courses for as little as $5 on financial literacy. Do one, upskill yourself, and then also don’t be put off. I think a lot of people have this misconception, certainly, this was what I saw from my Pink Room survey that people think “Okay I’ll start saving once I start earning 100k a month”, for example right because right now “I’m only earning 45 and it’s not enough to even put aside.”
The power of compound interest and two the power of time you know I started saving my son when I was expecting him not even when he was born from the time I was expecting because I recognize that even if I can put aside ten dollars a month for my son by the time he’s 18, the power of compound interest and just time means that my son could be a millionaire by the time he’s in his 30s if I’m putting aside just 50 dollars a month from the time that you know I was expecting him.
A lot of people think “okay well you’re telling me I can actually be a millionaire in my lifetime or my child can be? absolutely” even if you’re not a millionaire yourself just these small changes in behavior.
So I think my advice is no matter how little your income is, it doesn’t matter just start with teaching yourself discipline that “even if it’s 500 naira I’m going to put it aside”. You’ll be so surprised how quickly it starts to add up and starts to build up and I think you know.
There’s something that people say about habit and I made a note of it somewhere and I’m going to read it out they said “Habit is strengthened through repeated performance and association with reward” and I think that your reward is that you start to see your savings grow and so it strengthens that habit. So no matter how little you start off with, the key is just to start.
You pointed out that a lot of institutions now lend to women in the other way, a lot of them now have accounts tailored to women and their needs. A lot of major banks do that now.
Open yourself up to that and you can do that with a savings account and start putting a bit of money aside and getting to that discipline then the onus is on you as well to ensure that you learn so go out and seek knowledge.
Attend these forums, there’s so many. there’s Herconomy, there’s you know well now the pink room there are so many women who have you know the knowledge in the areas that you’re trying to learn about and just go and sit and listen to these women talk. Don’t be afraid to reach out on LinkedIn or Instagram; I always respond to every single message I receive and I do it personally as opposed to my social media manager but just you know go out and seek knowledge and don’t be afraid.
Nothing is too small to begin and just equip yourself with with the knowledge, you know.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: I have a question. You know when if you’re talking to a young lady for example who says “oh I want to save I have the intention of saving but I’m in a society where people tell me ‘what do you need to save when you have a husband that is going to take care of you and your needs?’” how do you respond to that?
Rewa: I’d tell her “You don’t have mumu tattooed across your forehead, what are you doing?” No I mean I’m just joking.
I say to her “Look, life happens, life comes at you right? Tomorrow is not promised. I mean we all know this right? it’s imprudent to rely on another person for your sort of destiny. I understand that, yes your husband may take care of you but consider yourself if you have children and also consider your children because tomorrow’s not guaranteed in the event of his demise, what do you then do?
You know customary laws here in Nigeria and Igbo land they’ll come and take everything away from you. You can’t just rely on your husband and you know his income and him taking care of you and paying for your hair or your nails you know. Just be smart and squirrel aside something for yourself and I promise you you’ll thank me later you know.
So I’d just asked him to really just rethink that decision because it’s not wise. You don’t have to disclose too you know so if it’s like your mother-in-law or even your mother telling you “Why are you working my son is taking care of you or your husband is taking care of you ?” stop disclosing them because you’re getting negative feedback right?
Stop disclosing and I’m not saying start lying. Just be smart and surround yourself with people who have the same sort of missions as you because it’s easy to get dissuaded if you know all the women that you are telling “yeah but I didn’t save, my husband took care of me…put all my children through school…blah blah blah”
Stop telling these women your business and just do what feels intrinsically right for you and what you know is right for yourself and your children. Stop disclosing to ignoramuses or ignorami, I guess, would be the plural. I don’t know ignoramuses?
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: okay so what exact tools for women to actually explore for saving? do you have the exact tools that you tell women to use when they come to you for savings advice, for investment? Should they invest in real estate invest in companies how do they ensure that they have financial independence?
Rewa: Sure. so I think for me, you know I grew up in the UK so I’m fortunate enough to have that additional angle to my money journey. I’ll answer your question in two parts; I think that if you have exposure offshore to a different jurisdiction then you know diversify your assets and have some I mean we’ve all seen what happened in Naira recently and the cost of you know inflation has surged etc. naira has depreciated you know 233 percent in the past 12 months
So I think if you have options offshore to diversify then you should definitely utilize those and have some hard currency savings. so that would be one piece of advice and then if you’re purely Nigeria-facing, there are many options open to you so you know shameless plug again but Chapel Hill Denham we have an app called Investin, so there you can just if you’re not savvy at all about investments you have different portfolios that you can pick from, you put your money in and you know every month and maybe just subscribe N100, N1000 to N10, 000 and it invests that for you.
There are many tools depending on what your appetite is but I’d say for somebody who’s just starting perhaps stick with less risky assets so that you don’t get burned because during COVID a lot of people woke up and decided they were investors and indulged in the mean stocks and a lot of people lost a lot of money on you know the likes of zoom etc.
They woke up and decided they were traders right and because everybody said these were popular names people were buying, so if you’re just starting and you actually don’t understand the underlying interests that you’re investing in ETFS {exchange-traded funds} which are like sort of a basket of instruments is a good way to go, like the S&P 500 ETF and the domestic side, you know t bills are quite safe I highly doubt the Nigerian government is going to default on paying you back your coupon so that’s also a good way to go and then you can buy these instruments through apps like Chapel Hill Denhams Invest Naija.
if you want to go into real estate, I don’t personally own real estate here so I’m always reluctant to advise on things that I haven’t personally put my money into because I find that real estate here can be very illiquid. When you then want to set off, it can be tough to sell but there are things like REITS— real estate investment trusts, and actually, Chapel Hill Denham started the first one.
What that means is that they buy a pool of real estate assets and you as an investor, put in say one thousand naira and you get a unit of that and they pay you monthly dividends when they get rent and it’s listed on the stock exchange so you can enter and exit at any time.
So that’s also an interesting way to get into the real estate market if you don’t have enough to buy a house or to buy land for example. Again when it comes to real estate in Nigeria because I don’t own assets I’m reluctant to give advice where I haven’t personally put my own money but I have in REITs which is why I’ll speak to REITs.
But there are many ways you can start.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: okay fantastic thank you so much that was a very insightful and robust answer because for our listeners to be able to actually take steps after listening to this episode so thank you very much.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Rewa, research indicates a correlation between female breadwinners and an increase in domestic violence and emotional abuse. why do you believe this occurs?
Rewa: Because men have coconut heads. I can’t stand men (laughs), I’m just joking but no look I think that men. You know it’s funny because outwardly they look like Tarzan, you know they’re so outwardly strong but you know emotionally men are incredibly fragile, they are very fragile, their egos are so fragile and you know when a man has a wife and people are admiring his wife and saying “oh she’s so successful, she’s this, she’s that”.
They can’t take it you know and I think it’s a primal thing because it’s like “You Tarzan me Jane I guards and hunts I bring it home you skin the deer” or whatever it is right? some men are so insecure and their egos are so fragile that they cannot see the assets in a woman who is a force to be reckoned with in her field and that’s why the only way that they can then exercise their power is, you know, going down to their fists right? and exerting their power in the physical sense because men typically tend to be physically stronger.
I think it’s pathetic. It is absolutely pathetic. so that’s my thinking, I think it’s insecurity, I think it’s fragility and I think it’s a lack of confidence in who they are themselves.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: That actually makes sense.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: so many men have refused to practice healthy or positive masculinity it’s like they are sticking to toxic and we can’t talk about toxic masculinity without talking about all forms of abuse
Rewa: Yes, it’s terrible. I mean why abuse a person for fulfilling her purpose in life? Why abuse a person for going out and actually uplifting your entire household? Why punish a person for that? Isn’t that a good thing to do? but I suppose it makes them feel powerless and then you don’t even want to be with a person like that.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Yes yes that’s so true. you don’t even want to be with a person like that. Yes, according to Forbes, venture capitalist firms (VC) firms with at least one female investing partner are twice as likely to fund female founders and three times more likely to fund companies with female CEOs than VC firms with all-male partners.
What are your thoughts on this?
Rewa: Again, you see I’m sounding a bit like a parrot or a broken record now but this is why we need women steering some ships. Because then they are decision makers and they can then allocate capital accordingly. You know, if a woman was at the helm or had a seat of the table she would be able to advise accordingly. Then again I just think it’s such a disgrace I mean for God’s sake, half the population is female. why are we—it’s just so incredible to me that in this day and age, we are so archaic in our thinking.
You know but it’s a pity but it ties into women having a seat at a table. Another thing that I kind of sometimes observe is that when a woman then makes it into position of power, she’s been reluctant to pull up someone younger behind her which is also a pity too you know because why you know such a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality.
Uplift others because when a community rises, everybody rises but if you’re rising in a silo, no person can exist as an island. Then so I also don’t like that myopic sense of thinking. Like I say I always respond to all my messages and I have a few mentees.
I always make time out to help women who are coming behind me, to see what my advice I always make time to do it because I wish so many would have done it for me and so I make it my duty to always be responsive and help. In terms of this Forbes study, you know it’s also doubly disgraceful that this happened in developed markets like the US and the UK who are meant to be sort of more at the leading edge of these things. That’s changing though and I’m happy to see that change you know.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: You know, fantastic. Rewa so tell us how can women navigate financial decisions in their romantic relationships and marriages while maintaining independence and avoiding financial abuse?
Rewa: well take what I say with a pinch of salt because your girl here is divorced so maybe I’m the one with coconut head. Maybe I don’t hear word. All jokes aside, I think always be respectful so even if you do earn more than your husband, don’t lord it over him or emasculate him as a result of your own sort of financial prowess. That’s number one, always be respectful and I mean this to both parties. I think, having these conversations upfront is very important, you know not years down the line and then both of you are trying to think of what works best in your family dynamic.
I think if you are just beginning to date somebody or you’re about to be married, ensure that both of you are very clear or as clear as you can be, because life changes but both be as clear as you can be about what’s your perceived roles and responsibilities are going to be, how you intend on your managing your finances because that can spare a lot of heartache in in the long run.
I think if you’re already in it and you find yourself in this situation um and maybe you are facing financial abuse…gosh, it’s a really tough one, but I would say that as a woman then get yourself a network of people who are supportive and try to start educate yourself on how to become financially empowered. You know but again within reason respectful reason. Attending women-led forums like The Pink Room or some of my financial counterparts have great financial well being events, attend some of those. And you can operate with ransparency as long as it’s safe for you to do so or conceal it but not in a harmful way.
If you are married and you find that you’re totally powerless in your situation then it’s a tough place to be in but take heart that it doesn’t matter. You know this now and knowing it is the first step and just start to try to educate yourself and and the little way that you can and start to try to put something aside for yourself because I kid you know even if you have savings of a N100k, it can feel really empowering because then you feel like okay so even if there’s something I need to do I have my own pot of money that I can take and go do something with.
You know, just taking action no matter how small and small is how we all perceive it to be but it’s so incredibly empowering. just taking action and getting yourself knowledge, Knowledge isnt Power it’s actually the utility of the knowledge that’s power so just take this whole steps to try to um kind of educate yourself and surround yourself with the equally supportive network, but be respectful to your spouse.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Thank you very much for that so we have one more question for you but before we get into that. So you mention that The Pink Room is a quarterly event so which means that this is March, you have an event so can you tell us more about the event so maybe our listeners can come to learn.
Rewa: sure so it’s something that I do in conjunction with the Women International, which is a great network of women and they have a lot of sessions you know about financial well being, emotional well being, health, you know women’s problems, you know if maybe if you’re trying to get pregnant and you want to IVF, they have so many sessions; a range or topics affecting the lives of women.
So its something I do conjunction with them, this event will be on march 24th which is on Sunday um if you go on thepinkroomng.com to attend and again during that session you know we sort of I talk about the macro economic landscape, I talk about headlines and indie economy and how what this means for you and you individual capacity, how you should navigate the coming months depending on your situation.
We also have other speakers so this time we have a lady called Natasha and she’s incredible and she’ll be talking about the psychology of money because it will surprise you how many women in the community are married to millionaires and the women in their right are millionaires and I’m talking in USD but yeah these women are still so scared to take any step without the husband and so that’s this psychology because your social economic background, how you grew up, what your parents told you, what your mother told you about money.
You actually just don’t realize how much it comes to bare in current day and your relationship with money and also when you were growing up, what did you witness? What was told to you? What were you told by your in-laws? What do societal norms tell you to do? and all of these things impact the way you treat money, the way you go about handling your money.
So this session is going to be incredible because she will talk about the psychology of money and try to get people to open up their minds beyond what they’ve been told is the right way to think um and I mean, maybe there’s no right or wrong, depending how you feel, but open minded with your relationship with money and then I talk about hard numbers, what you should be considering, how you should navigate the space so it’ll be an incredible session. I’m really looking forward to it. you know and it’s also light touch so it’s not like you’re going to come in and say “oh my god she’s talking about inflation and you know the asymmetric card. Oh I don’t know what this means” Yes, I talk about those things but I also break it down in the kind of way that understandable for even somebody like my son to understand.
Rihanot Ojo-Oba: Speaking of psychology of money, when in conversation with women and girls, I hear “oh, I want to be with a rich man I want to be with a rich man.” that’s because so many women think that when or if they end up with a rich man, they are going to have access to money.
It looks like you’re balling, you have drivers you go shopping but you do not see the money. everything is being paid for. You just need a driver to take you from place to place as against you have to spend or pay for items. You can’t even save out of it or there’s nothing to save from because everything is paid for. You just need a driver to the store, to make your hair, to the spa, your nails as it is or you paying for. You can’t even tip someone.
Rewa: Look I tell you, Nigeria is a lot of smoke and mirrors, right? Never look at somebody externally or on social media and envy or desire their lives. I promise you, the things that happen behind closed doors, you’d be shocked. You’d be so shocked. There are so many incidences of women are percieved to be balling, right? but their cash balance is zero because the smallest thing, even if they want to buy akara for breakfast, they have to ask the man for money.
In their own bank accounts, they have nothing. I mean, maybe they don’t work. Another thing is, please always have a job. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing but for God’s sake, please have a job and be a good role model for your child. Being a housewife, that’s a whole other thing but please just engage in some form of enterprise, no matter how small.
Sidebar; that’s something else. I say this to say that you see a lot of women and its like yeah they’ve married rich men but the reality behind-the-scenes like you both talked about, is very different. Even look at a global scale, look at Diddy and Cassie, she was dating a billionaire and she left him with nothing because he paid for everything. He took everything away, so don’t look at somebody else and envy their position. Yeah, marrying a rich man can make you comfortable, but always be prudent, always still have your own, do not allow yourself to be sucked into the “Oh, he handles everything so I do not need to ever worry about where our next money is coming from, how we are going to pay for this…”
Just be smart about how you navigate it, a rich man is not everything. I promise you that it comes with its own challenges.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Alright, so thank you for that. Lastly, we have young female listeners who are eager to know what has helped you in your career and financial development over the years. so could you leave us with something?
Rewa: Yeah, I mean a lot of things helped me, watching my mum growing up. She was a single mother to us and so the lady was juggling jobs like the most skilled juggler you’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t easy and I say that to say I grew up with a mother that was working multiple jobs to support her children, right? and so very early on, I learnt the importance of work ethic.
Like I said, I have been working since I was 16 and haven’t stopped since then. So I think having a good role model, who didn’t look to anybody for handouts. She worked very hard so that’s one of the things, having a role model and having very strong work ethic.
Nobody is coming to save you. No one is going to ride in on a horse and save you. So, boots strapped and get it done. So number one, role model. Number two: working hard.
I think another thing that has helped me is that I network like a crazy person. I love to learn from people, so I’ve spoken about the lady that will speak at the The Pink Room, Natasha. A lot of my friends, I surround myself with women who have something that I want. Not want, but admire. That’s a better way to put it. I admire my friends for different things and when I hang around with intelligent women, I learn and I better myself in the process.
I don’t have friends who aren’t engaged in some form of enterprise because we’d have nothing to talk about and I’d be very impatient. I suround myself with people who, you don’t have to be the next Kathy Wood, you don’t have to the L’oreal lady – the Bettencourt. You don’t have to be that, but in anything that you are doing, if you have excellence in that area. I want to be your friend, because that thing? I want to learn about it. I want to learn from you about how you’re doing that thing.
So I think that’s another thing, your network is so important.
Another thing that has massively helped me is being diverse, Yes, I’m at Chapel Hill but I’m also a visual artist and I think having multiple sources that support my livelihood has been instrumental in my journey. Because you know, when one is not doing so well, the other keeps me afloat. And when this one isn’t doing so well, the other keeps you afloat.
So its about being adaptable, being flexible. And, every human is born with an internal star so find what your star is and work at it and if you know how to crochet, if you know how to knit but you also have a job. I really encourage you to, that passion or whatever that thing is that you can do better than other people, continuously hone your craft because that could be another income source for you.
So, I guess in summary what I’m trying to say is: find ways that you can diversify avenues of success for yourself and try to do each of them very well. I think, you’ll find that that really helps you. You know?
Sorry, long winded way but those would be my pieces of advice.
Tiaraoluwa Fadeyi: Thank you. Thank you so much for that, if you want to hear more from Rewa on financial literacy. She is having The Pink Room on 24th of March. Just google The Pink Room and you’ll see how to register and you can listen to her and be more financially independent.
Rewa: Thank you both. I know you’ve asked me a lot of questions but I also want to appplaud the work you’re doing. I think that what you do is so vital, disseminating information to your women listeners or men, let’s not be exclusive, right? I think the work you are doing is so important. I think we need more of this, so I’m really honoured to be here and I’m proud of the work that both of you are doing and please don’t stop. Keep it up. You’d be surprised at how many lives you touch and change with the work you are doing.
Read and Listen to all other episodes of The Counter Narrative podcast for more enlightening discussions.
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