African Business Stories
African Business Stories is the go-to podcast for insights into the women shaping Africa’s business landscape. Africa is one of the world’s most promising frontiers for growth and innovation—and women are at the heart of this transformation.
Hosted by Akaego Okoye, this podcast spotlights female entrepreneurs who are breaking barriers, scaling businesses, and driving economic development across the continent. Through bold conversations, we explore funding, scaling strategies, digital transformation, and industry innovations—equipping you with insights, practical tools, and inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey.
When women win, economies thrive. These stories amplify success, challenge narratives, and create a blueprint for the next generation of female leaders in Africa and beyond.
Subscribe now and be part of the movement to champion women in business!
African Business Stories
Banke Kuku: Founder & Creative Director, Banke Kuku - Fashion with Purpose: Sustainability & Innovation in Luxury Design
Banke Kuku's extraordinary transformation from textile designer to luxury fashion entrepreneur offers a masterclass in creative evolution and business resilience. After honing her craft at prestigious institutions like Central Saint Martins and Chelsea College of Arts, Banke's journey took an unexpected turn when customers began requesting to wear her vibrant prints rather than just display them as home décor.
What followed was a remarkable story of adaptation and growth. Having launched her fashion line just months before the pandemic, Banke faced what could have been a business-ending disruption. Instead, she quickly pivoted to online sales, discovering that her colorful, joy-filled designs resonated deeply with customers seeking brightness during dark times. This pivot not only saved her business but fueled its expansion from a team of five to approximately 45 people today.
At the heart of Banke's brand is storytelling through design. Her prints draw inspiration from Nigeria's rich natural environment, challenging stereotypes and showcasing the country's beauty. "Not everything in Nigeria is concrete," she notes, explaining how her work educates people to see her homeland differently. This commitment to positive representation extends beyond fashion through her initiative "Prints for Purpose," supporting environmental conservation and community development.
The Banke Kuku brand now enjoys global reach with stockists across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Her collaborations with celebrities like Gabrielle Union highlight how African designers can build international luxury brands while maintaining authentic cultural connections. For aspiring entrepreneurs, Banke offers simple yet powerful advice: be patient and consistent. As she reminds us, "Good work takes time," especially when weaving dreams into reality.
Subscribe to African Business Stories to hear more inspiring conversations with the female entrepreneurs shaping Africa's economic future.
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With more female entrepreneurs than any other region in the world. Women are at the heart of Africa's transformation. Welcome to African Business Stories, the show that amplifies the voices of female entrepreneurs shaping Africa's business landscape. I'm your host, ekego Koye. Here we explore bold ideas, strategies for scaling and the realities of building businesses that drive economic development. These stories will provide insights into Africa's business landscape, practical tools for growth and the inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share. Neural journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share On the show.
Speaker 1:Today I chat with Bankia Kuku, founder and creative director of the luxury fashion brand, bankia Kuku. Born in Lagos and raised between Nigeria and England, bankia studied at the Central Saint Martins and Chelsea College of Arts before launching her career in textile design. She worked with African and international brands before transitioning into fashion and establishing her brand. We talk about her journey from textiles to building a thriving luxury fashion brand, how she navigated the challenges of COVID-19 and the importance of sustainability and social impact through her initiative Prince for Purpose. She also shares insights on collaborating with global brands like Gabbro Union and Moet Chandon and scaling a business from Africa to the world. It's a conversation about creativity and the future of African luxury fashion. Let's get into it. Hi Banker, welcome to African Business Stories.
Speaker 2:Hi, so good to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome, are you in Lagos at the moment? I am. I'm in Lagos. It's pretty sunny over here today.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good. It's been very wet over here, so I miss the sunshine.
Speaker 2:I'm sending you sunshine from Lagos.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you so much Talking about Lagos. I know you were born and raised in Lagos. Yes, I know Lagos pretty well. So was that on the mainland or on the island?
Speaker 2:So I was born in my father's hospital, echo Hospital, and that was at the time that was in Surulere, and then we moved to Ikeja, so it was on the mainland and I went to school around. I went to school in Ikeja as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it was in. I remember the building in Giaire, so it was in Surulere at first. Yes, oh, I see. So just talking about childhood, are there any fun childhood memories that have stayed with you over the years?
Speaker 2:Oh, so many. I loved growing up in Lagos. I had such great friends and my family were always around. I had I'm an animal lover and I had a cat and then the cat had kittens and the kittens had kittens and I ended up having 20 something kittens or cats in my house. Yes, and we used to feed them because you know, sometimes the mother would die or something. So we I used to get my mom's contact lens solution. Empty it out. It comes in those little tiny bottles. Empty it out and I'll mix some milk, because then we had powdered milk, so I'll mix some milk, because then we had powdered milk, so I'll mix some milk, put it in the little bottles and then feed the little kittens so they could survive, oh bless.
Speaker 1:Did you consider selling them at any point?
Speaker 2:I think then they became it was hard to contain because they weren't living in the house, they were just living. Some of them could come in Like the ones that, like from the first listen, those ones were like they were used to us and the other ones were just like they weren't very used to us. They would just disappear for days and you just see a random cat hanging around the compound and you're like, okay, this must be one of ours. But yeah, it was a very interesting experience having cats. I don't have cats anymore since that time.
Speaker 1:I don't have, I have, I'm a dog lover, all right, see cats anymore since that time. I don't have, I have, I'm a dog lover, all right see, because I was going to ask you if you still had cats. Okay, so you've moved on, but still a furry lover, yes definitely were there things that happened in your childhood to spark your creativity? Because it feels like you. You've been creative right from the jump. Yeah, I've always been.
Speaker 2:I've really always been into like making things with my hands and drawing painting since Since I was really young, I went to primary school in Nigeria, which really allowed me to be very expressive. Actually, I took my art classes very seriously and all my extracurricular activities were like craftsy based. My mom was also creative as well, so we used to make dresses for my dolls together. We used to knit together. So I've always really been used to working with my hands or looking at images, drawing, painting, using colors from a really young age.
Speaker 1:So you moved to England when you were eight years old yes, I read and then you of course went to secondary school and high school and then ended up at Central Saint Martins. Yeah, Then you decided to study textile. So what inspired that decision to study something so specific?
Speaker 2:So I did fine art A-levels and then I went to Saint Martins, which I did a foundation in art and design actually because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. And during that time you're allowed to do, you're allowed to try so many different things because they're trying to give you an opportunity to find yourself. A lot of a big part of art school is not just about the craft, it's also about finding yourself and who you are. And so Richard St Martin's was really good at doing that and there were some really challenging like things we had to do that would test like test your resilience and things like that. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:So I had chosen, like textiles, fashion. I can't even remember now, but I just know textiles and fashion. I definitely chose this. I can't remember the rest of the things I chose. I didn't even really know what textiles was, but the minute that I stepped into the room and I this class started, I was just like wow, what is this world of? This is everything that I had never come across a course called textiles before. I didn't even know it was something you could study, but once I got into that class it was. It's just. I just felt right at home and at St Martins. So you, when you specialize, you have to do the end of the specialism. Whether you specialize for a couple of weeks or I can't remember how long you have to take an exam and then, after the exam, they then choose the final 20 or something like that 20 people in my class out of like 100 and something who applied, and then the final 20, then we get to specialize throughout time in St Martins.
Speaker 2:Then we get to specialize throughout our time in St Martins and then we can either decide to apply to different colleges or apply to St Martins again to continue studying textiles. I chose to apply to Chelsea, which I absolutely loved as well. It was really a great course, great textiles course at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Speaker 1:How did that whole experience influence your approach to design?
Speaker 2:So it just it makes you see things in a completely different way. I did a lot of weaving as well. That's very like time consuming. Very particularly, you're threading your loom. All the threads have to balance, all the tension has to be right. You dye your threads. You're so. You're so into the detail and you'll have so patient to see the results.
Speaker 2:So that experience really changed how I think about design. Even when I'm designing my work now I'm just like this is my process. It's a process. I know it will come. Be patient. So I have my process and I know that if I follow this process, all things being equal, I'll get to my final destination.
Speaker 2:And it just made me understand that things take time. It's not when you're threading the loom. That can take weeks, depending on how fine your threads are and how fine the cloth you're trying to weave is. That can take weeks, even dyeing the threads. The whole process, that whole process. At first it's so frustrating because you don't know how to, you're not so confident in it. Your threads get tangled, they break, your cloth looks wonky, the lines aren't straight. It takes a while to get into that practice of threading it all up and it's right at the end, right at the end. That's when you see everything come together, but you're going through these three weeks of not even knowing whether it's going to fall off the loom. So, yeah, that definitely gave me a different view on how to design, or how I design anyway.
Speaker 1:Very intricate. Sounds all very intricate, yeah. What were your career aspirations coming out of Chelsea College of Art?
Speaker 2:at Chelsea. I really was. I was really focused on woven and printed textiles. No idea, I was just. It was actually the most amazing experience because you're just being so present in this, you know your craft and who you are, your, your identity. That was like.
Speaker 2:In the first year, I was very like, it was great. And then, second year, I was there for three years. Second year, then, yes, you start to think, okay, what am I going to do with this? Am I going to be like a textiles artist? Because there's so many different things you can do as a textiles designer. You can be a fashion designer, an interior designer, you can be a space designer, an interior designer, you can be a spatial. There's so many different things.
Speaker 2:And that was that's where I really struggled, because I was just like I'm spending all that. I spent all this time trying to find out who I. I was and I'm a textiles designer, but as a textiles designer, who am I? As a textiles? I'm a fashion designer, I'm an interior designer. Am I like? So I went back and forth for years, actually, like, like, trying to discover what I was going to do, and I did a lot of. I did a lot of internships, I worked in several places just trying to find where I would fit, and it's only really in the past five years, after going through this journey, since I was 19 until now, which I won't say how many years, you guess- my age, but it's only now that I'm confident in saying who I am.
Speaker 2:I finally found, like where I fit right in hmm, it's a journey, isn't it a journey?
Speaker 1:it's such a journey, it's all a journey yeah, so I know that one of your first roles was working at harrods, was it?
Speaker 2:harrods. I worked for jasmine de milo, so jasmine de milo owned by the owner of harrods, muhammad alfayed his daughter, so she had a store in harrods and then this her studio as well was part of hers. So great experience. I learned so much. I made so many industry friends as well, which are still my industry friends today. It was an experience. I love experience. I love challenges and learning new things and putting myself like looking at myself from another angle.
Speaker 1:So what exactly were you doing in that first?
Speaker 2:role. I was part of the design team, so I was working heavily in textiles. I remember there was a time where I would have to send color swatches to suppliers to match and the silk and everything I would literally dye the color swatches to send over, like to get the perfect, perfect shade. I did fashion drawing and then I really moved into the textiles part of it, which was amazing.
Speaker 1:Then you went on to start doing freelance work. Yes, I did. What was that like? How did you get introduced to the world of freelancing?
Speaker 2:So I was working with several designers whilst I was in uni and after as well, and I just continued designing. I continued designing for them, like I'll design fabric prints, that kind of thing. I was also doing my 95 and there was no conflict at all. What I was doing for them was very different from what I was doing in-house. I just didn't have enough time to balance it, so I just ended up leaving Jasmine's Milo and then focusing on my freelancing.
Speaker 1:So what was the first iteration of your business called?
Speaker 2:My first business name was Banker Kuku Textiles, because I was designing textiles, so it was a description of what I was doing. Okay, and what was your clientele like? So I started working with for the first time, started working with a lot of African designers and textiles for them and introducing them to a different like different textures of what they were used to seeing at the time in Nigeria. I was also working for other African designers outside of Nigeria who are based, like in New York and London and things like that. So I just I loved the experience because I was tapping into another version of myself which I loved, getting to know that person and getting to know what inspires that person, which really had such a huge effect on who I am today.
Speaker 1:So I read that in 20, about 2016,. You moved back to Nigeria, yeah, so what inspired?
Speaker 2:that move back. I just I wanted to be closer to my inspiration, and I also had some life changes as well, so it was for me it was a good time. It was a good time to move back.
Speaker 1:And did you continue that textile design while you were in Nigeria?
Speaker 2:I did for a little bit. So when I so, at the point where I moved back to Nigeria, I had started designing for myself. I was designing interior pieces like soft furnishing oh nice. Designing upholstery, fabric, cushions, lamps, that kind of thing I was selling to so many different stores all around the world from Australia, japan, america, london, lots of different places and the business was great. And then I moved back to Nigeria and I wanted to continue that but I felt like it just wasn't. It was wasn't the time. I'm not saying it's never going to be the time for that kind of thing in Nigeria, because the creative industry is always growing and people are always like so excited to see a different take on African design. So I would say that it just wasn't working and I had a lot of people actually more interested in my prints for fashion rather than interiors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was going to be my next question. What then inspired you to evolve from textiles to a fashion line?
Speaker 2:I had one customer and she was just like I love your prints, but I want to wear them. I don't want to just see them at home, I also want to wear them out. And so she asked me to make her a caftan. And so I made the caftan and her friend loved it. And her friends then started ordering and then it was like word of mouth and then they would introduce me to this person. So that's really how my business started.
Speaker 2:But the thing is I was still not ready to let go of the interiors. Not ready to let go of the interiors. I was like this has to work. So I'm not going to fully let go of the interiors, but I'm going to do something that complements my interiors. I decided to do like a capsule, like a small collection, capsule collection of just pieces that you'd feel comfortable wearing at home. So if you have like cushions banquette cushions you may want to wear like a lovely silk robe that compliment the prints, may complement it, and it was becoming a lifestyle brand. So I did pajamas, robes, caftans just easy, really easy, beautiful silk pieces, and I launched it November 2019 and it was really really well, it was great, it did well, and then the whole world. Things in the world went upside down as nobody would ever expect. And then we had COVID, yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did you navigate building during COVID? Because of course you had just launched and then the world shuts down. So how did you navigate growth in that?
Speaker 2:period. So I started. So some of my suppliers were telling me that they were closing down because of this pandemic thing and I was like, oh my gosh, wow, that's so serious. But I was like I don't really think. I don't think he'll come to Nigeria because it's still very far away. Eventually, of course, he came to Nigeria and we were given 48 hours. I think it was 48 hours. The government gave us 48, those announcements that we had 48 hours to get everything we needed food supplies, whatever and we're going to be at home for we don't know how long.
Speaker 2:So this was a really scary time for me, because my business was so young, so new, a few months old, and I had set up this workshop, I had employed, I had employed people, I had my store, I had overheads, you know, and if I didn't continue to sell, I wasn't going to be able to keep up with my overheads and I would lose what I spent so long building and something that I had so fallen in love with. We went online. We didn't have a website or anything. I was on Instagram, but we would just post like it wasn't. I didn't have, I didn't have very many followers as such, so I just said we need to get, we need to show this somewhere and we can show it online and people can purchase. So we took pictures of absolutely everything. We had to just spend a whole day taking pictures of all the pieces of the model and we set up this website, put it on the website and we went into lockdown and then slowly, like I just noticed, oh, people are buying these pajamas. So my workshop kept going because we did have stock.
Speaker 2:So we kept going, kept producing and people were ordering so we kept delivering. We used DHL to deliver internationally, locally. We used local delivery services when they were free because a lot of the time people were delivering emergency items, masks those were the most important People at the time. Everybody was very understanding. So delivery windows were much like people would understand if something was going to take longer because of the situation that was happening in the world. So we kept on going and the engagement online was amazing. I think the idea of just like such fun pieces, brightly colored pajamas and things like that that that really made people happy. It just gave us it's just, it was just something different. It made people excited and hopeful. I feel like it was. We were like, just like a breath of positivity at such a dark time. It was a horrible time for the world. It was a very horrible time and we always have to remember that.
Speaker 1:So were there any lessons you learned during that period?
Speaker 2:Yes, lots of lessons. One of the main lessons I learned was you have to be ready for anything at any time. You might have this perfect plan, but you have to be ready to tweak that plan, adjust the plan. Anything can happen. You have to always be on your toes, ready to change direction, Otherwise you may not survive, and how have you navigated funding over the last five years for your business? So I own my business. I don't have any external financing. We have grown.
Speaker 1:We've grown pretty much organically and do you have any plans or thoughts around raising at?
Speaker 2:the right opportunity with the right partner. For sure, definitely, I've always remained very open-minded to these things, but it has has to be the right, it has to feel right.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of manufacturing, I know you said your factory stayed open throughout COVID and it's grown over the years. How have you navigated, maintaining the quality of your clothing line?
Speaker 2:We're very very much on top of it, like it's something, like it's part of our life. Everything is checked by five people before it goes out, stitches or it's very. We are very much on top of everything and I'm so used to a certain standard of of garments because of my, my, my experience within the industry, so I know exactly what you know we're looking for and we. It's a constant. It's a constant, constantly learning's a constant, constantly learning, constantly evolving.
Speaker 1:What does your staff strength look like today compared to when you launched in November 2019?
Speaker 2:Even when, I launched the store. When I first opened my store it was just, I'm just opening this space, I don't know what's going to be in it. I had some of my stock I brought back from the UK and it was very much like it was me. It was just me. And then eventually I found an assistant who helped me at the Speck of Stales assistant. And then when I was opening my workshop at the time, then I found someone who could work with me, you know, who could, like help me manage everyone, tailors and everything. So it was just like at the time in November. That time when I launched it was five of us and then, yeah, five of us, and we had two tailors me, me sales assistant, and then my like the manager there, and now we have maybe 45 people. Wow, bank care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible. Thank you, and you do.
Speaker 2:I assume that you do a lot of internal training a lot of internal training, whether it's from the managerial side or from the manufacturing side. We're constantly learning, and that's one thing I'm always very open about. I'm very open to even me myself learning. We're constantly learning and doing things, and learning on the job as well, which sometimes is not the easiest thing to do. There's time, but we're constantly evolving as a team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm very fascinated by your fabric designs. I've followed your brand since I think I first came across your brand in collections and I just wonder where do you draw inspiration from and what does your creative process look like?
Speaker 2:So for me, I've always been, as I said at the beginning when we first started having this conversation I'm an animal lover, I'm a nature lover generally, which is still very much present in my work. So most of my prints are inspired by animals or nature. Okay, and so I try to tell. No, I try I tell nature stories or heritage stories from Nigeria, and I always like to tell something that's so unexpected because people don't expect to see. When you say so oh, this is, this is inspired by Nigeria, like this vast, this print that has this vast cluster of trees and hummingbirds fluttering around, you're like how when is this in Nigeria? I'm like this does exist in Nigeria.
Speaker 2:Not everything in Nigeria is concrete. There's so many different pots of gold in Nigeria that, like the wildlife, there's so much and I feel like that's even educating people and people start to see Nigeria in a different way. So my focus was really to tell more positive stories, because I, especially at the time where you know, when you think about when people would talk about Nigeria, it would be in the most positive light. So I really wanted to really push a more positive narrative.
Speaker 1:So what's your design process? Like, Like, for example. Talk us through.
Speaker 2:Oceans. Oceans was really inspired by the marine life, what the marine life used to look like in the past. It was really rich and it's like where we want it to be in the future. And how do we get there? It's about being more sustainable, choosing more sustainable options, reducing our use of plastics, slow fashion as opposed to fast fashion so many different things that we can do to help save our oceans. So that's basically what Oceans is about, and you can see the prints they have, like the seaweed, the fish, the bubbles and the colors and the richness, and the prints are all they have, like the seaweed, the fish, bubbles and the colors and the richness and the vibrance and so, yeah, that that was what oceans is about. So I'm excited to share my next collection. I'm really excited about that. I won't give too much away we stay expectant.
Speaker 1:So, talking about your clientele, what? How would you describe a Banker Cuckoo?
Speaker 2:client. When I started it was so easy for me to tell you who a Banker Cuckoo customer is, but now it's very hard. I have such a range of. She appreciates quality and beauty. She's someone who is. She's inspired by the stories I tell with my fabrics. She's inquisitive about herself. She loves herself in the sense that she's because my pieces are also. They're easy to wear, you can wear it and you can feel so confident. She's a confident lady. She doesn't mind wearing colors and that kind of thing. So I would say I have customers who aspire to buy my pieces and then they buy them and it now becomes so. I wouldn't say I can't say, oh, the Bank of Cuckoo customer is between, is 45 years old and she does this. There's so many different women. It's hard, it's become harder, but I definitely see how my clientele has grown. I can see a shift in some parts, but, yeah, in terms of reach.
Speaker 1:I know that the store is based in Lagos and you're selling online In tracking what your clientele looks like globally and maybe across Africa. What kind of demographics are you seeing?
Speaker 2:We have obviously have lots of customers in Nigeria. We have we lots of customers in Nigeria. We have. We also stock our products, our pieces in in Abidjan, in Ghana, in South Africa, and it's been really it's been successful. So that's Africa. And then, coming out of Africa, we have customers in Qatar, we have customers in America, the UK. We have customers where else In Europe. So it's a growing community.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Congratulations on that, bankia, thank you. So I want to talk about partnerships and collaboration. I note that you've had some very interesting and exciting partnerships and collaborations over the years, and kudos to you. The one that I noted was the Gabrielle Union, one which I thought was really exciting, and Moesha and Dawn I saw that one too. So how do you decide on who to collaborate with and how do you ensure that it aligns with your brand values?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's really important. How do you ensure that it aligns with your brand values? Oh, that's really important. Any collaboration I do, whoever I collaborate with, their values have to be. Our values have to be like the same. We wouldn't do something that would completely conflict with our values just because the name is huge. Or it's really important to keep consistency. How do we choose the people? We definitely approach people to collaborate and people also approach us. Going based on values is definitely one thing. Aesthetic is another thing. How can we? What do we both bring to the table? That's another. That's really also important. And do they serve a different market than me? That's always a great one, because I'm always looking to make, to expand my, my footprint, do they? Yeah, so if the person exposes me to a different market, that's amazing. Yes, those are a few of the things that we consider when it comes to Talk to us about the Gabriel.
Speaker 1:Union one, because that was so exciting to see, oh, it was an amazing collaboration.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed it. So it was for her 50th birthday and she actually has some Nigerian blood, so she's Fulani from what I remember yes, she does, and so she wanted to celebrate her birth, her birthday, also embracing her African heritage. So they had reached out to me and was, and they were like they really want to do this collaboration. I was like really want to do this collaboration. I was like really Wow, this is amazing. And they spoke about, they told me about the whole thing and it was like perfect, celebrating African heritage all over that Gabrielle Union, she's an amazing. She's amazing at what she does and she's a lovely lady.
Speaker 1:It was a fantastic collaboration and we definitely saw the results as well, so I know that you do some social impact work. You have a foundation or a nonprofit called Prints for Purpose, yes, so can you tell us like the inspiration behind Prints for Purpose?
Speaker 2:Having an impact on my community is really important to me and it's definitely taking me a while to navigate it and to see where I fit in or how I can help or those kind of things. My prints have purpose. They have a story. It's more than just fashion. It's impact driven, it's storytelling, it's educational. There's so much more to it than just a lovely dress. Of course, the lovely dress is amazing as well, and it is my focus. I think it's really important to understand that there's more to the cuckoo than fashion. So Prints for Purpose really is to create impact in our community. So we've worked with the Lekki Conservation Centre. We're working with some charities that clean up the ocean, like the beach in Nigeria. We are doing some other initiatives which are coming up, which you'll find out about soon, working with women. There's so many things that you know we are working on. It's definitely something that's growing.
Speaker 1:I want to do, I want to constantly be doing more looking back over over the last five years, I think you've accomplished some very incredible things, from launching during COVID to sustaining the business and growing it and growing your clientele globally. Were there any significant challenges that you faced?
Speaker 2:in this growth Just having a business on its own huge thing. And there's and I know sometimes when I tell my story I make it sound like, oh, we just did this and did this and it was all it was.
Speaker 2:You know I've had to sacrifice a lot right to be where I am today. I've had to sacrifice a lot. Sometimes you're just wanting to hang out with your friends, but you have to do the commitments you have to make and it takes a lot out of your life being an entrepreneur. So that in itself is something quite huge. Yeah, of course, navigating business within Nigeria I haven't. I had never really worked in Nigeria, true, before, so just even understanding what business was like here and how, what it is to employ staff in Nigeria and the different personalities.
Speaker 2:Navigating a business, having a team that you can trust and depend on, especially when you're doing all the mental arithmetic, sometimes you cannot, you can't do. There's some things that you just don't have the capacity to do. Cannot you can't do? There's some things that you just don't have the capacity to do. You have to have a really solid team that can, you can rely on, and even pulling that team together is.
Speaker 2:It's hard and sometimes you will have heartbreaks, whether you feel betrayed by someone or someone gets things wrong and it costs you a lot of money. That, especially at the beginning, when things are so tight and not to say things are always tight. As you have more, you have more things to consider in terms of your financials. So doing that is it's. Building. The team is not easy. Being consistent, constantly having a vision, being fresh with everything that you're trying to navigate as well, that's a huge challenge and that's something that keeps me up at night.
Speaker 2:How do I continue to innovate? Yeah, as doing the everyday business, which is so draining, whether you're in Nigeria, whether you're in London, whether you wherever you are. It's hard. Things are easier. Now my team is bigger, but you still have to. You still have to make sure things are going in the direction that you want them to be. So your responsibility is. Fine, I might not be looking at, I might not be focused on the nitty-gritty anymore, but there are other things. Yeah, my mind has taken over. So it's a real challenge. You will make many mistakes. It will cost you. So those are the things you just have to be able to like maybe not my advice on someone who's starting business just if you just do one thing, one thing at a time. So if one thing goes wrong, then you know you can go back and fix that, but if you're doing like 100 things and like 50 of them go wrong. That's really hard to come out of.
Speaker 1:Thank, you so much bank in. In wrapping up, I always ask my guests to two things to reflect and to give advice. You've already started to give some advice. The reflecting is an opportunity for you to just pat yourself on the back in all that you've done, not just in the last five years, in the last 15 years. Are there any proud moments that you can reflect on and say, hey, I'm really proud of this particular thing or these particular things?
Speaker 2:I'm really proud that I made it happen. To be honest, yay, I'm really proud, I'm really proud. Sometimes I look back and I just remember like literally starting out and doing so much myself, yeah, giving so much of my own physical strength and everything to it. And when I look back and see the journey, I'm just proud of just the journey.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm proud of you too, banker, thank you. So if you could give one piece of advice to other women who are building businesses in Africa, what advice would that be? Could I?
Speaker 2:give two Sure Okay. So one is be patient. Good work takes time. I know we live in this instant world, but really things take time. And then I would say be consistent.
Speaker 1:That's good, that's good. Just wondering what's next for you and for the Banke Kuku brand.
Speaker 2:For me and the brand. I will continue to tell more incredible nature stories from Nigeria to the rest of the world. We'll continue to make impact on the communities around us and we will continue to expand within Africa, within the rest of the world and just really make Bankia Kuku a household name.
Speaker 1:Wish you all the best with that, bankia. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening. If you're not already subscribed, please do so on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review so we know how we're doing. I'm Akego Okoye, and you have been listening to African Business Stories.