Union Bank Plc and Connect Nigeria have held an awards ceremony to celebrate the Top 100 Emerging SMEs in Nigeria.
The Awards Ceremony, an initiative of Connect Nigeria and sponsored by Union Bank in Lagos recently, had nominees, award recipients, representatives from the award partners, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) all in attendance.
The award was put together to challenge, encourage and recognize Nigerian SME Businesses. The campaign was officially kicked off in February 2018 with a call for nominations.
The bank recognized the 100 emerging businesses as part of the bank’s yearlong celebration of 100 years of operation from a record total of 13,470 nominations in 25 broad categories.
Mrs Ogochukwu Ekeide, head, Corporate Communications and Marketing of the bank, commended the recipients for their hard work and dedication expressing Union Bank’s willingness to partner with, support and reward SMEs.
She also encouraged them to keep up the good work and expressed the desire to see them become fortune 500 companies in the future.
Uzo Anekwe, head, Business Development, Connect Nigeria, on behalf of Emeka Okafor, MD, extolled the participants noting that they were all winners.
He said the benefits include that the 100 winners will be published in featured articles via the Connect Nigeria online platform, to boost their visibility, and online presence.
100 free tables will be given to all the winners of this year’s event, to showcase and exhibit their products and services at Africa’s largest SME event in April 2019. The recipients expressed their satisfaction with the outcome of the event and described their joy at being honoured for their modest contribution to the growth of the economy.