The Leading Woman Show
103 million
Views
4 seasons · 52 episodes · Broadcast on NTA, Channels TV, AIT, News Central, and R2TV · Streaming on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music
Founder, WILAN Global · Creator & Host, The Leading Woman Show
She couldn't find the system.
So she built one.
Now others are building through it.
I shift the norms and build the systems that make women's leadership inevitable in Africa.
The conversations shaping Africa's future will only be complete when women can shape decisions, not just occupy seats. Abosede George-Ogan has spent two decades - and the last eight years through WILAN - shifting the norms and building the systems that make that possible.
Abosede George-Ogan
Two Decades of Practice
Founder, WILAN Global
Harvard Kennedy School Alumna
Eisenhower Fellow
Upcoming
The Million Dollar Fundraising Masterclass
Saturday 29 August · Live online · 11AM-2PM WAT
Speaking
Abosede on stage.
Abosede George-Ogan speaks to the rooms where governance decisions are made - from the Reykjavik Global Forum to the Skoll World Forum at Oxford to the UN General Assembly. To enquire about booking, contact info@heardinafrica.com.
As seen in
BusinessDay NigeriaTHISDAYThe GuardianBellaNaijaChannels TVBusinessDay NigeriaTHISDAYThe GuardianBellaNaijaChannels TV
The WILAN Community
5,000+
Women leaders in the WILAN community
Building toward 100,000
The Evidence
4.5%
Nigeria's National Assembly seats held by women
Source: State of Women's Leadership Report 2025, commissioned by WILAN Global · Global average: 27.2%
Stay close
Stay inside the conversation on women's leadership in Africa.
Receive the State of Women's Leadership Report summary and updates from Abosede on governance, systems change, and the work of WILAN.
Shifting the norms. Building the systems. Making women's leadership inevitable.
Abosede George-Ogan's work sits at the intersection of policy reform, media narratives, institutional design and women's leadership development. She helps leaders, governments and institutions move beyond symbolic representation towards structures that create real outcomes.
Policy and strategy dialogue
“Representation is not charity. It is governance capacity.”
“I shift the norms and build the systems that make women's leadership inevitable in Africa.”
WILAN Global
Abosede George-Ogan shifts public norms and builds the institutions, research, media and technology that move women's leadership in Africa from aspiration to measurable reality.
About
She searched for the system. Then she built one.
Abosede George-Ogan is a governance and leadership practitioner with over two decades of experience across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. She is the Founder of the Women in Leadership Advancement Network (WILAN Global) and the WILAN Leadership Institute, where she is building a pipeline of women leaders and advancing gender-balanced leadership across Africa.
On the Global Stage
On stage
Royal Iwere Foundation graduation
UN Commission on the Status of Women, CSW70
UN Commission on the Status of Women, CSW70
Women in politics panel, CSW70
WILAN Global, WomenLift Health
The System
One system. Seven layers.
Abosede George-Ogan's work is not a collection of projects. It is a single integrated system in which each layer enables the next. Norms and narrative lead - because belief changes before behaviour does.
- 01
Norms and Narrative
Leads - belief change comes before behaviour change
- 05
Technology
- 07
Community
Speaking
Talks that move institutions.
Why Leadership Fails When the Systems Are Missing
The flagship talk. Every institution believes it supports leadership. Most do not understand what leadership actually requires to be sustained - the systems of belief, evidence, financing, policy, and infrastructure that make it possible for the right people to step forward, stay, and succeed. Abosede uses women's leadership as the case study - not because it is a women's issue, but because it is the clearest proof available that when systems are missing, talent is not enough.
You Cannot Become What You Cannot Imagine
The norm-shifting talk. Abosede could not see herself in political leadership as a child because the television showed her nothing. That was not an accident. It was a design. This talk argues that visibility is not personal promotion - it is public infrastructure. It is the argument behind The Leading Woman Show, the MsRepresented Campaign, and twenty years of deliberate, strategic public presence.
She Built the Road: Creating the Conditions for Women to Lead
She searched for guidance on how to run for office as a woman in Nigeria. She found almost nothing. Today she is not filling gaps - she is shaping what comes next. This talk takes that origin story and turns it into a framework: what every leader who walks through a door first owes the women who come after them is a door that stays open.
Presence Is Not Power: What It Actually Takes for Women to Lead
Getting into the room is not the achievement. Shaping decisions in the room is. Many institutions celebrate gender milestones without examining whether the women present can actually change an outcome. This talk dismantles the comfortable idea that representation is progress and replaces it with a harder question: if you asked the women in your organisation whether they feel able to change an outcome in their last three meetings, what would they say?
Systems Do Not Change Unless Enforced
Three questions. Does your organisation have a specific, measurable target for women's leadership? Is there a timeline with accountability attached? Is there a consequence if the target is not met? Organisations that answer yes to all three are doing governance. Those that cannot are doing communication. Built on the State of Women's Leadership Report 2025 and her experience chairing Nigeria's National Development Plan Gender Sub-committee.
Building Civic Technology That Changes Behaviour, Not Just Engagement
After eight years of delivering WILAN's work one room at a time, Abosede built the WILAN Suite - not because she wanted to build technology, but because she needed to change behaviour at a scale that hands-on programmes cannot reach. This talk is about what it means to design for behaviour change, not engagement metrics - and what the specific decisions look like when your user has historically been excluded from both technology and power.
Books
Published Work
Published
Building a Conscious Career
Abosede George-Ogan
Available on Amazon.
Forthcoming
Forthcoming title
Abosede George-Ogan
Details to follow.
Voices
What leaders say.
Confirmed reflections from organisers and hosts will appear here.
Credentials & Affiliations
Harvard Kennedy School Alumna
Edward S. Mason Fellow
Eisenhower Fellow
Vital Voices VV Engage Fellow
Founder, WILAN Global
Associate Fellow, Nigeria Leadership Initiative
Member, Global Governance Forum
Engagement
Formats for every stage.
Keynotes
High-impact addresses for global stages, policy summits, and institutional gatherings. Abosede speaks with the authority of someone who has built what she is talking about. Her keynotes move audiences from awareness to accountability - built around evidence, structured around argument, and closed with a question the room cannot stop asking after she leaves.
Ideal for: Conferences and summits of 200+ attendees, galas, annual convenings, international forums, opening and closing plenary sessions
Enquire →Policy Dialogues
Evidence-led conversations on governance reform, women's political inclusion, and institutional design. Abosede brings primary research from the State of Women's Leadership Report 2025 and a decade of cross-sector policy experience. These sessions are designed to produce a specific outcome: a room that leaves with a mechanism, not just a mindset.
Ideal for: Government and multilateral forums, legislative platforms, development finance convenings, think-tank roundtables, policy and governance summits
Enquire →
Executive Masterclasses
Structured 60 to 90-minute sessions equipping senior leaders with practical frameworks for gender-lens leadership, institutional accountability, and systems change. Each masterclass is built around a diagnostic tool that participants complete during the session and leave with as a working document. Not inspiration - application.
Ideal for: Executive leadership programmes, MBA and graduate education cohorts, corporate women's leadership development, leadership institutes, board effectiveness programmes
Enquire →
Fireside Conversations
Intimate, candid, unscripted dialogue. Abosede is at her most direct in this format - willing to go to the uncomfortable places that keynote audiences rarely hear. These conversations work best when the audience is small enough to ask questions and senior enough to act on the answers.
Ideal for: Board retreats and leadership dinners, curated executive salons, senior women's leadership retreats, high-level donor and investor convenings
Enquire →Contact
Request a booking.
Bring Abosede's voice to your next stage.
For keynotes, policy dialogues, executive masterclasses and fireside conversations, invite Abosede George-Ogan to help your audience move from awareness to action.