To celebrate International Women’s Day throughout the month of March, Invest Africa has been hosting a podcast series #WinningWomenInAfrica to promote inspirational African female industry leaders. #WinningWomeninAfrica will feature a weekly podcast, where our selected female industry leaders will reveal their path to establishing success, the challenges they encountered, and how women’s empowerment in Africa can be enhanced. Africa and the Middle East are the leading regions for the proportion of female CEOs, with Africa having the highest proportion of female board members globally at nearly 15%. Africa ranks second for the share of women-founded companies. Although global prosperity is more evenly distributed now than at any other point in history, there remains a staggering imbalance between men and women in the financial sector. According to the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, women-owned businesses face an estimated $1.7 trillion shortfall in access to finance. Dr Ngozi Erondu is a trained infectious disease epidemiologist with 15 years of experience working to improve health systems and global health governance. Her policy expertise includes strengthening regional leadership in pandemic preparedness and health security governance reform.