Lisa Folawiyo Bola Balogun Steph Busari - Deola Art Alade host Women and Driving Culture event

#jaiyeorie 

When Deola Art Alade convened the Women Driving Culture luncheon in Lagos, the gathering didn’t feel like a checklist of names on a stage — it felt like a quiet claim on a future we’ve only just begun to articulate. 

At Mr Panther, an intimate group of women at the helm of film, fashion, media, policy and storytelling — from Lisa Idowu Folawiyo’s fashion vision to Stephanie Busari’s journalistic reach, from Bola Balogun’s PR ingenuity to Ruth Kadiri YouTube dominance ,creative voices like Nancy Isime, iconic Sasha P and Funmbi Ogunbanwo — sat together not to celebrate what they’ve done, but to ask what they can build next. 

The conversation was not about visibility alone, but about access to capital, authorship of narrative, and shaping the systems that determine who gets to tell our stories. In that space, culture was not a backdrop; it was the very thing being driven — by women who see influence as something you make, not just inherit. 

Perhaps the deeper question beneath the clinking glasses and spirited exchange is this: what happens when the people shaping the stories of tomorrow decide, today, that they will define the terms of impact and not wait for permission on Creativity or Expression? 

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