The JMMB Group Small and Medi­um-sized (SME) Re­source Cen­tre has an­nounced a six-month pro­gramme, PowHer­ful Women in Busi­ness, a rev­o­lu­tion­ary Small and Medi­um-sized En­ter­prise (SME) ini­tia­tive ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing and em­pow­er­ing women en­tre­pre­neurs op­er­at­ing in T&T and Ja­maica.

The pro­gramme aims to pro­vide a dy­nam­ic plat­form for women en­tre­pre­neurs to ex­cel. It is open to women who own busi­ness­es with earn­ings up to TT$10 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly who can ap­ply to be a part of the first co­hort and ben­e­fit from holis­tic busi­ness ad­vi­so­ry ser­vices, train­ing, spe­cial fi­nanc­ing terms and net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. Ap­pli­ca­tions close Au­gust 11.

The ap­pli­ca­tion process is sim­ple and ac­ces­si­ble. In­ter­est­ed in­di­vid­u­als can sub­mit their ap­pli­ca­tions on­line through the web­site or via email. SMEs will be short­list­ed by an as­sess­ment com­mit­tee and busi­ness­es will be se­lect­ed based on their growth po­ten­tial and the JMMB Group’s abil­i­ty to ad­e­quate­ly sup­port their needs dur­ing the pro­gramme.

Shani Dun­can-Fal­con­er, se­nior cor­po­rate man­ag­er, JMMB Group SME RC, ex­plained: “The PowHer­ful Women in Busi­ness ini­tia­tive is de­signed to cater to the per­son­al and busi­ness needs of fe­male en­tre­pre­neurs and ad­dress some of the unique chal­lenges that they face, cre­ate an en­abling en­vi­ron­ment, and a gen­der sen­si­tive fi­nan­cial frame­work that em­pow­ers women to ac­cess the sup­port and fi­nanc­ing need­ed to scale and grow their busi­ness­es.

“This pro­gramme will form and cul­ti­vate busi­ness net­works that they can be lever­aged by fe­male en­tre­pre­neurs to take their busi­ness­es to the next lev­el, ex­pand in new mar­kets and take ad­van­tage of op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

WSMEs who are short­list­ed for this ini­tia­tive will ben­e­fit from a needs as­sess­ment with an as­signed re­source cen­tre of­fi­cer to en­sure a thor­ough un­der­stand­ing of their busi­ness needs and pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions

The in­ten­sive pro­gramme will con­sist of coach­ing ses­sions, ac­count­abil­i­ty part­ners and work­shops on a range of top­ics in­clud­ing: mar­ket­ing, per­son­al brand­ing, net­work­ing, strate­gic and busi­ness plan­ning, ac­count­ing and fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, among oth­er key ar­eas to dri­ve busi­ness suc­cess, in ad­di­tion to men­tor­ship and sup­port to cre­ate and up­date busi­ness plans, mar­ket­ing plans and fi­nan­cial state­ments.

Par­tic­i­ti­pants will al­so have ac­cess to dis­count­ed ser­vices of­fered by a range of part­ners in the JMMB Group ecosys­tem. These busi­ness ad­vi­so­ry sup­port ser­vices are de­signed to bet­ter pre­pare WSMEs to scale their busi­ness and ac­cess fi­nanc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

As part of its com­mit­ment to nur­tur­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship, JMMB will of­fer se­lect­ed par­tic­i­pants a Mu­tu­al Fund ac­count from JMMB In­vest­ments val­ued at $1,000. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, they will en­joy a 50 per cent dis­count off loan ap­pli­ca­tion fees and ser­vices from JMMB Bank.

Strate­gic thrust to sup­port SMEs

Tri­cia Kissoon, CEO Of JMMB In­vest­ments Trinidad and To­ba­go, said: “We are ex­cit­ed to sup­port the PowHer­ful Women in Busi­ness pro­gramme as a tes­ta­ment to our com­mit­ment to em­pow­er women en­tre­pre­neurs in Trinidad and To­ba­go. By pro­vid­ing them with the nec­es­sary tools, knowl­edge, and re­sources, we aim to dri­ve eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ate last­ing pos­i­tive change in the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.”

This lat­est move is in keep­ing with the JMMB Group’s strat­e­gy to add val­ue to its SME clients through the pro­vi­sion of fi­nan­cial part­ner­ship, re­sources, in­no­v­a­tive fi­nan­cial so­lu­tions, and a net­work, through­out these busi­ness­es’ life cy­cles, there­by, pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary sup­port for growth, and fill­ing the gaps that cur­rent­ly ex­ist in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor.

Ap­pli­ca­tions for the PowHer­ful Women in Busi­ness pro­gramme can be sent via email to smere­source­cen­tre@jmmb.com or through the web­site at www.tt.jmmb.com. For fur­ther up­dates and in­for­ma­tion, fol­low their so­cial me­dia pages @JMMBTT on Face­book, In­sta­gram, and LinkedIn.