Temituokpe Esisi is a woman who oversees Tuopsy’s Enterprises, a fashion design business in Lagos, Nigeria. “I ran this business for three years solely on passion and creativity, but I didn’t make any money. I was ready to throw the towel in.” Then she became a Goldman Sachs scholar on its 10,000 Women initiative. Now she aims to expand her business, which employs six people, into a retail chain exporting products abroad.

The Goldman Sachs initiative aims to provide business and management training to 10,000 women in developing countries over the next five years. Ms Esisi was one of the first women to benefit from the initiative, which was launched in March this year. Yesterday the bank announced 12 new partnerships to provide business and management education to women in Brazil, China, India and the Philippines.

The partnerships between European and American business schools with nonprofit organisations and business schools in developing countries will provide business skills and management training for entrepreneurs.

Typical of the partnerships announced is Saïd Business School, at the University of Oxford, and Zhejiany University, in China, which together will provide a 160-hour entrepreneurship certificate programme for female entrepreneurs.

Oxford will also help to train staff from Shejiang University and alumni from both schools will act as mentors for students. Other British schools that have signed up for the initiative are; London Business School, which will partner the National Entrepreneurship Network in India; and Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, which will partner Camfed International in Zambia.

Goldman Sachs, apart from providing $100 million (£56 million) to the initiative, encourages its staff to volunteer as online mentors for the women to help them on the courses.

Michelle Pinggera, the chief operating officer for the Securities division of Goldman Sachs in Europe, says that being a mentor to Ms Esisi and fellow students has been “the most inspiring experience” of her career so far. She said that she had found the issues faced by the women to be similar to those faced by her own team at Goldman Sachs. “After a long day, I hop online and discuss issues to do with Okpe’s fashion business. It is so refreshing,” she said.

This is more than corporate do-gooding. Mary Ugbe, the owner of Learn in Nigeria, is one of the first graduates from the initiative at the Pan-African University in Lagos. “I have doubled my revenue since starting the programme, This course has taught me how to better manage money in a way that is more profitable. This allows us to grow our business, grow our countries and grow our nations.”

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