WELA SCALE
WELA Scale is a nine-month (9), advanced executive programme designed for high-growth African women CEOs who are ready to transition from running businesses to building enduring institutions. Developed as the next programme after the foundational WELA offering, it responds to the distinct challenges women founders face at the scale stage: strengthening governance, structuring for international expansion, building leadership layers, and creating investable modules.
The programme intends to draw on the immersion-based pedagogical philosophy lead by Ruka Sanusi - learning through proximity, curated access, lived observation, and executive intimacy.
Structured around six (6) thematic modules (each with two sessions per month), the WELA Scale combines Executive Proximity sessions with industry leaders and Governance & Systems Labs applied to participants' own businesses. It culminates in a Business Odyssey immersion capstone and a 5-year Blueprint for Transformation. The cohort of 20 participants will also be supported by a community (village) ecosystem of peer support, coaching, and technical assistance, addressing not only business growth but also the non-business dimensions of leading at scale: health, family, and personal resilience.
WHY WELA SCALE, AND WHY NOW
As WELA has matured, it has created a pipeline of women founders and CEOs who have moved beyond early-stage entrepreneurship and are now entering the scale stage. At this stage, the founder's challenges change: success is no longer driven primarily by hustle and personal capability, but by the ability to build an institution through governance systems, leadership layers, operating discipline, investable structures, and execution rhythms that can grow beyond the founder.
In many African contexts, women-led businesses face additional constraints at scale, including limited access to growth capital, high operational volatility, and structural barriers to networks of influence. Even when businesses are performing, founders often struggle with questions such as:
- How do we evolve from founder-led execution to an institutional operating model?
- How do we build governance infrastructure that strengthens accountability, decision-making, and continuity?
- How do we professionalize operations, people's systems, and reporting without slowing down growth?
- How do we position the company for regional expansion, partnerships, and capital readiness?
WELA Scale responds to these realities by providing an advanced, structured pathway that sits naturally after WELA. It is designed to move women founders from "running a business" to "building an enduring institution", through executive intimacy, applied diagnostics, governance depth, field immersion, and structured peer accountability. The programme therefore strengthens CEIBS Africa's mission by ensuring that high-potential women-led enterprises not only start but scale sustainably, competitively, and with institutional resilience.
MEET THE CURATOR
Ruka Sanusi is a distinguished management consultant, executive coach, and thought leader with three decades of international consulting experience across Europe and 16 sub-Saharan African countries. She is recognised for her expertise in business strategy and operations, SME growth, women's economic empowerment, and climate-smart development and for bringing a rare blend of strategic insight and operational excellence to every assignment.
Until April 2025, Ruka was Executive Director of the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, where for over eight years she spearheaded pioneering work at the nexus of climate action, enterprise growth, and gender equality, stewarding and raising more than $200 million to support over 300 businesses across Ghana's 16 regions, and curating the celebrated Women Entrepreneurs Transformation Program. She is also the Founder of Alldens Lane, a boutique consulting and executive coaching firm that supports women-led enterprises across Africa. Earlier in her career, Ruka held senior leadership roles at PwC Ghana and Nigeria, where she built and led the Strategy & Operations Advisory Unit and launched the firm's Sustainability and Climate Change practice in Ghana. She played a significant and instrumental role in the establishment of PwC in Sierra Leone.
Passionate about ethical leadership and inclusive development, Ruka co-founded Decarbonomics Climate Advisors and the Decarbonomics Venture Accelerator in December 2025, through which she continues to advise corporations, entrepreneurs, and the government and public sector on building resilient and sustainable businesses, economies and futures.
An outstanding speaker, Ruka has delivered insights on business strategy, operations, and transformation, with a gender and climate action lens, at numerous international forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, COP, the World Bank Annual and Spring Meetings, Oxford Africa Business Forum, and the African Diaspora Investment Symposium. She also has an established record of success on Boards and Board relations.
Ruka's accolades includes:
- Ghana Most Respected CEO, 2021 (Business Incubation Category)
- Transformational Leader of the Year, 2023
- Most Outstanding Female in Environmental Impact and Leadership, 2024
STRATEGIC ASPIRATION
WELA Scale has the potential to become the premier scale-stage accelerator for women CEOs in Africa, a feeder platform into advanced CEIBS executive offerings, and a flagship Africa innovation within CEIBS executive education.
PROGRAMME POSITIONING
WELA Scale is not: a continuation of foundational entrepreneurship training, a motivational leadership retreat, or a technical management course.
WELA Scale is a curated scale laboratory for African women founders building institutional businesses. It integrates executive proximity to power, applied governance diagnostics, systems design workshops, immersive experiential learning, and peer advisory architecture. It combines intellectual rigor with curated access.
TARGET PARTICIPANT PROFILE & COHORT DESIGN
The WELA Scale woman is defined by ambition and aspiration.
PROGRAMME DESIGN & PEDAGOGY
Duration: 9 months
Format: 6 thematic modules, each comprising two sessions (one at the beginning of the month, one in the middle of the month)
Capstone: Blueprint for Transformation - a 5-year institutional scale plan
SESSION ARCHITECTURE (PER MODULE)
SESSION A - EXECUTIVE PROXIMITY (INSPIRATION + CONTENT)
A technical and inspirational session with a seasoned expert and/or business executive on the module theme, combined with one of the three immersion formats (An Evening With, A Day in the Life, or field-based exposure). Thematic areas feature a lead speaker with identified questioners - e.g., Catherine leading a session on corporate governance. Facilitators with strong content delivered from a woman's angle, including gender-mainstream topics.
Purpose: Expand ambition and normalize institutional thinking.
SESSION B - GOVERNANCE & SYSTEMS LAB
Technical, iterative, and applied to participants' own businesses. Produces tangible institutional outputs. General topics are explored, but exercises focus on specific business diagnostics. Some sessions will be open to team members; others will remain closed to the cohort.
Purpose: Build, test, and refine the institutional architecture of each participant's business.
The programme runs for over 9 months with 6 modules. Each month hosts two sessions (beginning and mid-month). The Business Odyssey in Module 6 may extend the timeline depending on travel logistics.
INTENDED OUTCOMES
Participants will:
- Institutionalise governance infrastructure
- Reduce founder dependency
- Design scalable operating systems
- Strengthen investor readiness
- Clarify expansion strategy
- Enhance executive authority
Long-Term Impact:
- Stronger women-led institutions
- Increased access to capital
- Improved corporate governance standards
- Greater regional expansion by African women-led firms
ADMISSIONS
Complete the online Application Form.
Thereafter, the following would happen:
- Submit your academic or professional qualifications, CV or profile and passport or portrait-sized photo to africaprogramme@ceibs.edu
- Interview: After receiving the Application Form, we will contact you as soon as possible for an interview
- After a successful interview, CEIBS Africa Admissions Office will send you a Letter of Acceptance and a Payment Notice
- Enrollment will be confirmed after payment
Postponement: CEIBS Africa reserves the right to postpone the start date of the program if recruitment does not meet a minimum number.
Locate Us:
China Europe International Business School
Accra Campus
5 Monrovia Road, East Legon, Accra, Ghana
Telephone:
Ghana: +233 54 431 5238 / +233 54 434 1031
China Europe International Business School
Nigeria Country Office
No.2 Louis Solomon Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
Telephone:
Nigeria: +234 810 917 1190 / +234 706 810 5054
Email: africaprogramme@ceibs.edu
Web: www.ceibs.edu/africa
