Leading with style: Fatima Babakura’s entrepreneurial journey
June 12, 2025 ·
Contributed by: McMaster University
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… I realized later on, that was literally the spirit of being a McMaster student and a Marauder – people excited to help you, people excited to be part of your success story.
Fatima Babakura didn’t think it was real at first. The recent DeGroote School of Business graduate – who received the McMaster Alumni Association’s 2025 Arch Award – was working hard to lead her fashion company Timabee through the pandemic when she got an unexpected and transformative break: Beyoncé had included Timabee on her 2021 list of Black-owned businesses. “I woke up one morning and it was on their website,” Fatima recalled. “Honestly, that changed what the COVID year looked like for my brand. It brought the visibility we needed at the time.”
Now a successful and growing international fashion brand, Timabee started at McMaster. From her first moments on the Mac campus, Fatima knew she was in the right place. “The first day I got dropped off by my mom. I was going into Brandon Hall,” she said. “I cried because I was overwhelmed with the cheers that were happening. All the different groups were welcoming students into the school. … I realized later on, that was literally the spirit of being a McMaster student and a Marauder – people excited to help you, people excited to be part of your success story. It was just McMaster’s way of saying, ‘We’re with you and you’re welcome here.’”
Fatima brought a keen interest in fashion with her to the Mac campus. “I had always had a passion for sketching fashion items,” she said and she continued with that passion while she lived in residence.
“My first business started at McMaster in Brandon Hall, eleventh floor. … My friends joke that’s the floor where entrepreneurs are built.”
With her sketch collection growing, and looking for a distraction during exam time, Fatima turned to the internet. “I was randomly scrolling through Google instead of studying for my statistics mid-term,” she recalled. “I came across Alibaba and the curiosity in me just sparked. I would love to see one of my designs in person.” Fatima placed orders and her designs began to arrive. “My friends from McMaster would always see my samples first.”
At the same time, as a Commerce student, Fatima was developing her business acumen, particularly through case studies and her entrepreneurship class.
“That was where I started to lay the foundation of what I do,” she said. “Everything is what it is because of the foundation I got from McMaster. I was able to present what is now my business as a case study in class. … I knew from then it was something I wanted to pursue.”
With the encouragement of her professor, she launched and began building Timabee, with their design and operations team in Fatima’s home country of Nigeria. Not long after Timabee hit its stride, Fatima also developed the fragrance company Yerwa Secrets – the name translates as “Secrets from Home” – to give women in Nigeria opportunities for home-based entrepreneurship that they can balance with family responsibilities.
That interest in community, and specifically in empowering women, has become a focus of Fatima’s business and her community efforts. She founded TGRAfrica (Timabee Global Resources Africa) to support women entrepreneurs.
“When I started to build my business and started to get some success … I almost felt this pressure that I needed to do something in educating the younger girls, the ones who look like me, to understand that it’s OK to be all these things, to build a successful business publicly without losing your values,” she said.
In recognition of her achievements in business and in advocacy, Fatima was named one of Forbes Africa’s Top 30 Under 30, an honour typically dominated by men from the southern part of the continent. She was also featured on the cover of the magazine where she was the first person ever to appear wearing a hijab. Fatima has also been named one of Nigeria’s top 100 most inspirational women and, in 2017, a WEF Iconic Woman. She was nominated for the MAX Group Canada Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2019.
On June 5, 2025, the McMaster Alumni Association added to that list of honours when it presented Fatima Babakura with the 2025 Arch Award which recognizes recent McMaster graduates for their contributions to society, their communities and the University.
