The Johannesburg BWA Mentoring Committee initiates and co-ordinates mentoring projects aimed at developing the potential of professional and businesswomen in South Africa and raises the skill of women to mentor and be mentored. We realise how vital it is for working women today to be empowered, guided and encouraged to grow and develop both professionally and personally. The BWA Mentoring Committee has a number of beneficial projects that strive towards meeting this objective.
The JHB BWA's current mentoring projects are:
- Quick Connections – suitably matches female mentors and mentees to appropriately facilitate one-on-one mentoring between experienced businesswomen who impart their business expertise and women in business who aspire to develop themselves professionally and progress their careers.
- Succeed Campaign – provides business management support to start-up businesses via a structured process and a panel of advisors to assist new businesses succeed beyond their first year of business.
- RYCI - Restart your Career Initiative – aimed at women who have taken time off for family or other personal reasons and need to get their career path back on track
- Mentorship Matching – an initiative to match potential mentees directly with volunteer mentors.
For more information on these projects, read below.
QUICK CONNECTIONS
The Johannesburg BWA Mentoring Programme (Quick Connections) is aimed at helping women who want to develop and grow their personal and professional capacity, by facilitating the process of matching mentees with experienced business women (mentors) and helping them to start up their mentoring relationship.
The Quick Connections is in its fourth year of operation and has matched over 90 mentoring pairs.
It is compulsory to be a member of the BWA to join the programme.
Mentor Questionnaire
Mentee Questionnaire
Also, if you wish to participate in the programme as a Mentor or a Mentee, you need to make the following dates available:
- TBA dates, venues and times for the Quick Connections Contracting Session where mentors and mentees will formally meet for the first time to discuss and contract on their relationship and objectives.
After the Contracting Session, it is up to the Mentor and Mentee to make best use of their relationship. The BWA's role is to provide the opportunity for mentees and mentors to be connected, to facilitate the nomination and matching process, to ensure role players understand what is involved, and to follow-up on the overall programme effectiveness.
If you need further details regarding the Quick Connections Programme you can contact:
Palesa Motanyane
Phone: 082 836 3505
Fax: 086 535 6340
Email: Palesa@sunshineblossom.co.za
For more details how to become a member of the BWA, you can contact:
Lynne Morris
Phone: 011 566 2153
Email: gauteng@bwasa.co.za
SUCCEED CAMPAIGN
The Deloitte Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) in association with The Businesswomen’s Association (BWA) and Business Partners are working together on The Succeed Programme. The Succeed Campaign is a programme whereby multidisciplinary business advisory teams comprising both men and women mentor female entrepreneurs.
The ambition of the Succeed programme is to increase the percentage of women-owned young companies that remain in business. Statistics show that 50% of all new companies registered fail within the first two years. Many interventions for young companies focus on how to raise finance, rather than providing skills and advice to ensure the business succeeds.
The programme will target entrepreneurial women in the ‘start-up’ arena where the women are the controlling shareholder in a young company fulfilling any one of the following criteria:
- turnover of less than R5m or
- employ fewer than 10 people or
- in business for less than 5 years
Minimum requirements to participate are:
- the entrepreneur is engaged full-time in the business
- the business has been in operation for at least 6 months
- there is at least one paying customer
For entrepreneurs taking part, we will facilitate the assembly of a 12-month advisory team consisting of Deloitte managers, BWA advisors and a mentor from Business Partners that offers:
- an initial health check of the business
- quarterly access to competencies for the business that the entrepreneur may not already have
- operational decision-making support for addressing business problems and challenges
- a mini-scorecard to track business success (financial, internal, people & learning measures)
We will know we have succeeded when:
- the business performance of the young companies we advise improves within one year
- at least two out of three young companies we assist are still in business after two years
The illustration below depicts the different roles played by participants in the Succeed programme and the criteria applied for participation. The metaphors used in the picture are:
- the team leaders are busy bees
- the advisory team members are star volunteers
- the young company is a growing flower
- and Deloitte, BWA and Business Partners provide the building blocks for success
Entrepreneurs pay a commitment fee of R4,500 which will be re-imbursed on successful completion of all 4 quarterly meetings for the programme.
This table lists all meetings, who should attend, who will organise the meeting, relevant document templates that must be completed before the meeting and who is responsible to complete documents.
The following picture uses the metaphors introduced above to show how the Succeed Campaign will operate and what the role-players do at each stage. You will notice that entrepreneurs who benefit from the project for one year are expected to act as advisory team leaders for another entrepreneur in the following year. In this way, we hope to make the project self-sustaining once critical mass is reached.
Advisor Application
Entrepreneur Application
Succeed Campaign Alumni
| Year | Entrepreneur | Company |
| 2004 | Jenny Rose-Meckler | Weekends Away |
| 2004 | Michelle Jacobs | Action Innovation |
| 2005 | Peta Horn Virago | Consulting cc |
| 2005 | Rachel Rusznyak | Out of the Box |
| 2005 | Nerina Cooper | Event & PR Solutions |
| 2006 | Mari Lee | Development Communication Solutions |
| 2006 | Michelle van Diggelen | CSI Solutions (Pty) Ltd |
| 2007 | Surine Barnes | Dr S Barnes Dental Practice |
| 2007 | Debbie Gantile | Steers Metropolitan |
| 2007 | Nondumiso Gazi | Selgo Pharmacy |
| 2007 | Ronel Greyling | Elro Office Furniture & Projects |
| 2007 | Sonto Gumbi | Black Child Promotions |
| 2007 | Jennifer Hannibal | Elegant Line Trading |
| 2007 | Nicolene Jansen van Vuuren | Blockbusters Epsom Downs |
| 2007 | Toniah Khumalo | Tongani Stationary Suppliers |
| 2007 | Endri Kretsenger | Funki Gas |
| 2007 | Peggy Mahlaba | Imbokotho Engineering |
| 2007 | M L Masemola | Kgelele Construction Services |
| 2007 | Donné Mitchell | Gecko Communications |
| 2007 | Lindeni (Lydia) Sekhokoane | Ebodweni Traders |
| 2007 | Rose N Sibisi | Vuros Interiors |
| 2007 | Ayanda Tetyana | Ayapumy Stained glass work |
| 2007 | Nike Van Niekerk | Liberty Lane |
| 2007 | Antoinette Prophy | Afrofusion Communications |
| 2007 | Matsotso Vuso | Nyamezela Business Advisory Services |
| 2007 | Nhlanhlazonke Ngwenya | Ma-Ndu Construction & Projects |
| 2007 | Marion Collet | Pexco Security Trainers |
| 2007 | Sonja De Beer | Sonja's Foods |
| 2008 | Tracy Swatts Whitfield | Creative Play Factory |
| 2008 | Keketso May | Hlasima Entrepreneur Education cc |
| 2008 | Hannelie Hoole | Exec Seats and Upholsterers |
| 2008 | Denice Faul | SureSlim |
| 2008 | Ivy Selepe | ISelepe Consulting CC |
| 2008 | Babalwa Atalanta Fatyi | Myezo Environmental Management Services cc |
| 2008 | Cecile Duvenhage | Ruta Skills cc |
| 2008 | Prudence Ndlovu | EPOD (Pty) Limited |
| 2008 | Stefane Bezuidenhout | Synergy Dynamics Business Development Institute |
| 2008 | Nonie Mokose | Nonie Mokose Trading |
| 2008 | Zerelde Uys | Kaleidoscope Consultants |
| 2008 | Ndileka Ramaifo | NR Occupational Theraphy Practice |
| 2008 | Estelle Muller | Jell-O Communications cc |
| 2008 | Marina Botha | Pangisa Placements |
| 2008 | Thandi Maqubela | South African Women in Health Buisness (SAWIB) |
| 2008 | Francesca Danster | Effective Interactions |
| 2008 | Suzette Stewart and Luyanda Sondiyazi | SP Wealth Management Pty Ltd |
| 2008 | Isobel McAleenan | Publishing Dynamix |
| 2008 | Sharon Mahale and Hester vd Merwe | Core Personnel |
Quotes from Entrepreneurs
“After my first year of the Succeed Campaign I was hooked. I had to pay it forward.” Peta Horn
“The Succeed Campaign changed my thinking about myself as the leader of the company. I changed my title to CEO from consultant. This in turn changed how people treated me in the business – a business is something you build to sell.” Mari Lee
“I really enjoyed being on the programme and I think it has a lot of value to add to small business owners like myself. It is difficult to quantify exactly how it helped my business probably as I was quite unclear as to what help I needed. The main benefit for me was bouncing ideas off them and them being able to reassure me with decisions I made.” Michelle van Diggelen
Impact on Entrepreneurs
Mari Lee tripled her turnover. Her business won 2 Quill Awards for measured impact made for client from International Association of Business Communicators – branding and internal communication categories – one was for Child Welfare Tschwane raised staff morale and performance by 39%; funds also increased through non-traditional funding methods. She has been approached since the awards by large fund donors. Her team has grown from 3 to 8 since mentoring process.
Michelle van Diggelen’s business CSI raised R540 000 towards the development of the CSI Toolkit publication. CSI Solutions partnered with the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) in London to be the only facilitator in SA to role out the model and has partnered with a BEE company to role out the CSI Toolkit in an electronic format.
PROFILES
Jenny Rose Meckler & Michelle Jacobs
The BWA Succeed Campaign project was initiated by the Johannesburg Mentoring Committee in 2004. The project has been successful in helping women-owned start up businesses succeed within their first three years of business. The Succeed Campaign has this year been instrumental in helping two women entrepreneurs succeed in developing their SMME businesses.
They are Weekends Away, owned by Jenny Rose-Meckler and Act!on Innovation, owned by Michelle Jacobs. The Succeed Campaign?s primary objective is to increase the number of women-owned businesses succeed and become profitable. Specific criteria are used to select candidates that participate, namely:
A woman must be the major shareholder of the business, and one of the following must apply: the business is less than 5 years old, or employs fewer than 10 people, or has a turnover of less than R5m
Weekends Away and Act!on Innovation were selected because both Jenny and Michelle had at least three years experience in their own businesses, held management positions in their enterprises, and had a small staff. They also had a sufficient level of competency and skills that would enable them to work with a group of advisors selected onto a panel to help each entrepreneur develop their businesses in key areas.
The aim in profiling these two SMME businesses is to illustrate how both the women entrepreneurs themselves, as well as their businesses, have grown and developed to attain a level of personal achievement and sustainability in what they do. The process also highlights how the BWA has been significant in realizing this process.
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
The members of the mentoring committee are:
Nici Columbine
084 880 8138
info@columbine.co.za
Caryn Conidaris
082 602 2069
CarynC@hrpractice.co.za
Sandy Pullinger
083 326 6763
sandy@nfold.com
Jenny Browning
082 565 7171
jennie@trideco.co.za
Jenny Rose-Meckler
082 889 2806
jenny@weekends-away.com
Kim Kampel
084 587 7341
kimkampel@yahoo.co.uk
Michael Pryke
083 225 0425
Michael@eqimpact.co.za
Shiphra Tiya
083 263 8387
Mkt-investments@webmail.co.za
Natasha Parmanand
082 909 5005
NParmanand@investec.co.za
Liezel Blignaut
083 308 3110
liezelb@hcbsolutions.com
Linda Daymond
083 307 0481
Linda.daymond@standardbank.co.za
June Hilton
June.Hilton@absa.co.za
Teryl Schroenn (Chair)
Accsys (Pty) Ltd
083 651 1772
tschroenn@accsys.co.za
Leigh Lloyd
NuClicks
leighl@iburst.co.za
Colleen Larson
Women in Finance
colleen@womeninfinance.co.za
The BWA Mentoring Committee is seeking new members! We are looking for dynamic and enthusiastic women who would like to actively participate in our committee and become involved in our projects. You will be required to contribute about 10 hours a month, your energy and creativity.
If you fit this description and want to make a positive contribution to the growth of women in South Africa, please email Teryl Schroenn on tschroenn@accsys.co.za or contact 011 719 8000