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Financial Mail - Cover Story
SA's Most Powerful Women in Business
When the FM announced its SA business power elite last year (Cover Story December 19 2003), there was only one woman on the list, Transnet CEO Maria Ramos. (See profiles of the top 20 most powerful businesswomen above.)
But a closer look reveals many more prominent women with increasing influence in SA business, finance and the parastatals - and the policy environment is set to encourage further gains.
Some are the daughters of prominent businessmen, others are married to politicians, but all have made a name as businesswomen in their own right. What's interesting is that most of this new power elite are black, and they have rocketed through the ranks in the past few years.
As with our initial power elite story, there was a mixture of objective and subjective criteria. Directorships, control of assets and executive positions are one guideline - but being respected for your opinion, or perceived as well connected, can also be an enormous source of influence. The point is that these women exert influence over the way business is done in SA. They have the ear of politicians, advise other powerful people and make the social A-list.
The process was simple but exhaustive. FM staffers were invited to nominate women in every field of business and the economy. The nominations were then pruned down to 20. Of course it can't be objectively proved that the person in ninth spot is more powerful than the one who is 17th - but the positions were allocated after extended assessment of real and perceived influence.
As one of the top 20 told the FM, "women tend to share their power more". Women are more prepared than men to empower others, and are more concerned to build real influence than how high they are on the corporate ladder. That doesn't mean they won't be ruthless when they need to be. In the end, power is as power does.
1. Wendy Luhabe
By Shareen Singh
Measured in terms of influence , not wealth, Luhabe is undoubtedly SA's most powerful businesswoman.
She was one of the first bck women to take up a senior board position, at BMW SA in the early 1990s. Her directorship portfolio has since increased in quantity and quality. Not least, she is chair of the Industrial Development Corp, which gives her a considerable say over a multibillion-rand investment portfolio. She also chairs Vodacom, the International Marketing Council and Alliance Capital, the company she formed in 1998, which now controls assets of more than R5bn. There are several other directorships too.
Though Luhabe is married to Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa, her popularity is of her own making and so is her access to the corridors of power.
As a founding member of Wiphold, the leading women's empowerment company, she set the trend in empowering women in business.
The launch last year of the R100m Women Private Equity Fund is yet another feather in her cap.
Critics would question her lack of operational business control. But her style has always been hands-off. One of her colleagues aptly describes her as a helicopter - whirring from above and going from one place to another. She comes up with ideas, uses her influence to get funding and lets others do much of the slog work.
In the business arena Luhabe talks the talk, using motivational language and an air of confidence. She has come a long way since she started Bridging the Gap, an HR and management consultancy.
2. Maria Ramos
By Shareen Singh
When Maria Ramos was appointed CE of Transnet, there was general consensus that she was the right person for the job. Government needed a strong leader to transform the R60bn group which has a pension deficit of R6bn and liabilities of R32bn.
Ramos's intimate knowledge of public-sector finances and her sterling performance as director-general of the national treasury put her in good stead to isolate Transnet's problems.
Barely six months into the job, Ramos is making her presence felt. Much of this is linked to her formidable personal authority: she is taking on long-established traditions and entrenched executives and coming out on top. It helps that she has backing from the highest government level.
Transnet's clients - some of SA's biggest industries, the exporters of billions of dollars of goods every year - have enormous respect for her. Even the unions are backing her. But Ramos's biggest challenge is to win over Transnet's senior and executive management. There is strong resistance to her authority and management style, especially from those whose comfort zones are being rattled. Tensions between her and non executive chairman Bongani Khumalo are widely known.
Expectations that Ramos will deliver where her successors have failed are huge. She has to transform the ports and rail system into world-class performers. If she can make half the impact that she made in transforming the department of finance, the SA economy should have a lot to thank her for.
3. Hixonia Nyasulu
By Thandeka Gqubule
Nyasulu holds more directorships than any other SA businesswoman, and with it considerable boardroom sway. Among them are blue-chip counters: Anglovaal Industries, Anglo Platinum, Tongaat-Hulett, Nedbank (deputy co-chair) and AECI.
She is known for her entrepreneurial flair and her marketing prowess, and a significant chair must be imminent. Companies value her input and insight, derived from her background in marketing.
She is founder and CE of TH Nyasulu & Associates, a Durban marketing consultancy. Born in 1955 on the West Rand, she attended Inanda Seminary in Durban, the famous missionary school which has produced many prominent female leaders.
She graduated from the University of Zululand with a BA in social work and psychology, then worked for six years in marketing at Unilever.
4. Bridgette Radebe
By Marina Bidoli
Bridgette Radebe and her husband, public enterprises minister Jeff Radebe, are regulars at high-profile celebrity events. It's difficult to imagine this delicate, glamorous woman donning gumboots and hard hat, yet she seems to swap her outfits (and roles) with ease.
As CEO and executive chair of black-owned Mmakau Mining, Radebe is the only woman to head a deep-level, hard-rock mining company in SA. She encouraged her lawyer brother, Patrice Motsepe, now head of ARMgold, to enter mining.
Radebe entered mining in the late 1980s through a partnership with a contract-mining firm run by two Afrikaans men, and later established Mmakau and ventured into ownership. Radebe chairs the SA Minerals Development Association, and helped draft the mining charter. She was recently appointed a nonexecutive director at Sappi.
5. Wendy Lucas-Bull
By Stuart Theobald
Lucas-Bull is one of the top five executives in the giant FirstRand group, and responsible for the retail cluster of businesses (including FNB) that delivered over R3bn in profits last year.
She is the only woman on the 11-member FirstRand executive committee, and has a public persona through her directorship of Business Against Crime, Eskom and various other business interest groups.
Her excitement with the business is tangible. A colleague says her competence is a primary characteristic - she has to resist the urge to micromanage - but "lately she has become very concerned with going beyond business." It's whispered that her next move could be into politics. She still has good vertical momentum in FirstRand, where she has been since 1995. Before that she was a consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
6. Danisa Baloyi
By Thandeka Gqubule
Perhaps more than any other woman in the FM's power elite, Baloyi exerts a formidable influence over government's empowerment policy and thus over the way businesses are transforming. Baloyi now serves on the heavyweight 14-person presidential advisory team on BEE.
She was the first female chair of the Black Business Council, which set up the BEE commission.
With a background in education - she graduated with a doctorate from Columbia University - training and skills development are close to her heart . Baloyi worked for the UN Development Fund for Women and chairs the National Skills Authority and SA Women's Investment Holdings. Other directorships include Denel , MGX, the Don Group, AMB and Adcorp. She runs a number of small businesses including Barrington's restaurant in Johannesburg.
7. Dolly Mokgatle
By Shareen Singh
Mokgatle was brave enough to take the hot seat at Spoornet, SA's ailing rail utility, after doing a sterling job as head of Eskom Transmission.
When she became Spoornet CE, in June last year, she walked into a crisis-filled organisation that was battling to meet the increasing demands of exporters.
Once Mokgatle got a handle on the business, she drafted a plan (soon to be released to the new cabinet) aimed at making Spoornet more efficient.
Under her leadership, Spoornet is likely to see the arrival of new rolling stock valued at more than R15bn.
Exporters are counting on her to make Spoornet a world-class service provider. Qualified as an attorney, she is a former chair of empowerment company Wiphold and worked in various capacities at Eskom for 11 years.
Spoornet is Mokgatle's biggest challenge yet, and success or failure will have a big impact.
8. Wendy Appelbaum
By Marina Bidoli
Tough-talking, feisty and opinionated are terms often used to describe Appelbaum. Liberty founder Donald Gordon's daughter "learnt about business at the knee of a master".
Appelbaum sits on more than a dozen boards and has many philanthropic interests.
Recent high-profile initiatives include a R30m donation to start up the Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs), and a R100m donation to create Wits University's postgraduate teaching hospital, the Donald Gordon Medical Centre.
A founding director of Women's Investment Portfolio, Appelbaum chairs the Wits Donald Gordon medical centre and De Morgenzon wine estate in Stellenbosch. She is a director of Business Arts SA, serves on the advisory board of the Special Olympics, and chairs the SA Women's Professional Golfers' Association.
9. Pam Golding
By Sven L?nsche
The grande dame of SA property can almost single-handedly lay claim to helping turn Cape Town into a trendy destination for the international rich and famous.
Since she started her career in the mid-1950s Golding has probably affected the lives of many of SA's movers and shakers. Her company, Pam Golding Properties, has dominated the top end of the market since 1980 at least.
Last year the company raked up turnover of just short of R10bn. Golding firmly believes that both her company and the SA property market in general are nowhere close to reaching their full potential.
Though she has stepped down from the day-to-day operational side of her business - that is in the hands of her sons and husband - she still gets deeply involved in many of her company's more lucrative deals.
10. Zanele Mbeki
By Thandeka Gqubule
She may be the First Lady now, but her first profession was social work, which she studied in SA, followed by postgraduate work in the UK and US. Her career included service with the UN High Commission for Refugees.
She is now a trustee or director of several boards that promote development.
In SA, Mbeki is a founder of the Women Development Bank (WDB), which specialises in loans to small, rural businesses run by women. The WDB has participated in significant business deals, including those involving BP, Uthingo and Nedcor's Peoples Bank.
Mbeki straddles the philanthropic and business arenas with apparent ease. It would be wrong to pretend that being the president's wife does not lend her status, but in her own right she is a respected and effective player.
11. Sindi Mabaso
By Thandeka Gqubule
Mabaso is one of the youngest women on the list of the most influential black women directors.
The 36-year-old, one of a few black women to have qualified as a chartered accountant, is chief financial officer at Transnet, in control of a capital expenditure budget that will total R80bn over the next few years.
Though she ranks fifth on the list of the most influential black women directors of JSE-listed companies, including MTN, it is her close association with the parastatal sector that gives her influence and authority.
She serves on the boards of SA Airways and Armscor.
Before taking up her current position, she was MD of Transnet subsidiary Viamax. She was also financial director for the SA Railway & Harbour Workers' Union Investment Holdings and a partner at accounting firm Gobodo.
12. Kgomotso Moroka
By Thandeka Gqubule
It must be in the genes. Moroka, a mainstay at SA's new businesswomen's elite, is the daughter of empowerment pioneer Nthato Motlana. She is also married to a descendant of one of the founding fathers of the ANC.
Only Hixonia Nyasulu holds more directorships than Moroka, whose position has been boosted by her recent appointment to Standard Bank's board.
An advocate at the Johannesburg bar, Moroka has made a strong impact in legal circles as a trustee of the Law Review Project and as deputy chair of the Black Lawyers' Association.
But through her directorships, she has interests in business as diverse as mining , television (M-Net) and industry.
She is also chair of accounting firm Gobodo. Moroka is furthermore a trustee of Project Literacy and of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.
She holds a BProc and an LLB.
13. Elisabeth Bradley
By David Furlonger
It would be easy to assume Elisabeth Bradley has waning influence in SA business. After all, the Wessels business empire now owns only 25% of Toyota SA, the company founded by Bradley's father. Once, the motor company accounted for 70% of Wesco, the listed company controlled by the Wessels family. Now the main interest is Metair, another listed company which makes car components.
But Bradley (65) remains a considerable force. She serves on the boards of six JSE companies - only one other woman sits on more - including Wesco and Metair, chairing both.
Since the death of her brother Bert Wessels in December 2002, she has also been nonexecutive chair of Toyota SA.
Bradley has always enjoyed considerable respect for her business acumen, to the extent that many thought she was the strategic brain behind Toyota's success.
14. Irene Charnley
By Marina Bidoli
MTN executive director Irene Charnley, the trade unionist turned capitalist, has wasted no time cracking the glass ceiling in the male-dominated telecom industry. A prot?g?e of Cyril Ramaphosa, Charnley came to national prominence as a negotiator for the National Union of Mineworkers.
She spent 13 years with the union .
Charnley went on to help form the National Empowerment Consortium (NEC), held by black business and labour, and was involved in the NEC's purchase of a 35% stake in Johnnic.
She joined Johnnic as executive director in 1996 and was influential in helping the group gain control of MTN . She led MTN's hugely successful foray into Nigeria and other African countries.
Charnley also helped orchestrate the R4,3bn acquisition by MTN management and staff of Transnet's 18,5% stake in the group.
15. Gloria Serobe
By Jacqui Pile
Serobe started out as one of five girls in an all-boys school in the former Transkei. It was a good training ground.
A founding member of Women's Investment Portfolio Holdings (Wiphold) in 1994, Serobe has weathered the highs and lows of empowerment. As CE of Wipcapital, a subsidiary of Wiphold, she has seen the delisting of the investment company and its transformation into a fully fledged women's company, after institutional shareholders were bought out. Her recent appointment to the chair of Metropolitan has expanded her influence considerably.
Serobe's first job was an accounting position with Exxon Oil in the US. She then worked at Munich Re and Standard Corporate & Merchant Bank, and later took on the responsibility of executive finance director at Transnet. But her power is also symbolic. She was one of the empowerment pioneers.
16. Jane Raphaely
By Jacqui Pile
Raphaely founded Fair Lady in 1967 and in 1982 launched Associated Magazines , now the largest privately owned publishing house in SA. With annual turnover of more than R200m, Associated Magazines controls the lion's share of the women's magazine title market, including Femina, House & Leisure, Brides & Homes, Baby & Me and marie claire. Raphaely also played an influential role in the publishing coup of the decade, securing the first publishing rights for Oprah Winfrey's magazine, O, outside the US.
Through her magazines, she influences more than 2m women readers monthly. But it's not all fashion and fads. Raphaely has campaigned and lobbied for various social causes , especially against abuse of women.
Even in her mid-60s, Raphaely continues to expand her media empire.
17. Salukazi Dakile-Hlongwane
By Jacqui Pile
As CE of Nozala Investments, Dakile-Hlongwane is exploring new territory for women, especially in mining. Having founded Nozala with six other women, she has helped it grow its assets under management to more than R200m. Dakile-Hlongwane played a key role in securing and setting up licences in Tsogo Sun and assisted closely with its purchase of 51% of Southern Sun.
Now a formidable force in the resources sector, she aims to have 80% of Nozala's portfolio in resources . Already the company has stakes in Kumba and Sasol/Exel .
Under her management Nozala completed a R104m institutional share buy-back. As an integral part of the team that gave Nozala a head start, Dakile-Hlongwane is poised to take advantage of the flurry of empowerment deals in the market. But she's after the big deals and she's likely to get them.
18. Nolitha Fakude
By Thandeka Gqubule
Fakude has emerged as one of the most influential voices of black business in her position as managing director and now as non executive president of the Black Management Forum (BMF).
Her roles in the forum have propelled her to the forefront of the black economic empowerment debate, significantly influencing government thinking on empowerment.
While MD of the BMF, she was part of the Black Economic Empowerment Commission which made recommendations to government that eventually formed the basis of BEE legislation and charters.
Inevitably, her public voice resulted in offers of directorships and she is seventh on the Empowerdex list of the most influential black woman directors.
Fakude serves on the board of the disintegrating Peoples Bank and is the only woman on the executive committee of Nedcor.
19. Carol Scott
By David Furlonger
There are those who suggest Carol Scott is the natural successor to Bill Lynch when he finally retires as CE of Imperial Group, which he has helped turn into an international transport and logistics giant. Scott has been a board member since 1990.
But any speculation about succession may be academic for some time to come. Lynch, who, at 59, is only three years older than Scott, says he has no plans to step down soon.
Still, if anyone could continue Lynch's vision for the group, it would be Scott, who celebrates 25 years with Imperial in 2004 and knows the business inside out. She made her name as a driving force behind the creation of Imperial Car Rental and the business world learnt not to under estimate her. Scott subsequently moved upstairs to take responsibility for the group's car rental and tourism division.
20. Nomhle Canca
By Thandeka Gqubule
Strong-willed, disciplined and visionary, Canca was one of the brains behind empowerment company Women Investment Portfolio Holdings. Canca, Louisa Mojela and Wendy Luhabe rustled up R500 000 and went on the road, encouraging women to invest on the JSE. The reception was overwhelming and they built an impressive company.
Canca now runs Canca Financial Services , which develops and funds small businesses in Gauteng . Her interests also extend to telecommunications, where she advises the minister and serves on the board of Sentech, as well as the Media Development & Diversity Agency.
Other directorships include the Land Bank and Zanele Mbeki's Woman Development Bank. She recently resigned from the boards of Bidvest and Basil Read. Educated in the US, Canca qualified as a stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange. |
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| | SA's Most Powerful Businesswomen | |
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30 April 2004
Financial Mail - Cover Story
- A Fair Option
- The Gender Elite
- Not enough Yin in the World of the Yang
- Black Women take on the Empowerment Status Quo
A FAIR OPTION
Representation of Women in Business
By Jacqui Pile
Durban-based Hixonia Nyasulu is one of SA's most influential businesswomen, with a slew of blue-chip directorships to her name. She ranks third in the FM's league of female corporate leaders (see "The Gender Elite").
She is always confronted with the same question: how it feels to be the only black woman in a boardroom.
"I can't say I'm even conscious of gender or race while I'm in business mode," she says. "Sometimes, though, I look up and think, wow, I really am the only woman among all these men."
Nyasulu - and some of the other 20 we believe are the most influential businesswomen in SA - are quietly infiltrating the top levels of male-dominated corporate SA. But are they getting the recognition they deserve?
Until now, there have been few hard facts and figures about how women are performing and whether they really are achieving more top positions.
This week's release of the first census of SA women in corporate leadership by the Businesswomen' s Association of SA (Bwasa) and Nedbank should help overcome the data drought and provide benchmarks for other corporations.
Research firm Catalyst studied 347 JSE-listed companies, as well as 17 of SA's largest state-owned enterprises. The report shows that though employment equity regulations, black empowerment charters and skills shortages have encouraged businesses to employ more women, the glass ceiling is still in place, even if it is showing signs of cracking.
In SA, only 14,7% of executive managers, 7,1% of directors and less than 5% of CEOs and chairs are women. Most noticeably, out of the top 25 companies on the JSE, which account for over 70% of its market capitalisation, only at MTN do women occupy more than a quarter of the directorships .
"In SA, the current emphasis is on racial transformation; gender transformation is a bit of a poor relation," says Bwasa CEO Niven Postma. "Where women are being advanced, it's because of regulatory requirements and not because it's seen as a competitive advantage."
While 11,8% of SA boards have two or more female directors, almost 60% have no woman directors at all. State- owned enterprises (SOEs) fare far better than JSE companies (see graph).
The poor state of gender empowerment at corporate SA.
"Government has placed strong focus on gender representation ," says JSE deputy CEO Nicky Newton-King. "That hasn't happened yet in corporate SA."
"While there seems to be passive resistance in the corporate sector, government is putting its money where its mouth is," says Mmakau Mining CEO Bridgette Radebe.
Radebe, SA's first black female mining entrepreneur, has been influential in reforming legislation in one of SA's most conservative sectors, from which women were deliberately excluded for decades. "Legislation shapes the culture and perceptions of the most powerful people in an industry, so it is vital that women are involved in regulatory processes," she says.
Radebe was instrumental in ensuring that apart from the empowerment quotas in the mining charter, gender empowerment was included in the charter scorecard: a target of 10% participation by women in the industry has been set for the next five years. Though that target is low, she says a minimum requirement is the first step towards gender parity. Affirmative action targets will also boost the number of women in different sectors.
The census shows female director representation is indirectly proportional to the size of the industry. The largest and oldest SA industries have the lowest proportion of women directors, while "new economy" industries are more inclusive.
"Technology is opening up traditionally male sectors, especially in the service sectors," says Nozala CEO Salukazi Dakile-Hlongwane.
The business case for advancing women in companies has been gaining ground in recent years. Catalyst shows that the 353 companies that remained on the Fortune 500international list between 1996 and 2000 had the highest representation of women in senior management teams.
Companies are starting to take notice of the importance of women, both as decision-makers in business and as potential clients. Nedbank, for example, has established a department dedicated to the female banking market.
"There is great strategic potential in the female market," says Nedbank's head of female market strategy, Ruellen Bateman. "We have seen women -owned businesses increase by about 10%-15% a year over the past few years."
In SA, 7,1% of directors are women. This is behind developed countries such as Australia, where the figure is 8,4% and the US (14%).
As in the broader empowerment debate, there has been a call for women empowerment to become more broadly based. In total, 170 female directors hold 221 JSE directorships between them, with only three women holding six directorships each; so power isn't concentrated as heavily among a few as is the case among the male power elite.
However, it is far easier for women to get board positions than to become CEO. Last year, women filled about 3% of all the board positions in SA, while only seven were CEOs, 1,9% of the total.
"When CEOs look for successors, they look for business experience, but most senior line positions, where people can gain this, are male," says Postma.
Then there is the education divide. Though there are more than 100 000 women graduates a year, most of them study degrees focusing on subjects like marketing and human resources, whereas top positions require more technical skills.
But accounting firm Deloitte says there are significant numbers of female accounting graduates entering the market . The challenge is enticing them to stay until they reach executive level.
"In addition to creating a conducive corporate environment, there needs to be sophisticated career management for women ," says Deloitte's director of transformation, Diane Schneider.
Changing corporate culture may include introducing flexible working hours for senior women. SA women have an advantage as domestic help is more affordable and family support structures allow younger women to work, but family responsibilities still rest firmly on their shoulders.
In the past, companies were reluctant to invest large amounts in training women for top positions because they believed women often left in the prime of their careers to have children.
"Women do tend to demand more work-life balance," says Nyasulu. "I don't think I could have got to where I am today if I hadn't had a husband to step into my shoes at home."
Of the most influential women in SA, a large proportion have live-at-home husbands. Those who don't say accommodating bosses and flexi time have helped them climb the corporate ladder.
Women executives cite numerous other barriers to advancement: exclusion from informal and formal networks, stereotyping, lack of mentoring, ineffective leadership style and limited opportunities for visibility.
"There is a perception that the white old-boys' network has been replaced by a black version and it's difficult for women to break into that," says BusinessMap director Jenny Cargill.
Some of the most gender-empowered companies in the survey - measured in terms of women representation at executive level - say they had to cultivate an environment to nurture women executives and overcome these obstacles.
One of the common features of these companies has been a commitment to gender empowerment from the top.
"First, you need a champion, someone committed personally to diversity, who will open the door," says Newton-King. "It helps if it's a female role model because she can break conventions in the appointment process."
Catalyst says the enlightened CEO builds a strategic vision and business case for gender diversity, sets concrete goals, holds management accountable for achieving diversity goals, reports on progress, participates visibly in diversity events and takes every opportunity to communicate down through the ranks.
"He (and it usually is a he) uses the bully pulpit to its full advantage," say the authors of the report. "The key to women's advancement rests squarely with him."
But women also have an important role to play. Media doyenne Jane Raphaely says that, professionally, one of the biggest challenges for women is to ensure that they get an equal share of media coverage. "For instance, female MPs get 10% of the coverage that male MPs do," she says. By making themselves more visible, top women need to embrace their newly acquired power.
Radebe says women don't usually set out to become CEO or chair and don't seek out publicity as they progress.
As Fortune magazine says, women tend to see power in terms of influence, not rank. But shouting about their successes is key to increasing their profile, gaining recognition and encouraging other women to aspire to top positions in business.
The Gender Elite
The Top 20 Most Powerful Women
By Thandeka Gqubule and Jacqui Pile
When the FM announced its SA business power elite last year (Cover Story December 19 2003), there was only one woman on the list, Transnet CEO Maria Ramos. (See end of story for profiles of the top 20 most powerful businesswomen.)
But a closer look reveals many more prominent women with increasing influence in SA business, finance and the parastatals - and the policy environment is set to encourage further gains.
Some are the daughters of prominent businessmen, others are married to politicians, but all have made a name as businesswomen in their own right. What's interesting is that most of this new power elite are black, and they have rocketed through the ranks in the past few years.
As with our initial power elite story, there was a mixture of objective and subjective criteria. Directorships, control of assets and executive positions are one guideline - but being respected for your opinion, or perceived as well connected, can also be an enormous source of influence. The point is that these women exert influence over the way business is done in SA. They have the ear of politicians, advise other powerful people and make the social A-list.
The process was simple but exhaustive. FM staffers were invited to nominate women in every field of business and the economy. The nominations were then pruned down to 20. Of course it can't be objectively proved that the person in ninth spot is more powerful than the one who is 17th - but the positions were allocated after extended assessment of real and perceived influence.
As one of the top 20 told the FM, "women tend to share their power more". Women are more prepared than men to empower others, and are more concerned to build real influence than how high they are on the corporate ladder. That doesn't mean they won't be ruthless when they need to be. In the end, power is as power does.
NOT ENOUGH YIN IN THE WORLD OF THE YANG
By Jacqui Pile
Women may be winning important positions in the public service and in small and medium-sized businesses thanks to employment equity and sector empowerment charters, but can they compete against empowerment's big boys?
Only three prominent and powerful women's empowerment companies survive from the early days: the Women's Development Bank, Women's Investment Portfolio Holdings (Wiphold) and Nozala Investments. What went wrong?
"Most of these companies started off with large groups of women, with diverse skills, all getting small cuts of the investment," says BusinessMap director Jenny Cargill.
But basing the success of women's empowerment on women-only companies may be part of the problem. "Women shouldn't be hived off into separate companies, but integrated into the mainstream," says Businesswomen's Association CEO Niven Postma.
Though the black economic empowerment (BEE) charters make special mention of women in terms of employment, targets are particularly low and there is no differentiation from black men at ownership level. The financial services charter, for example, targets only 4% of executive management for black women and makes no mention of ownership targets for black women.
Government tenders also specify that companies must have some women empowerment, but the percentage specified is generally small.
"Making special mention of such a small percentage seems to relegate women to the corner of deals," says Cargill. "Few women's companies are the lead partners in big empowerment deals; they piggyback on male-dominated companies ."
Businesswomen's Association president Namane Magau says women need to take up the challenge of initiating deals. "Men may be the traditional deal-makers, but we need to realise that empowerment will not be handed to us and we need to take responsibility to market ourselves."
"The continued success of privatisation in SA will depend on the incorporation of a gender analysis into the ways national resources are allocated and licensed," says Industrial Development Corp chief investment officer Raisibe Morathi.
It's inevitable, however, that in a country with a racially segregated past like SA, the focus of transformation and the measurement of it will be based on race in the first place, with gender a secondary concern.
Though there has been an increase in the number of black men in director positions on the boards of JSE Securities Exchange-listed companies, only three of the top 25 most influential black directors are women - a 25% drop from last year's figure, according to an Empowerdex report.
The most influential women include Hixonia Nyasulu, who moved from last year's 13th place to number three after joining the board of Anglo Platinum; advocate Kgomotso Moroka, whose appointment at Standard Bank catapulted her into thetop 25; Irene Charnley, who moved up just one place from 16th last year; Brigalia Bam, placed 20th in the previous survey, who retired from the Absa board and consequently lost a place in the top 25; and Dawn Mokhobo, who was placed 22nd in the previous survey. Muriel Dube was appointed subsequent to the report as an executive at Bidvest, which will boost her positioning in the listing.
It is disappointing that so few women hold directorships in SA - 53 black women directors hold 70 directorship positions on the JSE (about 2,3%).
But what is more alarming is that only five are executive directors: Irene Charnley of MTN; Nthobi Angel of Mvelaphanda Resources; Elizabeth Naidoo of Datacentrix; Christine Ramon from Johnnic; and Muriel Dube of Bidvest.
BLACK WOMEN TAKE ON THE EMPOWERMENT STATUS QUO
By Thandeka Gqubule
As black economic empowerment gathers momentum, women are beginning to delve deep to find the reasons they are being largely excluded from the transformation of corporate SA.
At a recent women's investment imbizo in Sandton, the focus fell on dismal statistics indicating that SA is lagging behind other countries in terms of the number of women represented in its corporate world.
The gathering, which was intended to take stock of the achievements and challenges encountered on the road to empowerment, heard that men's salaries are 43% higher than those of women , that women hold only 12% of top management positions and that black women make up only 1% of top management in JSE-listed companies.
The women were meeting a few months after a discussion paper, entitled Foxed by the Minotaur, had begun to circulate among women executives.
It had started with a position paper by author Sharmila Boola, after which the Businesswomen's Association commissioned a report on the empowerment of women .
Thus began a debate over the causes of the leisurely pace of women's empowerment. The discussion tends to revolve around one key issue: should women stake a claim in corporate SA through an economic charter for women?
Foxed by the Minotaur asks: "Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is the minister of minerals & energy affairs, and Nkosazana Zuma minister of foreign affairs, so why does the prospect of a woman at the helm of Anglo American or Standard Bank seem such a long way off? Could it be that ladies can't climb corporate ladders' or could it be that the gender cause has been outfoxed?"
The Minotaur is a beast of Greek mythology - a man with a bull's head. It was kept in a Cretan labyrinth and fed human flesh. There was no way through the labyrinth, for the maze was the mind of the Minotaur.
The discussion paper likens the labyrinth to the maze of systemic factors that cull women before they reach the corridors of power.
Furthermore, most discussions among women conclude that there can be no meaningful business transformation in SA without making gender a central issue.
Though Boola argues for a broad-based approach to empowerment of women, she points out that the BEE bill is silent on women's empowerment and simply defines the beneficiaries of the law as black people.
She calls on the state to introduce specific provisions for women ownership and other opportunities. "This will be critical in ensuring that women ownership is given weight, and that laws do not simply result in empowering black men."
A feeling that black men have an insurmountable lead over women in empowerment is taking root among many women executives. The black shareholding elite is increasingly seen as a bull show. The gathering of women acknowledged that charter targets for women in top positions are low and companies generally resist exceeding them.
In the early days of empowerment there were many women's groups, but few have managed to sustain themselves in their original form. Arguably, only two prominent women's empowerment companies have clout : Women's Investment Portfolio Holdings (Wiphold) and Nozala Investments.
Foxed by the Minotaur offers some explanations. The paper argues that "dominant culture in SA is influenced by an 87% white, male world view".
A common view is that even the most talented women will, at some point, marry and follow their husbands - and hence cannot be relied upon as solid material for a succession plan.
Another stumbling block for women is the no-concession ethic, which holds: do not expect any concessions because you're a woman. In a culture dominated by this ethic, women are encouraged to "look like a lady, act like a man and work like a dog".
Further hampering the progress of women is the ethic that asserts "race first, gender later". The implication is that a dual focus on race and gender dilutes the focus of affirmative action and black empowerment.
The sad part of this, the authors argue, is that many black women have bought into this thesis. They are reluctant to shoulder the dual role of being race and gender activists. To slay and fox the Minotaur, the authors argue, employment equity must be strengthened and women must embrace their dual responsibilities. |
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