South Africa has a knack for raising strong female leaders in business, government and a host of other spheres. In honour of Women’s Day, we highlight the incredible stories of four women who have risen to the top of their fields doing it their way – with inspiring success.
Here’s what we can learn from their fearlessness and finesse.
Thuli Madonsela
“It’s vital that every girl determines, as early as possible, who she is and what her contribution to humanity will be.”
Born in Soweto, Thulisile Madonsela had to disregard her family’s wishes for her not to study law. Back then, the only references the community had of lawyers were slimy characters with offices by train stations who kept criminals from going to prison – not the type of person her parents and church community wanted her to become.
Thankfully for South Africa, Thuli studied law regardless, obtaining her LLB from Wits University. Her career has included lecturing at Wits, overseeing the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and positions as deputy director at the Justice Department and managing director at the Office of the Status of Women in the Presidency.
Madonsela was one of the 11 technical experts who helped the Constitutional Assembly draft the final constitution in 1994 and 1995 (giving up a scholarship to Harvard University to do so). And it’s this Constitution she worked so vehemently to preserve when she was appointed Public Protector in 2009 by then President Jacob Zuma. Her unwavering character and unbiased work was so respected – across partisan lines – that she received 100% of the vote by all parties in parliament.
Madonsela’s loyalty has remained to the country. She is a staunch advocate for gender equality, human rights and the advancement of women, and an anti-corruption crusader. She has taken on some of the country’s most powerful people, including Zuma and the infamous Gupta family, as well as EFF leader Julius Malema and ex-police chief Bheki Cele.
CONTRACT’S TAKE-AWAY
For us as HR and organisational development specialists, Thuli Madonsela is the embodiment of one of the greatest leadership qualities: having the courage to speak up when you know you’re right and have right on your side.
She also represents a selfless and brave leader; one who puts her own needs aside (forgoing Harvard to craft the South African Constitution) in order to contribute to a momentous goal.
Wendy Ackerman
“Everything is possible. Impossible just takes a little longer.”
Wendy Ackerman takes offence when she’s introduced as the Pick n Pay chairman’s wife: “I have had to work very hard. I want to be recognised as a person in my own right.”
She is indeed a cornerstone of the grocery chain’s success. When her husband Raymond was fired as Managing Director of Checkers, he acquired four Pick n Pay stores. Wendy joined the company from the get go, committing herself to developing employee benefits in the HR department and taking a keen interest in their welfare.
At every step of Pick n Pay’s history, Wendy has walked in step with her husband, Raymond, contributing to the business’ vision and fighting discrimination in all its ugly forms – all the while raising a family. She was appointed a Director in 1981 and fought hard to ensure women were noticed at the boardroom table.
Wendy embodies Pick n Pay’s philosophy that “doing good is good business”. The Ackermans have not only been model philanthropists (promoting education for the underprivileged through bursaries, for instance), but they’ve been catalysts for massive change in the most difficult of times.
Wendy’s rebellious spirit lead Pick n Pay to promote black managers based on merit rather than race during apartheid. She also helped secure housing for black managers and staff, disobeying the government’s Group Areas Act.
The company was also first to give staff free anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/Aids at a time the government denied the crisis, with Wendy intentionally visiting and hugging employees with the illness to prevent discrimination.
To date, Pick n Pay has grown and expanded to encompass stores in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Swaziland and Lesotho. Wendy retired from the board of Ackerman Family Trust (the majority shareholders of Pick n Pay) after 51 years of service.
CONTRACT’S TAKE-AWAY
Wendy Ackerman is an example of what we mean by our company tagline “Inspiring a humane economy”. She was a pioneer of caring for employees’ needs long before it became fashionable to do so, because she had the foresight to realise the benefits it would bring people and the business.
She also showed us that leadership is not always about being in the spotlight – sometimes the best leaders are in supportive ro
. . . .
Bridgette Radebe
“We need to be economic activists. It’s an economic revolution that we are fighting. It’s not about profit – you can still make money; profit is key, yes – but that money must be [made] in the way that our countries and our economies and our continents are not going to be deprived of socioeconomic stability and enhancement.”
As the first black female South African mine owner and now one of the country’s richest black woman, Bridgette Radebe has made her fortune in digging up minerals (platinum, gold, uranium, coal, ferrochrome and exploration) – yet she remains a champion of the poor and an outspoken advocate of the nationalisation of mines.
Having grown up in a township outside the mining town of Klerksdorp, Radebe originally wanted to study law at Wits but was barred because of her race (her brother was admitted later and went on to study mining with Bridgette’s encouragement). Nevertheless, she defied legislation and launched Mmakau Mining (named after the village in which she grew up), managing shaft mining operations and procurement as a contractor for major firms.
She founded the Junior Mining Chamber, is president of the South African Mining Development Association, and has helped draft crucial mining legislation.
Radebe is a sought-after speaker for international bodies such as the United Nations, where she has spoken out against child labour and unfair mining practices. She is also highly critical of companies who move their wealth offshore, rather than paying their fair share of taxes and helping to uplift mining communities:
“It pains me to say, that goals set out by the 2014 mining charter have still not been met. Less than 40 per cent has been transformed to black management. We should have industrialisation….people shouldn’t be living in shacks. If you read those 2014 goals the deliverables by mining companies have not been delivered,” says Radebe.
CONTRACT’S TAKE-AWAY
Bridgette Radebe steadfast work towards transforming the mining sector shows us that good leaders hold doggedly onto commitments
. . . .
Topaz Page-Green
“If you really believe in something you do it. It’s a very simple thing. Feeding children is integral to championing the potential of Africa. Food nurtures a child’s willpower and creativity. If we’re not feeding our children, we’re not nourishing their potential, or that of Africa.”
Topaz Page-Green is a former New York fashion model with friends the likes of Liv Tyler, Joaquin Phoenix, Mario Batali and Salman Rushdie. But the South African-born model doesn’t see international magazine ads and catwalks as the end goal of success – they’re a means to do something better.
Page-Green is the founder of The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organisation providing as many school lunches for South African kids living in food-insecure households as possible.
Using her A-List connections and a clever app called Feedie to leverage funds, Page-Green provides daily lunches for more than 25,000 learners. With meals costing about R2.50 each, her NGO’s website reports more than 4.9 million meals have been served to date.
“We uphold a child’s right to basic education; no child should be kept from learning by hunger or household food insecurity,” explains Page-Green. “The Lunchbox Fund provides a behavioural incentive for children to attend school by placing a guaranteed meal there.”
Page-Green left home after high school at 17 to “make it” in London. She was discovered on the London Underground and became a sought-after model, moving to New York and eventually getting a green card.
But it was a trip home to Johannesburg after several years away that triggered her change of career, from model to food security activist. The poverty and discrepancy between rich and poor had become glaringly obvious. Page-Green visited some schools in Soweto and was struck by the hardships the students faced without a guaranteed meal to fuel their studies.
“I was spending a lot of time in the townships when I came back,” she said. “That stuff had a really strong effect on me. It was really obvious that these children were hungry and that was so unacceptable to me.”
Page-Green went back to NYC and launched the Lunchbox Fund, applying for non-profit status and fundraising USD $6,000 in a single day from her second-year literature class at New York University. She began to do fundraising benefits and slowly the organisation grew – but it was the Feedie app that scaled their efforts.
Feedie banks on people’s insatiable appetite for taking and sharing #foodporn (i.e. photographs of their meals). The pictures New York foodies share translate into one-for-one meals via the app’s restaurant partners. Feedie hot spots make a USD $500 annual donation, which covers 2,000 snapshots.
Since launching Feedie, The Lunchbox Fund has been able to expand its meal programme to Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, as well as some high schools, preschools and other Early Childhood Development Centres where government assistance is not funded. The foundation also conducted a pilot study in 2017 to measure its impact on kids’ heights, weights, registrations and attendance.
Page-Green’s ultimate goal? To reach all of the country’s underserved children during her lifetime.
“There’s a saying, ‘When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time,'” she says. “It’s like that with the charity.”
CONTRACT’S TAKE-AWAY
Topaz Page-Green is a wonderful example of great leaders having the insight to see “the problem behind the problem”, and addressing it with both short- and long-term strategies.
. . . .
Build your own authentic leadership profile
Here at CONTRACT, we believe having strong women in top leadership positions isn’t just an asset – it’s a business imperative. As women, we need to cultivate our valuable perspectives, develop skills and expertise, and find our own unique voices.
Being a good leader isn’t about trying to “copy” any of the women above, or feeling insecure we can’t measure up. By ceasing to compare and committing to grow, women will continue to break the mould and excel in their individual callings.
Not sure how to tap into your inner voice and use it to build your authentic leadership profile to make better decisions? Learn more about CONTRACT’s IntuGreat programme designed to develop female leaders in South Africa.
