Mail & Guardian reporter
Getting entered for the Businesswoman of the Year awards is a sign you’re a serious player in the corporate world. And this year the changing face of South Africa is reflected in the shortlist for the award – for the first time black women outnumber whites.
The Executive Women’s Club of South Africa has been running the Businesswoman of the Year award for 15 years. Previous winners have included Joan Joffe of Vodacom, Jane Raphaely of Cosmopolitan magazine and Wendy Lucas Bull of Rand Merchant Bank. The current title-holder is Sindi Zilwa, head of black accountancy firm Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba.
The youngest candidate for this year’s award is 39-year-old Transnet executive finance director Gloria Serobe. She has a commerce degree from the University of the Transkei and an MBA from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Serobe is also chair and the executive finance director of Transnet’s Petronet and Autonet subsidiaries.
Standard Corporate and merchant Bank, Exxon and Munich Re are some of the companies where Serobe held executive positions before going to Transnet in 1996.
The other four finalists all come from the financial services sector. Christine Glover is the MD of Cashbank, and is the only woman to head a commercial bank in South Africa. She has an honours degree from Unisa and a masters in city and regional planning from the University of Cape Town. Glover launched Cashbank as a subsidiary of the Urban Foundation which focuses on finance for low-income groups.
Not having a degree has not hindered Beulah Bonugli from creating corporate asset finance company, Union Finance Holdings. She started the company from scratch a decade ago before selling it to Unibank for R100-million seven years later. She remains as MD. Bonugli has attended courses in financial management at Wits Business School and completed a credit management course through Damelin College. She also has a pilot’s licence.
The fourth finalist is Louisa Mojela, the executive chair of Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Women Investment Portfolio Holdings (Wiphold), perhaps the highest profile women’s empowerment company.
Before becoming a founder member of Wiphold in 1995, Mojela held management positions at the Lesotho National Development Operation, the Development Bank of South Africa and Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank. She has a commerce degree from the National University of Lesotho and has done an executive programme at the Wharton School of Business.
The fifth candidate is Dr Anna Mokgokong, who last year was named by an American business group as one of 50 leading women entrepreneurs in the world. Mokgokong qualified as a doctor at Medunsa after completing a BSc at the University of Botswana. She is executive chair of black empowerment investment company Malesela Investment Holdings and executive director of Macmed Health Care.
The winner of the award will be announced on August 25.