Sandton hosted the prestigious Businesswoman of the Year Awards recently. But back in the boardroom, women are still treated differently despite empowerment legislation, say some of South Africa’s top female business leaders.
Empowerment pioneer Gloria Serobe has been named Corporate Businesswoman of the Year for 2006. Angela Dick, from recruitment specialist Transman, received the award in the entrepreneurial category. This was the first year, in its 27-year history, that the awards, run by the Businesswomen’s Association, has been split into two categories.
Dick, the Entrepreneur of the Year, has been rewarded for her success in growing Transman, from a start-up with an R85 000 turnover in its first year, to a national company with an estimated net-worth of R400-million. She started the company in 1983, and specialises in placing previously disadvantaged individuals in temporary and contract positions.
Serobe’s profile is so high that she seems barely to need an introduction. She is a member of the presidential economic advisory committee and the Presidential Working Group for Women, and helped to draft the Financial Services Charter. She is the chief executive of Wipcapital and the deputy chief executive of Wiphold. In fact, one is forced to wonder whether she needs yet another gilt paperweight for a desk that must surely be groaning under the weight of accolades.
But her outstanding success comes in spite of a paucity of women at top levels. The third annual census of women in corporate leadership, commissioned by the Businesswomen’s Association, shows that women constitute only 6,4% of chief executives and chairpersons in South Africa. Women make up 11,5% of company directors, up from 7,1% in the first year of the census.
But the number of female executive directors has dropped to 16,8% this year, from 19,8% for the previous year. At the same time, the overall number of executive management positions increased to 7 890, from 5 558 in the previous year, so this decline is substantial.
Because future CEOs and chairpersons are drawn from the ranks of executive managers, this is an important indicator of progress.
“Although women continue to be under-represented in top corporate leadership positions, it would seem that it is easier for women to become chairs of boards than it is for them to become CEOs. Of the 343 companies measured, only seven had women at the helm, while 15 had women chairing their boards,” noted a Bizcommunity report on the census.
It is rather shocking to realise that these statistics are actually pretty good. In the United Kingdom, women now make up 7,2% of executive directors for FTSE-100 companies, and there is still only one female CEO, one female chairperson and one female joint MD of FTSE-100 companies, according to Cranfield University.
“Every year we reinvigorate that spirit of promoting empowerment,” said Dr Namane Magau, president of the Businesswomen’s Association, explaining the reason for the awards. “We pick role models, from women we showcase to other women, and we also pick ambassadors, both corporate and entrepreneurial: women whose lives and experiences inspire other women. It is not just a celebration, it is about continuing to raise awareness.”
She said that South African women were fortunate in that there was enabling legislation and that the government was committed to transformation. “Where the government leads the way, corporates tend to follow.”
Corporations were starting to appreciate the value that women add. “Because of globalisation, and changes in the marketplace, it makes sense for corporations to reflect their market in the workplace. But we still have to learn how to optimise women’s opportunities,” Magau said.
In fact, women are far more frequently found in top positions in the government and state-owned enterprises than in the private sector, in large part due to deliberate recruitment strategies in the public sphere. For state-owned enterprises, 31,3% of directors are women. According to the census results, retention of women leaders is a problem for the private sector.
Last year’s winner, Monhla Hlanhla, the chief executive of the Airports Company of South Africa, was frank in her assessment. “For a while, I struggled with the idea [of a separate award for businesswomen]. But for most of us, we’d never get any recognition because we spend so much time working and taking care of other things. It is meant to encourage those of us in transitional roles, as I call it, those of us who act as facilitators of women growing their numbers in business.
“For whatever reason, if a woman is doing a job, everyone thinks it must be easy. They’ll check with a man first before taking a woman’s word for it. Society hasn’t taken women’s leadership as a norm. Maybe they think you slept with someone to get the job, I don’t know. I just know that women have to work harder to prove themselves. It is a weird thing.”
It is not only a South African phenomenon, she pointed out. Internationally, women in business still complain of discrimination, and South Africa is in fact a leader in female empowerment. “It shows that there is something inherently fearful in us about taking that leap,” Hlanhla says.
Women leaders are challenged more, she says. “They challenge them from day one, and look for every fault. The challenges they bring to a woman are different to those they bring to a man. My generation of business leaders has to work very hard. We have to work harder and smarter than anyone else.”
Businesswoman Wendy Appelbaum, who sits on several boards, agreed. “There is a lack of acceptance of women in high levels. It is as if there are social barriers or mindsets that can’t shift, although there has been a significant change in government thinking.”
At a board level, women were expected to be passive. “Sometimes women are put there for the wrong reasons. You are not treated the same as a man.”
She said that women empowerment had been left off the table, with racial transformation being seen as a more urgent issue. “I think there are going to be a lot of very successful women created as a result of black economic empowerment legislation. Maybe there will be more equality then.”
But at the same time, she said, white women were disadvantaged. “If a company wants to be representative, they’ll rather kill two birds with one stone and appoint a black woman. White women are at the bottom of the pecking order.”
Despite these obstacles, women have achieved some high-profile successes. Serobe’s own company, Wiphold, is a women’s empowerment consortium she co-founded in 1994, with Wendy Luhabe, Louisa Mojela and Nomhle Canca. Wiphold was part of the Elephant Consortium, which bought a stake in Telkom, and the company also owns part of Old Mutual. Wiphold’s controlling stake in Futuregrowth created the largest black-owned asset management company in the country.
More recently, Peotona, run by Cheryl Carolus, Wendy Lucas-Bull, Thandi Orleyn and Dolly Makgetla, has hit the headlines. The group has a 16% stake in the Ponahalo consortium, which bought 26% of diamond giant De Beers, in a deal worth R3,8-billion. Just a few weeks ago, Peotona announced it was part of a black economic empowerment consortium that would buy a stake in cement producer Lafarge. It will own just less than 4% of Lafarge Mining and 1,5% of Lafarge Industries.
But Appelbaum sounded a cautionary note. “Women at an entrepeneurial level have been very successful. But I think at a corporate level it’s a different story. They have been forced to become entrepreneurs.”