Desiree Storey.
Desiree Storey points out that the corporate social investment (CSI) sector comprises numerous female managers, specialists and consultants.
“They are passionate, resilient and committed to their purpose. There are so many projects out there that effectively help women in South Africa, and they are both empowering and powerful,” she says.
Storey was inspired to do something meaningful with her own life when she returned to the corporate world in 2002. She was offered the role of manager of the FirstRand Volunteers Programme and 13 years later this is still the position she holds.
“FirstRand employs 38 000 people across five divisions. They are not forced to volunteer, they do so outside of their daily jobs,” she says. “My mandate is to encourage and support employees to give of both their own time and that of their group, based on their line managers’ discretion.”
Recently the company’s chief executive Sizwe Nxasana challenged all employees to donate 1% of their time to community upliftment.
Storey heads up the FirstRand volunteer division management along with division co-ordinators from Ashburton, FCC, FNB, RMB and WesBank. She motivates, challenges and inspires the team to take programme initiatives into their group and works with them to create the overall programme strategy.
What makes Storey so dynamic is her complete commitment to the goals of the programme in every aspect of her working and personal life. She stays involved with the corporate employee volunteering and CSI space because she believes that businesses cannot continue to make profits and remain successful if they are not supporting the society within which they operate.
“I am, and have been, consistently out of my comfort zone through this work,” she says. “I thrive on being challenged and I am constantly inspired to benchmark our programme against others and the needs of our nonprofit and nongovernmental partners.”