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| Introducing Dr. Anna Mokgokong |
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2005 Best Ernst & Young World Best Entrepreneur (SA) Finalist
The Winner of SA Businesswoman of the Year Award 1999
Women are increasingly making their mark in SA's maledominated SA business world. The Businesswoman of the Year Award honours these trailblazing women. 'I have achieved success. I started from humble beginnings, but the life I lead is very skewed towards work. I work long hours, sometimes seven days a week'.
Voted one of the leading women entrepreneurs in the world in 1998 by the Star Group in the US, Mokgokong is one of the most confident women entrepreneurs in SA today - she speaks candidly and laughs easily, but you know she means business.
Her dream is to establish an institute of entrepreneurship for women. Asked whether she considers herself a role model for other women, she says: "Yes and no. On the one hand, I have achieved success. I started from very humble beginnings and I have managed to build a business worth R1-billion, but on the other hand the life I lead is very skewed towards work. It's very pressurised. I work long hours, sometimes seven days a week." A single mother of two, she gets fidgety when she relaxes.
"Mokgokong says women in business must be positive, think ahead and remain focused. "There are so many distractions that we have to define our vision. That is one of the keys to success."
As executive chairman of black empowerment conglomerate Malesela Investment Holdings, Mokgokong has ensured it has taken the lead in the development of affirmative action and employment equity programmes. Its empowerment initiatives include owner-driver and sub-contractor businesses among workers and suppliers from previously disadvantaged groups.
Malesela Investment Holdings has interests in healthcare, new technology, management services, leisure/tourism, and manufacturing/distribution. The group employs nearly 10 000 people and has about R500-million in capital. Mokgokong's victory comes at a time when perceptions about black economic empowerment have been under a cloud. She admits that achieving credibility as a woman in a senior position in a black economic empowerment vehicle is a challenge.
"As a woman you are sometimes not taken seriously, even when you have been made chair of the group. You have to go out of your way to convince them."
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