South African entrepreneur Wendy Luhabe has 26 years of experience in the boardrooms of a variety of businesses. She is now adding the unlikely sport of rugby to that list.
In July, Luhabe started her stint as the first female director of the World Rugby board. Her seat on this board is surprising as rugby is a largely white male-dominated sport in South Africa.
“I’m not a rugby fan, surprise, surprise. But I’m a patriot. Over the years, I’ve watched all the Springboks’ World Cup games, but not because I’m a sports fan. Most women don’t have the luxury of watching sport because we tend to have much more important things to do,” she says. “[Like] making a home, looking after children. It’s time consuming.”
In addition to being a wife and mother, Luhabe is also the Chair and Founder of the Women Private Equity Fund and has held governance roles with Vodacom, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the International Marketing Council (IMC) and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
She was selected among 60 candidates from all over the world to help reform World Rugby, the international governing body of the sport. Luhabe was appointed alongside Mervin Davies, a former Welsh international rugby player and prominent businessman, as independent directors on the World Rugby board. Luhabe’s lack of experience in the oval-balled sport doesn’t bother her.
“We’re living in times where good governance is critical in any institution, not just sport… I think it’s more important to have business people because we are the ones that have the most governance experience than other sectors.”
Part of this governance is making the sport more popular in Africa.
“Rugby is not as well-known, or as well-entrenched, in the rest of the continent and that needs to be part of the agenda. It’s a continent of almost a billion people and there is no reason why we shouldn’t look at a strategy to make rugby as prevalent as soccer is around the continent.”
Luhabe says the sport is ideally suited to the natural athletic ability of Africans.
“Especially with Sevens [the shortened version of the game that rewards skill and pace]. I think that the African continent has a huge growth potential for rugby,” she says.
Despite rugby being one of the most brutal sports on earth, Luhabe wants to get more women playing.
“That’s where the future growth of rugby is, as surprising as it is that women play rugby.”
What about those that think rugby’s scrumming, tackling and mauling is too physical for women?
“I think that women must make the choices that they want to make; I don’t think that society should continue to make choices for women. I think that’s what’s remarkable about women playing rugby, as surprising as it is, it’s a choice they exercised and society must respect that. The women that were courageous enough to be the first to play, they are the trailblazers. In another 20 years, it will be normal.”
Being the first woman on the board of World Rugby makes Luhabe a trailblazer as well. She is part of a new group of women wrestling control of sports from the old men that have ruled for generations. In May, Senegal’s Fatma Samoura became the first female Secretary General at Fifa, football’s embattled governing body. Suddenly, sports bodies are trying very hard to get women involved.
“I suspect that they are looking for people that have the courage to challenge the status quo. In my experience, having served on male-dominated boards, you don’t find that among males. It’s only when you bring a woman into the board that the conversation changes and different questions are raised. I sense that they are really quite committed to the reforms they have agreed to and therefore they need to bring in an element that is really going to transform the leadership structures of these old and historic institutions.”
Samoura’s appointment was a surprise to many and some inside Fifa questioned her selection.
“I doubt that she would have come as far as she has if she had paid attention to those criticisms. I think women like her, and many others who break ground, women who believe in their capability and who are not as concerned about the criticism that other people have, because criticism is generally a reflection of a shift in society. When people are uncomfortable, they use criticism as a blunt instrument. I think women like her, and women like myself, are not concerned about criticism.”
Luhabe, the Founder of the Wendy Luhabe Foundation, is known for her philanthropy. Her social work will now extend to rugby.
“Sport in general has the capacity to build bridges, we saw during South Africa’s World Cup how Madiba changed our relationship with rugby, and again with the movie Invictus. We must use sport therefore to overcome social inequalities, and to level the unequal playing field and access to opportunities.”
In South Africa, rugby is criticized for its lack of transformation.
“It needs a commitment and an openness to bring in new voices and diverse people on their leadership structures. I’m not close to the dynamics of South African rugby to really know what the issues are. In the same way that World Rugby was comfortable to bring in a black woman, who has no knowledge of rugby, into their board, South African rugby needs the same openness.”
South African rugby could do with someone like Luhabe on its board – it’s unlikely to happen though.
“I think once you’ve played on the global stage, you don’t really go back, do you?”
A tough stance from a tough woman who is not going to be ruffled by any patriarchal system that rugby might have.

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The Tough  African  Woman  Tackling Rugby

South African entrepreneur Wendy Luhabe, who made her name in business championing female financial power, was made an Honorary Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order at an investiture ceremony in Buckingham Palace on July 11.
She received the award – given for service to the Royal Family – for the 10 years she spent working for the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation, a leading youth charity that gives people aged between 14 and 24 the chance to fulfil their potential by learning life skills.
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Luhabe is one of the few from the continent to be given the prestigious title. She received it from Prince Charles.
Other recipients of the award, instituted in 1896, read like a who’s who of ambassadors and admirals. The award is given to those who have served the monarchy in a personal way. It includes officials of the Royal Household and ambassadors who have arranged state visits.
The foundation has helped young people everywhere, from the favelas of Brazil to the prisons of South Africa. In her work, Luhabe worked alongside Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex.
Luhabe made her name in business with the women’s investment company WIPHOLD, founded in 1994 with three other women at a time when black economic empowerment was trying to bring the majority of South Africans into the mainstream.
In African lore, rain means blessing. The day she walked the red carpet to the palace, the grey sky over London was full of best wishes as Luhabe put the final touches to her outfit, a simple African print dress and a brown lace top. The multi-colored contemporary African print was designed by Machere in Parktown North, Johannesburg, specially for the occasion.
Luhabe told how she waited with 100 other recipients of the award at Buckingham Palace at the investiture. She was called up, after the knighthoods had been given, to receive her award from Prince Charles in the Throne Room at the Palace in a ceremony that lasted an hour.
“We talked about how long I had carried out work for the Duke of Edinburgh awards and he also wanted to know if I was living in England or South Africa. It was a very quiet and dignified affair and what I remember well was the beautiful classical music that was playing throughout,” says Luhabe.
“I see this award as a tribute to all women and also my grandchildren&#8230;We are here to serve humanity, we must try to do things for ourselves, in this way, we can change the face of Africa.”
Luhabe was told that little was expected of her when she was growing up in apartheid South Africa.
“You were expected to get married and then maybe become a nurse or a teacher, if you were lucky,” says Luhabe, who was inspired at secondary school in Cradock, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, by her teacher Matthew Goniwe, a political activist who was murdered by security forces in 1985 and later known as one of the Cradock Four. Goniwe encouraged the 12-year-old Luhabe to debate and it spurred her on to study at the University of Fort Hare, also in the Eastern Cape, followed by a stint at university in Lesotho. After some time in the corporate world, Luhabe became an entrepreneur.
“I want to be remembered as someone who touched lives, made a difference and gave back to society,” she says.
Luhabe, whose track record includes being founder of Bridging the Gap, a human resources and recruitment firm, is in the process of setting up microenterprises for women in the bakery industry in various communities in South Africa. She will pilot 300 bakeries in provinces including the Free State, Northern Province, Western and Eastern Cape.
Over the past 15 years, Luhabe has received international recognition from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland as a Global Leader of Tomorrow, the Osaka Junior Chamber in Japan as an Outstanding Young Person, Leadership in Practise by Unisa Business School in South Africa, and Woman of Substance by African Women Chartered Accountants.

The African Entrepreneur  And The Prince

It’s a feat getting three powerful women in the same room, at the same table, on a Monday morning. Louisa Mojela, Gloria Serobe and Wendy Luhabe make it seem everyday. They are hard-hitting businesswomen. Yet five minutes into the pleasantries, you get a different feel as you repeatedly hear the words ‘trust’ and ‘happy’.
Trust is what built their company, and happy is the attitude they sport, the clothes they wear and what they call their two-storied, artfully-appointed office in Johannesburg’s leafy Houghton suburb.
“It’s the happy house,” says Mojela, Group CEO and co-founder of WIPHOLD (Women Investment Portfolio Holdings), one of South Africa’s best-known first generation empowerment companies owned and led by women.
True to Mojela’s word, a visit to WIPHOLD House, and random conversations with smiling staff, from the secretary to the finance manager, reveals a camaraderie that appears not prompted, not effected. But this corporate haven has been built on the back of 20 years of trials, tribulations – and triumph.
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In its 20th year, WIPHOLD has a net asset value of more than $200 million; and this says a lot about a company that started with seed capital of $100,000 at a time when BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) was a little-known acronym.
At its core is a women’s empowerment model that has given financial power to grassroots black South African women from across the spectrum in Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. It’s a model that has stood the test of time, and the truth is, is still going strong, run by two of the four founders.
Today, WIPHOLD is 55% black owned, run with an all-female board, and as the first BEE company to establish permanent broad-based shareholding, has more than 1,200 direct and 18,000 indirect women beneficiaries through the WIPHOLD Investment Trust, more than 250,000 indirect women beneficiaries through the WIPHOLD NGO Trust, and is represented across South Africa. These days, it is also an operating company with interests in financial services, cement and coal.
But behind the WIPHOLD success is a story of grit, gumption and tireless tenacity. It is the story of four women, called the ‘Wip Four’ by the press in the early days, who founded a company weeks before a free South Africa was emerging from the dark shadows of apartheid.
Apart from Mojela, Luhabe and Serobe, the fourth founder, Nomhle Canca, is no longer associated with WIPHOLD, she left in 2002, but has fond memories of those early days (see box).
Luhabe, a thought-leader and mentor listed by FORBES as one of the most powerful women in African private equity, says their vision worked from the beginning because it was not about them.
“It was a vision to serve, to pioneer something that had not been done before, and because of that, it took us almost two years to get to a point we felt we had a sustainable business model. WIPHOLD’s vision is powerful because we didn’t rush into it,” she says.
“We wanted to build an institution that survives long after us. It also meant for a while we were the ones to add features to the baby,” says Serobe, CEO of Wipcapital and one of the two cofounders running WIPHOLD today.
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How they did it
WIPHOLD was formed in 1994, but the deliberations had started a year before, when it was apparent South Africa was on the cusp of a new world, one that would bring black South Africans into the mainstream. History was about to be made, and the ‘Wip Four’ wanted to spearhead it.
The epiphany came at a workshop in Johannesburg aimed at telling black business about the new opportunities opening up.
“That workshop was full of men,” says Mojela. Along with Serobe, Mojela was already working at the time at Standard Corporate &amp; Merchant Bank (SCMB) in Johannesburg, while Luhabe was an accomplished entrepreneur running her own company Bridging The Gap, which equipped black graduates with corporate skills.
And so it came to pass that in Luhabe’s small office in Melville in Johannesburg, the four met every Tuesday evening for 18 months, brainstorming over endless cups of tea, snacks and mangoes (when in season). Their vision took shape on the drawing board, slowly but surely.
At the heart of this vision were women from South Africa’s small towns and villages. Real women who were not numbers, but had names, jobs and who poured their sweat, blood and tears into their savings.
The vision was based on a simple premise: that these women would be given the opportunity to invest in South Africa’s biggest companies. So far, they knew only about savings, now they would learn about investments. “The enabling vision was created to give them a sense of ownership and empowerment at the same time, which is quite unique,” says Luhabe.
It is to WIPHOLD’s credit that for the last 20 years, it has been able to pay its shareholders dividends.
“Again, [we have been] very different from most empowerment models where only a few benefit. Our shareholders will confirm they have had benefits out of their investments,” says Luhabe.
David Shapiro, a Johannesburg-based investment expert and Director of Sasfin Securities, says WIPHOLD had an advantage as they had a head start.
“They started 20 years ago and stuck to it. They went through ups and downs but were fortunate. As early entrants, it allowed them to do prime deals. They are well-connected and highly competent ladies.”
The story of WIPHOLD cannot be told without harking back to the nineties, when the company reached its zenith. It was not easy doing business in a new South Africa.
“We underestimated the uphill [task] until we were in it. There was a big mountain to climb, and we had to break it down. Whether it was about meeting chauvinist or racist men, we knew this was the world we were getting into and we had to adapt with a lot of pain. The challenges were just too layered,” says Serobe.
Did the black brotherhood help? “One of our biggest challenges was our very own black brothers,” says Mojela. “We all came from historic disenfranchisement, and it was clear they were going to move ahead looking for these opportunities for themselves. But we thought, ‘we are big girls, we will hold our own hands; after all there was the four of us’.”
The rapport between the four didn’t happen overnight. It was built on a common vision. Mojela calls it the “glue” that bound them.
“The BEE was just an appendix for many of our male counterparts. For us, it is the reason for being,” says Mojela.
The first task was to come up with seed capital of $100,000. Each of the four founders had to chip in. Serobe was the first – helped by her young brother-in-law. Mojela was the last, taking three months to source funds from friends and family. “Credit to my partners [who waited],” she says.
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What ensued was two years of slog, covering South Africa’s nine provinces with roadshows, convincing the women it was time they took responsibility for their finances, and shift from savings to investment.
One of the first workshops was at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg. They told the women, although they were providers of labor and consumers of goods and services, they had no part in wealth creation.
“Our strength was in numbers. The minute we decided to use women in the plural, it was only befitting we went out and galvanized them,” says Mojela.
“We had to convince them what we were doing had integrity and their hard-earned monies were not going to be misused. We also had to convince the business community we knew what we were doing,” says Luhabe.
Skepticism also came from the corridors of power. “We had no political credentials. People asked, ‘who are you?’” says Mojela.
So they looked towards the private sector for counsel.
Although Mojela, Serobe and Canca came from the banking industry, they were venturing into a sector they knew little about. They looked to the few who bought into their vision. One such was Geoff Snelgar, who they call their ‘godfather’. He offered them his boardroom on 66 Marshall Street.
In 1995, Snelgar formed Baobab Solid Growth, a listed entity with a market cap of R30 million (approx. $8 million at the time) that would incorporate black shareholders. Snelgar met with a number of potential empowerment shareholders, including Mojela and Canca, when they shared their vision.
“I thought it was a fantastic vision and, just as importantly, I really liked these people and their story. We agreed I would reserve a 10% shareholding in Baobab until the ladies could afford to pay for it. It was a verbal arrangement, promised completely on trust. Where most empowerment men I spoke to were hesitant, the ladies were the only ones who said ‘Yes, we want in. Let’s do it’. Who would’ve thought such an ordinary downtown meeting would pave the way for such a tremendous profit?” says Snelgar, now Chairman of Capricorn Capital Partners UK Limited, in the recently-released book commemorating WIPHOLD’s 20 years.
Baobab’s share price kept rising, and its market cap went to R3.5 billion (approx. $574 million) over four years. Baobab eventually became Theta, which later became African Bank Investments.
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“If I could pinpoint one thing that impressed me most about WIPHOLD, it’s their integrity. A huge number of companies were set up under the auspices of broad-based economic empowerment – but were in actual fact a front for siphoning profit to a select few. WIPHOLD faced that choice many times. I remember the girls complaining about the lucrative opportunities they were missing out on. But they stuck to a vision that ensured their women beneficiaries were top priority,” says Snelgar.
“We have had to trade off certain things and let go of opportunities to make this work. We would have been billionaires as we speak if we hadn’t taken this route,” says Serobe. “We are both commercial and social, that’s why we are not billionaires,” adds Mojela.
Even as the ‘Wip Four’ were garnering female shareholders at the roadshows, they had to put something tangible on the table, and that was a portfolio of investments to the tune of R39 million (approx. $8.66 million) in 1997. The plan was a public offer for women only. This led to the creation of the foundation of WIPHOLD – the WIPHOLD Investment Trust.
“For every woman who subscribed in WIPHOLD in 1997, when we did the IPO, it fit that we created an investment trust they could participate in at no cost to them,” says Mojela.
The women were allocated units in the trust equating the number of shares they subscribed to in WIPHOLD. Mojela says it was important to form the trust as the custodian of the WIPHOLD vision with superior voting powers to WIPHOLD, just in case there came a point in the future when the company’s empowerment values were threatened.
The day the IPO opened is one none of the four founders will forget, as it was full of emotion and color.
“It was a very interesting day,” says Mojela. Cheques poured in from women from across the country, men called on behalf of their wives and daughters, and women from all walks of life, from madams to maids, streamed to their office in downtown Johannesburg holding affidavits., wanting to sign up. The two years of galvanizing them were finally paying off. In the end, it raised R25 million ($5 million).
“This was historic. Women had never raised that amount in the country. None of the BEE companies in existence then had. We were able to do that because we had prepared the ground in the first two years. The women were ready with their savings and wanted to participate,” says Luhabe.
And that was not all.
Next step was making the most of the opportunities.
“We needed R500 million (approx. $100 million) to take the company forward. There was an investment opportunity that required R250 million ($50 million) in 1998 so we went back to our shareholders with a ‘rights offer’. We knew it was going to be uphill, but the surprise was that in 12 months, these women were able to put R76 million ($12 million) on the table,” says Mojela. The remainder was privately placed with institutions.
With expansion and more investments came the challenge of adhering to the company’s original vision. “Institutions come with big cheques and big demands. Up until then, the company was 100% women, and now, we were diluted significantly,” says Mojela.
What entailed was a painful transition.
The institutions wanted liquidity. So WIPHOLD became the first women-only empowerment company to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in March, 1999. The net asset value of the company then was a whopping R1 billion ($162 million).
Making new ground
Up until then, WIPHOLD had been an investment portfolio company, so the founders decided to embark on financial services, an industry they knew on account of their backgrounds in finance. They took this strategy to the shareholders, who signed off.
“But as we implemented it, hell broke loose,” says Serobe.
The shareholders felt this was competition.
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“We were going to do things they did. They assumed we were miserable women who wouldn’t attempt anything more serious than micro-lending. Our idea was dwarfed in their heads. But we bought the top team of investment bankers – the Princeton and Stanford types – in the country. Our model now went head on with that of our shareholders,” says Serobe.
And this led to the genesis of Wipcapital in September 1999, which Serobe took charge of in 2001.
It was probably the most difficult phase for WIPHOLD, when it had to de-list in 2003. “It was a tense period,” says Mojela. “Business was not as expected, our salary bills were huge, we had to downsize, and were still hounded by shareholders. We had to go back to the drawing board. We decided the only salvation was to de-list from the stock exchange, return the cash to our shareholders and be left alone. In order to pay out, somebody needed to help us with hard cash. Ultimately, we got Old Mutual and did a scheme of arrangement.”
“We saw the original vision falling apart. The listing gave liquidity, but its downside was women had become a minority in their own company. The country and private sector weren’t ready for this. Through a scheme of arrangement, we bought off everybody including the women shareholders and brought them back into the shareholding via the trust,” says Serobe.
In 2005, WIPHOLD struck a headline-grabbing BEE deal with Old Mutual, which now owns 32.8% of the company.
“Starting from scratch after de-listing, WIPHOLD only had R166 million ($20 million) of [unlisted] assets. But today, we are a stable company with happy employees. We have grown from four to 40 employees, and will go from 40 to 400 in another 20 years,” says Mojela.
Miranda Feinstein, an executive consultant at Johannesburg law firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, who was the architect of and continues to chair the WIPHOLD Investment Trust, and has known the founders for a long time, says she has seen their will strengthen with every adversity.
“Along the way mistakes were made; at times institutions treated them somewhat dismissively, but they always bounced back. At times, I saw they were disconsolate but one of their greatest traits is endurance. To this day, the WIPHOLD Trust is making financial benefits available to its women beneficiaries,” she says.
To reinforce their original vision, WIPHOLD also created the NGO Trust, addressing projects for women and children. Its creation increased the number of women to more than 250,000 beneficiaries, while the beneficiaries of the original trust stood at 18,000 (all of who participated in the 1997 IPO).
Through the WIPHOLD Trust, 80% of its income and profits are distributed to beneficiaries, and the remaining 20% to charitable organizations dealing with women and children. The two trusts account for 32.5% of the group’s shareholding.
Nongovernmental organizations like Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC), a center that promotes the rights of women to live free of violence, confirm they receive significant financial benefits from WIPHOLD.
&#8220;Last year, we received R270,000 ($25,000) from WIPHOLD. Their benefits help a lot to meet our operational costs,&#8221; says Shireen Motara, Executive Director of TLAC.
Recognition has come from abroad as well. The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) business school in Switzerland has used the WIPHOLD model as a case study.
WIPHOLD is now taking the model internationally. “The WIPHOLD story can be replicated anywhere in the world. We are taking the same workshops we did in South Africa in 1994, to the rest of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique and Ivory Coast,” says Mojela.
WIPHOLD has partnered with Jidong Cement, a Chinese cement company, to build a plant in Limpopo, South Africa. Like financial services, the cement sector here is not known to be a business for women.
“But that’s exactly what excites us,” says Serobe.
The cement plant is a R3 billion ($280 million) project that will come online in 2015.
In 2009, WIPHOLD entered into a deal with Sasol Mining, leading to the creation of one of the first black-women controlled mining companies in South Africa, with 51% owned by WIPHOLD.
WIPHOLD has come far, and there have been other women-led investment companies like Nozala after them, but has the country been able to keep up?
“I can understood why 20 years ago, the captains of industry, our black brothers and the women behaved the way they did, but today, I have no patience for all three, especially women who don’t have the appetite to take on challenges. They fear trying. We had hoped in 1994 that by now, there would be many WIPHOLDs. Yet, 20 years later, in the same model, there is not another entity,” says Serobe.
The legacy they leave behind is not numbers, but a generation of African women who have learned to invest and be independent.

To The Power Of  Three

When South Africa marks 20 years of democracy next year, it will not be alone in celebrating. Wiphold, Women Investment Portfolio Holdings, will also mark 20 years of existence as the country’s first women-owned investment company.
In the early 1990s, after winning the political battle to ensure all South Africans had equal rights, the country’s leaders had to deal with an important challenge: how to include black South Africans meaningfully in the economy.
Louisa Mojela, Wendy Luhabe, Nomhle Canca and myself founded Wiphold to make sure that the women of South Africa were not excluded from this life-changing conversation.
Our women political leaders had done their best to ensure that gender rights featured in the Constitution. However, as a worldwide phenomenon, big business does not seem to be comfortable including women in executive discussions.
When we founded Wiphold, my colleagues and I were well aware of the challenges involved in including women in the mainstream economy.
Using our rare, privileged position, championed by the South African government’s policies, we deliberately tried to rearrange boardroom conversations all over the world.
Over the past two decades, I think it is fair to say that Wiphold has met its ambition of being a force to be reckoned with. The company is fully entrenched in its chosen industries: financial services (Old Mutual and Nedbank); coal mining (Sasol) and infrastructure (the construction of a cement plant). Wiphold has also left its mark on consumer goods and services, and on tourism and leisure. While there were many highlights during this 20-year journey, some experiences stand out as particularly memorable.
When we started out, we needed seed capital of $50,000. For young professionals from not-so-rich backgrounds, this was a lot of money, and family and friends came on board to help us. I remember that my young brother-in-law, Lazzy, who had just started his law articles, delayed buying himself a car in order to loan me $500.
Early on, when the South African government introduced Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) legislation to include black South Africans in the white-dominated economy, Wiphold approached a gold company. We offered ourselves as a unique BEE partner, trading on the fact that women are known consumers of gold. The CEO was impressed with our presentation and kindly offered us a rose garden project, which the company had undertaken as a corporate social initiative. We have never forgiven him.
Another BEE company was so impressed with Wiphold, that it offered us a merger. This was very flattering, except that the company had an Net Asset Value of almost $500 million, while Wiphold’s was a mere $3.5 million in comparison. It would seem that we were a nuisance that needed to be removed from the BEE playing field.
Perhaps the highest point in my career is when Wiphold listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1999. It was the first women-owned company to do so; further proof that we were pushing the boundaries.
Another high point was Wiphold’s decision to build a cement plant. Construction is traditionally a man’s domain – it is no rose garden – and I am proud that our company is comfortable enough to enter the sector.
Over the years, there have also been disappointments. A continuous frustration is what I see as women’s lackluster efforts to carve out a space, to coexist alongside men, in the world of business. I see it happen time and again here in South Africa and elsewhere in the world. We are not getting the traction we believe we deserve – and there are plenty of reasons why not.
It is not enough to complain that our male counterparts are not taking us seriously. In the end, this is a fight for survival, for women’s economic and financial independence. When it is successful, it translates into more harmonious relationships with men, free of financial dependency.
In the South African context, women have battled long and hard for emancipation – some have even given their lives in the fight for equal rights. The next phase is economic emancipation – and it is impossible to argue that there are no opportunities or a lack of economic platforms on which to do so.
As a pioneer in South Africa, Wiphold did not have the luxury of failing. The burden of the next generation of women entrepreneurs was on our shoulders. Success and excellence were not optional, but necessary.

How Gloria cracked the

On the day President Barack Obama made his State of the Union address earlier this year, American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought together almost the full complement of an elite group of 24 women in Washington D.C. It was the inaugural meeting of the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership. Among them were vice chair Cherie Booth Blair, a top lawyer and wife of the former British Prime Minister, and South Africa’s Wendy Luhabe, chair of Women Private Equity Fund.
Seated at a U-shaped table, Clinton outlined the purpose of the group: “…to hear from you and to get very specific ideas about what you think can help us boost growth, take some of the untapped resources and mobilize them, follow smart strategies to increase productivity, and add new value to companies and economies. Now, everyone is searching for answers to those questions, but not enough people realize that part of the answer, a large part of the answer, lies with women.”
Wendy Luhabe is already “hard at work with some totally radical ideas”. Within six months of the initial meeting, the women will report back, through four committees, with their findings on Access to Capital, Access to Markets, Capacity Building and Leadership Development.
A respected business woman, entrepreneur, board director and free thinker, Luhabe first drew attention when, along with three other women, she launched the first female-only black economic empowerment company in 1994, Wiphold—Women Investment Portfolio Holdings.
“Wiphold was really a response to our democracy, and observing that men were organizing themselves and they were excluding women. It felt like a perfect opportunity to do something for ourselves. It was a moment of choice—either we waited for some man who felt generous enough to invite us or we actually found out whether we could do it on our own. And the irony is that some of the initiatives that started then, the first generation of empowerment companies, don’t exist anymore. Wiphold is the only surviving initiative from that first generation of economic empowerment initiatives. With our initial offer, we were able to bring in 18,000 women as shareholders and investors for the first time. And it was unprecedented anywhere in the world,” says Luhabe.
The empowerment of women is very much a part of the mandate of the Clinton-initiated group, International Council of Business Women’s Leadership.
At the inaugural meeting the US Secretary of State told the women: “We all know the numbers. About 3% of the CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies are women. There are still a lot of obstacles to women entering. It depends, of course, on national, cultural, ethnic, religious reasons. But it cuts across all of that, and it is, to a greater or lesser degree, present in every society. So the challenge before us today—as we represent government, business, NGOs, workers, institutions—is what are the ideas that we can promote that can help women be able to fulfill their own potential. How do we widen that circle of prosperity to lift the entire global economy, women and men alike, and how do we, within our own organizations, do more to train and promote women to positions of leadership?”
Asked why she thought there were so few women in leadership positions, especially in business, Luhabe replied: “Because there are not enough women in the pipeline.”
Men have traditionally had a different, more defined road to the top. They started at entry level, and moved through the rungs into middle management and then senior management. Women were often uprooted from entry level and expected to cope at a level they had little or no experience with. Women should be encouraged to go through the same steps.
Then some industries attract more women than others. “It is not every industry that is attractive to women and it’s not every industry that wants to work with women. So I think we should accept that the opportunities exist for women and that women can choose what they want to study, which was not the case when I was at university, there were very limited options for women. And women can choose what professions they want to pursue, so we shouldn’t use the fact that women are not in those positions as a failure. Maybe women are just not interested. I’m sure there are instances where women are not rising through the ranks, but we are changing attitudes and stereotypes that have been around for many, many generations. It will take a while but women themselves have to believe that they can do a good job if not a better job and whether they want to do it. When they want to be in these positions, I think the opportunities are there for them.”
From an African perspective, Luhabe believes the time is right for a revolution of entrepreneurship, and that women are well placed to lead.
“My sense is to leapfrog the economy of the country in terms of growth, and in terms of creating new opportunities for future generations to participate; we actually don’t have an option but to generate almost a revolution of entrepreneurship. It already exists, but it is not formalized, it is not properly channeled, it is not properly resourced and supported. So my very naïve view, maybe romantic view, is that if you see what women already do in Africa, that they intuitively become entrepreneurs, I always wonder how much more we could realize as a continent if there was a systematic approach.
“Let us cultivate what already seems to have a seed, rather than be something that we’re not… We’re a mining economy—let’s see how we can leverage the mining economy and everything else that exists to start a completely new foundation for our economic existence that is not based on what MBAs or highly educated professors tell us what needs to be. I think we should always start from reality and say: What can we do with what we have?”
So often lately, Africa is optimistically labeled as the ‘next frontier’, but what exactly does that mean, Luhabe asks. Does it mean raping Africa of its mineral wealth, much more deliberately than in the past? Or does it mean enabling African people to find their place in the world?
“We need to define it ourselves, rather than wait for others to define it on our behalf. Maybe we should ask ourselves what we see as the potential of the continent and where we want to take it. You know visionary leaders who really have what it takes and who have the courage to take Africa to where it really deserves to be.”
Personally, Wendy Luhabe has taken a new direction in her career. After almost 20 years of sitting on boards as director or chair, she felt she was not really enjoying it anymore. The free-spirited Luhabe found private sector boards to be set in their ways.
Public sector boards were more appealing as they were more open to change and to the participation of women. “And their mandate since we became a democracy was a transformation mandate, so I found that in those boards I was able to do much more and contribute more and to change things a lot more than I feel I have been able to do in private sector boards.
“My philosophy is to be involved in things where I feel that I’m adding value, where I feel that my contribution is valued,” she says.
Although the development and empowerment of women and enabling them to find the courage to live their best lives on their terms is close to her heart, Luhabe is open to mentor young people, irrespective of gender: “If people find me and give me the honor of mentoring them and guiding their lives, I have a duty to respond to that.”
<div id="attachment_533" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-533" class="size-large wp-image-533" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Membership-photo-clinton-icwbl-1242012c-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="315" />Members of the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership gather for their inaugural meeting</div>
Luhabe’s involvement with promoting women in business has also extended to the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, an international business plan competition. As jury president of the sub-Saharan African panel, she has been part of shaping of the evaluation criteria that prioritize creativity, sustainability and social impact. Through the Initiative, Luhabe has witnessed the creative genius of hundreds of initiatives steered by women in different parts of Africa over the past six years.
Entrepreneurship is something that needs to be modeled. “When people look at what we’ve achieved as women, then they begin to believe that there are possibilities for their own lives. I think we should not underestimate how effective role modeling is. When Obama became president, can you imagine what it did for black people everywhere, not just in America? So there is an enormous power in when people who have been previously disadvantaged and who have not had access to certain positions assume those positions.
“But then, they also carry a huge responsibility because they have to consciously use those positions to not only be an inspiration as to how they conduct themselves, with respect to what they achieve through those positions, with respect to how they use those positions to change circumstances for the majority of people who will never become presidents. But maybe they can change the environment for a lot of people to achieve their own dreams.”
“In corporations, where people who have been exposed the most—generally white males get the most exposure at corporations, but when black people, black women and white women are exposed to the same opportunities or even projects that white males are, they develop much quicker,” she says.
She also believes that a sense of curiosity and adventure should be encouraged in young people, so that they can see the world and how it works and decide where they want to live and work.
But don’t discount the advantages of working in Africa. Looking at South Africa specifically, a lot of people who were educated here and ran various industries here have gone on to become global CEOs.
“We should not underestimate that South Africa offers an enormously fertile training ground for people because we have to deal with so many issues,” Luhabe says. “Our circumstances are very different from issues that people have to deal with in other parts of the world. People who studied overseas hopefully bring back some value, but I don’t necessarily think that they have such a huge advantage over people who have studied here, or whose work experience has only been here.”
Because education is so important to her, she formed the Wendy Luhabe Foundation shortly after writing the book Defining Moments. Royalties from the book, as well as other funds, are channeled into the Foundation and are used towards the education of disadvantaged people.
When she reports back to the International Council of Business Women’s Leadership, with her strong financial background, she will give input into insurance for women, among other things.

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