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Female Founder Initiative Botswana Propels At Empowering Women In Business
By Chedza Mmolawa
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– Michelle Obama.
After years of her capability in business was constantly undermined by her male counterparts, Cindy Matlapeng made a power-driven decision to prove her naysayers wrong by registering a non-profit organization dubbed ‘The Female Founder Initiative Botswana,’ with a sole mandate of empowering women in business. The idiom 'Dynamites Come in Small Packages' could not be more fitting to Matlapeng. She is a young voracious CEO and a leader in corporate women empowerment; at the age of 23, she founded her first company, 'The Office Team Cleaning Services,' where she is also the Managing Director. And three years after, she established a construction company called ‘Built Contracting and Associates Company.’
The Female Founder Initiative Botswana (FFIB) aspires to see women-led businesses succeed in alleviating poverty, gain prosperity and improve the economy of Botswana by the year 2039. It is based in Gaborone but offers its programs and services to the rest of the country. The Non-Governmental Organization aims to empower women in business through voluntary business discussions and mentorship programs. The organization also aims to source funds for women who have the ideas but lack financial support to start-up or expand their businesses. It’s first pilot program, Mosadi Khumo Entrepreneurship Program, launched in August 2021.
ABOUT CINDY MATLAPENG TRC: May you kindly give us a background of who you are? CM: Most people are always shocked when they meet me in person because that's when they realize just how petite I am. Don't be fooled by my size! I am a strong-willed, ego-driven woman who is here to de-stigmatize any notion that women are not capable of building corporate empires. I am a 29-year-old
Motswana woman with a Bachelor in Commerce (Bcom), Banking and Finance. I have always been headstrong, and I always made the most unconventional decisions. When I was studying form 5, I decided to drop out of day school three months before final exams. I started home school so that I could sit for the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) instead of the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) that I had enrolled in. My mother always believed in me, she supported my decision, and I passed form 5 with good grades and went on to study for my degree. This is pretty much how I have made most decisions in my life since then. Most people call me a risk-taker.
TRC: Kindly share your entrepreneurial journey with us. CM: Funny story, I never liked Banking and Finance, and I did not enjoy studying it; it was too challenging. Granted, it has somehow contributed to my business acumen today, but it was never my passion. When I graduated, I worked as an intern for Bidvest Steiner Botswana, a cleaning company, and the job was not challenging at all. The job was quite boring, so I made the decision to leave, and I stayed home for almost four months. I could not cope because I am a thrill seeker, my mind is always working, and luckily for me, I got headhunted by Botswana Post for a position in Financial Technology. I worked as a FinTech Administrator for two years, but unfortunately, we got retrenched because of internal problems. After getting retrenched, I decided to register my own cleaning company with the knowledge I had gained at Bidvest, and I fell in love with it. This proved something I had always known and felt, which is that, I am an entrepreneur at heart. Shortly after starting my cleaning services company, I registered my construction company, and now we are at Female Founders Initiative Botswana.
FEMALE FOUNDER INITIATIVE BOTSWANA TRC: What inspired you to start the Female Founder Initiative Botswana? CM: When I got my first big construction job in Kasane, I met this gentleman who always saw me making my trips between Kasane and Gaborone. He stopped me one morning to ask if my boyfriend was the one running the construction project. And when I told him it was all me he insisted that there has to be a man in my life who is behind the project and I was fronting for him, this did not sit well with me because I felt undermined. I felt a need to empower more women in business so that we can prove that women can be successful without having to be attached to a man. And that was the thrust behind the inception of Female Founder Initiative, a program which also aims to remove women from poverty and obliterate the backward mentality that a woman's place is only in certain professions like nursing or teaching. Under our flagship program, ‘Mosadi Khumo Entrepreneurship Program,’ we aim to establish this. I have a partner, Nametso Manyepedza, who is the Vice President of FFIB.
MOSADI KHUMO ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM TRC: Take us through the Khumo Mosadi Entrepreneurship Program CM: When women support each other, incredible things happen, and we, as the founders of Female Founder Initiative Botswana, believe that for us to win and gain prosperity, we have to hold each other's hands instead of hating each other. The Khumo Mosadi Entrepreneurship Program was our flagship program under Female Founders Initiative, and it was a trial and error kind of launch. We launched it on the 14th of August 2021. It is a 6-week voluntary discussion hosted via zoom, which gathers together mentors and mentees to unpack topics such as business leadership, business finance, investment, and exports, to name a few, to enhance and improve the mentees' business soft skills. What makes this initiative different is that at The Female Founder Initiative Botswana, the team believes in fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as a way to envision 2030, 'Building on leaving no one out of Prosperity.' The SDGs that the organization aligns with are; Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 5: Gender Equality, Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, and lastly Goal 17: Partnerships to develop the goal.
The first cohort was an incredible success; we had powerful women in leadership positions that came to give talks and mentorship to our mentees. Women such as Mantlha Sankoloba, the BEMA CEO talked about trade issues; we had Neo Mahube from SEZA, who came to share her business leadership skills, and Gomolemo Lolo Madikgetla as a keynote speaker. Most women in power came to share their skills and experiences in business. Our cohort intake was from all industries in Botswana; these included mentees from the fashion industry, and some from the health industry.
TRC: What can we look forward to in the next leg of the Mosadi Khumo Entrepreneurship Program? CM: We are currently working on hosting our next cohort scheduled for August this year. Registration is open and ongoing; we are excited to have an in-person graduation ceremony because we didn't have one last year due to COVID-19 restrictions. I implore all female entrepreneurs in the country to register and expand their knowledge and skills in business. It is also a great networking platform for diversity and growth.
Cindy Matlapeng
