5 minute read
Dr Judy Dlamini
WITS REVIEW
JUDY DLAMINI
ANYTHING I CHOOSE TO BE
BY HEATHER DUGMORE
DR JUDY DLAMINI, MEDICAL DOCTOR, WITS MBA AND ONE OF SOUTH AFRICA’S MOST SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSWOMEN, ATTRIBUTES HER ACHIEVEMENTS TO HER PARENTS.
“I grew up in Westville, near Durban, at a time when it was a crime to have my complexion. Yet I was raised by parents who encouraged me to pursue my education and who told me I could be anything I chose to be.”
Dr Dlamini’s late parents – Rita Dlamini (born Ngwane) and Thomas Dlamini – refused to be broken by the apartheid system. Their strength, resilience and entrepreneurial spirit triggered their daughter’s success.
Now 57, Dr Dlamini is the founder and Chair of the Mbekani Group, based in Illovo, Johannesburg, where we meet in the boardroom. Her group celebrates its 21 st anniversary this year, and has grown to include a wide range of companies, including surgical equipment, facilities management, security, commercial property and luxury fashion retail.
Immaculately groomed and wearing Alexander McQueen, she talks about her parents and life with depth and candour.
“My mother was a primary school teacher and my father was an entrepreneur. My mother would run night schools at no charge to empower domestic workers. To supplement her teacher’s salary, she sold snacks at school and made children’s clothes, petticoats and jerseys, which she sold on weekends.
“My father started his own painting business and bought land where African people could in those days. He then built and rented out apartments, or ‘flats’ as we called them back then. He had typical African entrepreneurial flair, which apartheid erased in many people.” But not in her father and mother: “That is why I am so resilient; I never give up and I have been like that from birth. I had no choice; it was how I grew up.”
Her father passed away while she was waiting for her matric results, and never got to see his daughter graduate as a medical doctor and continue in his entrepreneurial footsteps.
Her group’s philosophy, Live Life Beautifully, is born of the awareness of life’s fleeting journey. Her success is the product of decades of hard work, long hours and ongoing academic advancement, including an MBA (Wits University, 1999) and a Doctorate in Business Leadership (University of South Africa, 2014).
She has profound experience of life’s triumphs and tragedies, including the loss of her son, Sifiso Nxasana (Wits BCom Hons 2008), in 2012. “An important aspect of living life beautifully is being able to continue to live with hope in our lives,” she explains.
“It is also about enjoying a good lifestyle, and, very importantly, it is about nourishing beautiful minds, a healthy body, giving back to society and empowering women.
“Women make up half of the world’s population and human capital and the world at large can only start to live life beautifully as a collective when 50% of the population achieves full equality.”
Her recently published book, Equal but Different: Women Leaders’ Life Stories, Overcoming Race, Gender and Social Class, based on her research for her doctorate, explores why leadership positions and boardrooms are still predominantly occupied by men. “Women account for only 4.4% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies (2015) and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is no different, at less than 3% (2015),” she says.
“All men, particularly those in leadership positions, need to contribute to changing the status quo and proactively partnering women in removing the barriers that are stopping women from rising to the top levels of corporate leadership,” explains Dr Dlamini. She credits her husband, Sizwe Nxasana, a leading businessman and one of the first black Chartered Accountants in South Africa, for his unqualified support of women’s empowerment and education.
Both of them support initiatives to grow quality education for lower-income South Africans, through their family’s Mkhiwa Trust.
Within the Trust, Nxasana heads the Sifiso Learning Group. One of its initiatives is Future Nation Schools, which is establishing private schools that charge affordable fees for lower-income groups. The first two schools in the Future Nation Schools group were opened in Gauteng this year and more will follow.
“Empowering women starts with quality education. They must be able to achieve their full potential as learners and students, to assume leadership positions in the future,” says Dr Dlamini.
“Within companies, stereotypes and prejudices need to be addressed as part of good corporate governance. If you only have minorities with the privilege to lead, you have very mediocre leadership.“If you have a pool of 100 potential leaders you have a greater chance of great leadership than if you have a pool of 10. It’s common sense, but too many people still refuse to acknowledge this or are too quick to cut down all women if one woman fails.
“As Barclays Africa Group Chief Executive Maria Ramos says, when a woman fails it is all women who have failed; when a man fails it is just that man. We need to get to the stage when one woman’s failure does not define what other women can achieve; it’s a process, but we need to accelerate it.”
She strongly advocates Africanness, foregrounding African issues and solutions, and elevating Africa to the world stage. As a reflection of this, one of her companies, Luminance, a luxury fashion chain, offers South African-origin labels such as MaXhosa, David Tlale and Clad Chic alongside major international names. And her in-store magazine, Luminance, showcases high fashion alongside pressing health issues, such as the dangers of skin lighteners and products that damage and lead to the loss of black hair.
“With my background as a medical doctor I am very invested in these issues,” says Dr Dlamini, “and what concerns me is that most of the pharmaceuticals come from first world countries and predominantly address first world problems. I am driving for African solutions for African problems.”
She says it’s critical to change the idea that our knowledge and innovations are inferior to those of the so-called developed world: “We need to celebrate our Africanness and our contribution to the world. We need to celebrate the beauty and diversity of our looks, complexions and beings. The process has started but I believe I will see this significantly advance in my lifetime.”
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF MBEKANI GROUP
Dr Judy Dlamini
Dr Judy Dlamini is the recipient of:
• The African Economy Builder Lifetime Achiever Award for 2016 from the African Economy Builder Forum
• The CEO Global 2016 award for Africa’s Most Influential Woman in Business and Government (Business and Professional Services) at regional and national level
• The 2016 Fabulous Woman Award, founded in 2013 by businesswoman Pontsho Manzi to celebrate the foundational principles of ethical womanhood. It’s the first award in South Africa to recognise both girls and women.
About free higher education
“The only way out of poverty is through quality education. Any self-respecting country has to be able to educate its poor, and this includes comprehensive free higher education for academically deserving students. Where I differ on the subject of free higher education for all is that I do not think my children should have free education, because I can afford it. Those who can afford it should pay.”
