For the past 20 years, Nthabiseng Mokoape-Motsepe - head of communications for Nissan Sub Saharan Africa - has broken glass ceilings, fought prejudice and forged new paths across the continent.
In the process, she has been left with a deep desire to lift as she rises; mentoring and coaching younger women – and men – as they pursue their own corporate careers.
“I was lucky, I had incredible female role models in my mother and my grandmother, as I grew up. They helped me and they guided me,’’ she says.
It was a tough start – Mokoape-Motsepe was a teenage mother. She gave birth to her eldest daughter Amo, a few days before her matriculation exams.
She brought up her child, went to university, graduated, married, and started a career as a corporate communicator.
There were no easy breaks. Her first job was at South African defence manufacturer Denel, a bastion of men, but even more so; apartheid-era military masculinity – and she was a black woman civilian.
“Working there I learnt how to work with different cultures in every sense possible,” she said.
“I developed a tenacity and a resilience that would serve me well in all my next appointments in different sectors and, perhaps crucially, I learnt to understand and respect both sides of a problem and help come up with solutions.”
It was a time of complex integration and change management, which would set her up well for her next assignment at the Land Bank and the as yet untransformed world of agriculture.
From there it was on to mining at Lonmin, Rio Tinto and Richards Bay Minerals; different minerals, different communities and even different countries as she travelled to Madagascar too, working for multinational miners head-quartered in the UK, Australia and India.
“I was appointed at the same time as the new CEO and we had to work hard together to understand and address the needs of the local communities, especially in Richards Bay.
‘’Looking back, it was the start of my exposure to stakeholder and community relations and a real mindfulness of the effect, good and bad, that companies have in the areas in which they operate,” she said.
Her experience encouraged her to start her own communications and strategic advisory consultancy, moving to India to help a mining company there prepare to invest in South Africa, while continuing to consult with the clients she had amassed back home.
It was during her work with Nissan, that Nissan Africa offered her a full-time appointment to support their plans to expand the manufacturer’s operations into Africa.
“The last seven years have been an incredible journey, working with wonderful people in 42 different countries, exposing them to a great brand through a range of innovative interventions, like leveraging the African Cup of Nations in 2015.”
But just as important has been Mokoape-Motsepe’s desire to give back, to lift as she rises. She says she has a few coaches and mentors in her life, men and women, and does the same in all aspects of her life.
Mokoape-Motsepe is grateful that when she started out in mining, she had a woman mentor, one of the very few in the industry.
This mentor had never had a female role model, so she made it her life’s work to be that for younger women climbing the career ladder.
“It was tough raising a child while I was still really a child and today, I am determined to be there not just for my two girls but for everyone who touches their lives, especially their friends. At work, I believe in teamwork. No leader can get an outstanding appraisal if their subordinates get below average rankings,” said Mokoape-Motsepe.
“I am because of others and I am an African, so you’ll understand when I say I live by the adage ‘if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together’. My dream is to go far, with the people around me, because they make me who I am.”
She said that you can only achieve the best within you if you have a community that you empower and that empowers you.
IOL Business