Lioness Business Agility Event Report
The first in the annual series of popular Lioness Business Agility Webinars for 2023 took place on Wednesday 15 February. Hosted in partnership once again with Absa, the theme of “New Year, New Growth” was firmly at the forefront of women entrepreneurs’ minds. With 100 attendees to kickstart the conversation, together with a speaker panel of highly experienced women entrepreneurs from the Lionesses of Africa community in South Africa, the discussion focused on how to achieve real and lasting growth this year. Specialist insights also came from Ronnie Mbatsane, managing executive, SME Business at Absa, who shared how the bank is supporting the growth of women entrepreneur-led SMEs in order to further stimulate economic growth and job creation.
The first Lioness Business Agility Webinar of 2023 launched with regular host, Nomalanga Sitole, the Lioness Enterprise Ambassador, who as always, encouraged attendees to engage and share their insights and experiences of the morning’s event with their own networks. Nomalanga was assisted once again with the wonderful Thuli Zikalala, founder of Yellow Owl, who undertook the important task of signing for our deaf audience members. Thuli is a great member of Team Lioness and makes our great webinar content accessible to everyone, ensuring no woman entrepreneur is left behind.
Lionesses of Africa founder and ceo, Melanie Hawken, welcomed attendees to the event and spoke about the need for a mindshift into the Growth Zone if women entrepreneurs are to really achieve their growth goals for 2023. She shared some insights from other women entrepreneurs who have achieved significant growth over the past year, and practical advice on how to develop a growth mindset for the year ahead.
Next on the programme was Ronnie Mbatsane, managing executive, SME Business, at Absa. A familiar face to regular Lioness Business Agility webinar attendees and a real champion of women entrepreneurs, he understands the power of building growth businesses that make a difference in the country. Ronnie shared insights and advice on how the bank can assist women entrepreneurs to better understand their needs whilst on their growth journeys, and extended an invitation to each attendee to reach out and set up individual meetings and conversations with Absa banking team specialists.
As always at each of the Lioness Business Agility Webinars, an inspirational woman entrepreneur is invited to share her startup story with attendees. At this first event of the year, it was the turn of the highly experienced and successful Ramaisela Beauty Monene, founder of Monenebe to come and talk about her entrepreneurial journey. Her business is on a mission to be the preferred service provider for plant hire, logistics and other plant maintenance services in South Africa. Beauty shared her inspirational story of how she built her business and brand, and also about her plans for the future, including mentoring the next generation of women in her family.
A popular part of the programme is always the Panel Discussion, featuring highly experienced and successful women entrepreneurs who share their insights on the topic of the morning. Joining the panel were Thokozile Mangwiro, founder of Nilotiqa Haircare; Georgina de Kock, founder of Munch Innovations; Sewela Setshogoe, founder of Lefata Engineering; and Mamela Luthuli, founder of Take Note IT. What do all these incredible women entrepreneurs share in common? They have built high growth businesses, they are creating economic opportunities, and importantly, they are also creating much needed jobs in the country. These amazing panelists were joined by Beauty Monene, the opening guest speaker.
Thokozile Mangwiro shared how her business has expanded into mainstream high street retail outlets, and about her experiences of building relationships with large scale retail to sell her popular haircare products. Georgina de Kock, founder of Munch Innovations shared how her business is disrupting plastic pollution, producing wholesome edible crisp wheat bowls known as 'Munch Bowls' and giving consumers an alternative to single-use Plastic/Styrofoam bowls to help reduce plastic waste. She shared her strategy of growing a niche brand, and particularly building a customer base through direct communications and customer engagement/activation. Sewela Setshogoe, founder of Lefata Engineering shared her approach to building key relationships with her clients so that her business can better serve their needs and tailor-make products and services according to their specifications in order to achieve growth. Finally, Mamela Luthuli, founder of Take Note IT, the specialist cyber security business, talked about how she differentiates and positions her business for growth in such a competitive industry sector.
Having heard all these stories from the amazing panelists about what it takes to build a high growth business that also creates opportunities for others, Ronnie Mbatsane returned to share feedback on what Absa is doing to support women SMEs as they grow. Also, what other women entrepreneurs with big growth visions need to do to start building those important relationships with banks and financial advisory specialists like Absa to help them on their own growth journeys.
As always the morning session wrapped with a Q & A with the audience, with questions put to both the panel members and to Ronnie and Beauty. Everyone in the chat feedback during the webinar agreed they had all learned something the could apply to their own business growth journeys going forward.
For more information on the Lioness Business Agility Webinar programme for 2023 and the next scheduled event in April, contact natalie@lionessesofafrica.com