Embrace The New Chapter

December 12, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Nontobeko Mbuyane

The past week was surely not an easy week for me, strangely nothing much happened but I completely broke down. I remember I even sobbed on the phone when my partner called. The most painful part is not even being able to be around to at least provide the emotional support I so much needed. It was after a few days when I regained my composure that I realized that indeed nothing new had happened on the day I broke down, but I have been carrying around so much emotional baggage that suddenly there was no room anymore, thus it all burst out.

Nkem Okocha, an award-winning entrepreneur changing lives through FinTech

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Lioness Weekender Cover Story

Mamamoni, a Nigerian FinTech social enterprise empowering low-income women with skills and small loans

Nkem Okocha is a serial award-winning social entrepreneur and the founder of Mamamoni in Nigeria, a FinTech social enterprise that empowers low-income rural-and-urban slum women with free vocational and financial skills, and small loans. She is passionate about the change that is possible from investing in poor women in underserved communities. Nkem’s vision is guided by the saying that, "No woman chooses to be poor, but we can choose to help poor women by investing in them". Mamamoni has impacted over 10,000 low-income women in Nigeria, and she has won many awards, local and international, for her work with women. Nkem is a 2015 Tony Elumelu Foundation Alumna, 2016 outstanding LEAP Africa Social Innovator, Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) alumna, GSBI® accelerator Alumna and a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow, A 2020 Innovative Justice Accelerator fellow and She is passionate about Women Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Bright Asiimwe Wandera, a serial retail and hospitality entrepreneur in Uganda

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Bright Asiimwe Wandera, founder and CEO, Plum Cafe and Restaurant (Uganda)

Startup Story

Bright Asiimwe Wandera is the founder and CEO of Plum Cafe and Restaurant in Uganda. She’s a serial entrepreneur with interests in retail chain and hospitality. She’s an alumnus of Africa Women Entrepreneurs Cooperative and Stanbic Bank Uganda Business Incubator. Bright runs two supermarkets and most recently a high-end restaurant with two branches. Bright founded Plum Cafe and Restaurant this year in February 2021 after testing a restaurant model in 2020 that was attached to one of her supermarkets.

Susan Nel, an entrepreneur in Namibia who turned her passion for photography into a successful business

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Susan Nel , founder, Susan Nel Photography (Namibia)

Startup Story

There is nothing quite as powerful as a great photographic image that captures life and work’s key moments, and in Namibia, Susan Nel and the photography business that carries her name, is doing just that. Whether it’s recording on camera a beautiful wedding, or creating a powerful image of a product that can spearhead a marketing campaign, Susan knows just how to get the right shot for the occasion.

Lioness Launch / Botswana’s agri-processing brand, Lemon & Vinegar, launches its new chutney product

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Lioness Launch

Lemon & Vinegar Pty Ltd, founded by entrepreneur Thato Angelina Gabaitse, is an agricultural production and processing company launched in 2014, in Botswana. The business has built a reputation for generating value by leveraging the creativity of partnering with local suppliers in its processes. The company produces a variety of products including beef biltong, fruit jam, and conveniently dried and packaged trail mix snacks. The latest product to be launched is a new Green Tomato Chutney - a must have for the fine dining experience and a great addition for the cheese board!

The Invisible Entrepreneur: From Mental Health to Mindset by Tabatha Barron

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Book Review

For Tabatha Barron, author of The Invisible Entrepreneur, she found it amazing how many women have various experiences of feeling invisible, that challenge their individual circumstances from childcare to employment to just being heard during medical visits, let alone becoming entrepreneurs. Her book gives voice to the stories of strong, courageous, impactful, resilient women and the skill sets they used to move through their entrepreneurial journeys, whilst taking care of their mental health and improving their mindsets.

‘Tuko Pamoja’ - “We are in this together” / ‘Ubuntu’ - "I am because we are”

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

By Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

The South African Scientific Community have done it again. They have found the next variation of Covid19. Following the Greek Alphabet in naming each new variant, the WHO jumped a couple of letters and named it Omicron.

The Best Gift of the Season…

December 4, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Ashika Pillay

So many mixed emotions, as I think back on 2021. Many ups and oh so many downs! Not a rollercoaster, more like an ocean with calm then chaos and everything in between! When I look back on this year, I think it has been deeply transformative for many of us, where we’ve met the edge of our comfort, often thrown into spaces we did not know we could endure.

Starting something

December 4, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Thembe Khumalo

I am a person who likes to start things - conversations (if I hear anyone in the supermarket speaking Ndebele I feel compelled to join in), friendships, projects, songs, businesses, stories…. I just love the energy that comes with new beginnings. The planning and preparations, putting tools, and people and ideas together, all give me a high that is unlike anything else I have experienced. And so of course, I tend to start a lot of things.

4 Legal documents every (properly adulting) adult should have sorted out

December 4, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Sinal Govender and Claire Keet

There are a lot of wonderful things that come with adulthood. The freedom of finally being able to drive. And vote. And become a director in a company. And change your name. By law, you are no longer considered a minor. With adulthood, however, comes a whole lot of responsibility - including making sure that you have your “ducks in a row”.

10 Lessons That I Have Learned In My Career

December 4, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Naike Moshi

If there's one thing we all have in common, it's that we all make mistakes along the way (and hopefully learn valuable lessons from them). But if you're smart, you'll learn as much as possible from the mistakes of others and spare yourself some of the grief. Some of these lessons can applied whether you are employed, self- employed or unemployed.

The Bliss Point of Entrepreneurship by Anna Pugačova

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Book Review

For all those who feel they have been struggling in their businesses for a long time and cannot see results, help could be at hand in the book, The Bliss Point of Entrepreneurship, from business and neuroscience coach and educator, Anna Pugačova. If you are looking to reclaim your entrepreneurial spark and start living the life you really want to live, this could be the book for you.

Lioness Launch / South Africa’s BWGL Group (Pty) Ltd, launches its new range of 100% Natural and Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Products

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Sibongile Mthimunye, founder, BWGL Group (Pty) Ltd (South Africa)

Lioness Launch

Both businesses and households know the importance of maintaining clean, safe and healthy environments for people to work and live in. That means ensuring they are cleaned regularly with effective products that are good at cleaning and disinfecting, and also kind to the environment. In South Africa, entrepreneur Sibongile Mthimunye, founder of BWGL Group (Pty) Ltd, is launching a range of powerful yet environmentally friendly cleaning products for every type of environment.

Mbaliyethu (Lisa) Mthethwa and Masibonge (Lona) Mnguni, award-winning South African agroprocessing entrepreneurs

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Startup Story

Frutee Belliez is a South African agroprocessing business founded by sisters Mbaliyethu(Lisa) Mthethwa and Masibonge (Lona) Mnguni. They have over 10 years’ experience as entrepreneurs, and their company focuses on processing fruits and vegetables and supplying them to industrial kitchens, as well as catering companies. They have won numerous awards with the most recent being Top Processor in KZN in the Department of Agriculture Female Farmer Entrepreneur Competition in 2018.

Annie Sibindi Muronda, a disruptive clothing manufacturer with a big vision

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Lioness Weekender Cover Story

Rufaro Garments, an African school uniform manufacturing business making great garments affordable

Annie Sibindi Muronda is the founder and managing director of Rufaro Garments based in South Africa, and has overall executive management responsibility for the company. Annie has a BSc in Actuarial Science from the University of Nebraska and an MBA with a specialization in Finance from DeVry University. She began her career in the financial services space where she consulted at US based global management consulting firms Towers Perrin, Mercer Consulting and Watson Wyatt. It was here that Annie gained valuable experience in solving problems for clients and discovered a talent for operational management of large businesses. After immigrating to South Africa in 2010, Annie joined an actuarial benefits consulting firm as a senior consultant where she helped establish it as rising star in the retirement fund valuation and administration space.

“Inopem me copia fecit!”, or abundance makes me poor

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department

Without doubt the greatest playwright this world has ever known, not least because his plays delve deep into the psyche of the human mind and thereby stay relevant for all age, William Shakespeare knew a thing or two about decision making and their consequences, intended or otherwise. From the horrific decision by Macbeth to kill the King; to the indecision of Hamlet fighting with his thoughts and morals (to kill the King); to the madness of King Lear following his insistence that his Daughters tell him which loves him more; to the jealous decisions of Othello utterly convinced that his wife is cheating on him; to the horrific unintended consequences of Romeo and Juliet, with both dead in the end (he wrote so many incredible plays, we should perhaps stop there!). But decisions rule our lives.

Real Power is Personal Power

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Thembe Khumalo

Here’s a quick story. It's about a young women called Lerato who had a very successful career, following an equally successful time at Harvard Business School. She had made a name for herself working in some of the most exciting, sexiest organisations on the continent - starting at Jumia, moving on to MTN, working closely with Dangote himself, promoted to the C Suite at Coca Cola. She was a devoted and loyal executive - and she had the salary, perks and power to reflect this. She joined a fashionable, but credible church where she quickly became a deaconess. People wanted to hear from her. Doors opened magically in her wake. She felt powerful.

4 Ways to Make a Good First Impression

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Clementina Busayo

Has anyone ever asked you after you became friends what your first impression about them was? A friend asked me, and the truth is I didn't give an answer because I couldn't remember what our first meeting was? Blame it on me for not being observant or on him for not being impressionable.

Up at 3

November 28, 2021 Melanie Hawken

by Brigette Mashile

It is 5 minutes to 3am and I’m up. I have taken a shower; made tea and I am writing. Not one thing seems wrong with all of it, I am happy in this moment. I have trained my brain to believe that somewhere in the world it is midday, and they are making lunch! The only reason it is night is because the sun is on the other side, so honestly it could be day here too now…no? Ok, fine, you may sleep but let me be.

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