We would like to wish the WiBD community a Happy New Year as we begin International Woman’ month. When we started the South African chapter in November 2018, we did not envision that our growth would be significant during a pandemic. In the last year we were able to launch a virtual series of events where we connected on issues related to compensation, building new skills and partnering with ecosystem players in delivering game changing initiatives for the Women of South Africa. We went live with a YouTube channel where we intend to publish our events for those members who miss the live sessions.

In light of the pandemic, it has become apparent that being able to connect with our community virtually is our new normal. With this, we needed to relook at our engagement strategies and find new ways to incorporate them into our efforts to build a connected community. It is with this that we decided to the open door for women who would like to contribute to the growth of the South African chapter by volunteering their time as part of the Leadership team.

We would like to announce the addition of three members who joined the Leadership team at the tail end of last year.

 Maude Modise

Maude is the Divisional Financial Manager at Shoprite Group. She is a qualified chartered accountant with professional experience in the retail industry. Maude holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of North West. She will be working closely with the Deputy chair – Keneilwe as part of the Finance team. This function assists the team plan efficiently and to raise much needed funds that enable the community to delivery on its objective.

 

 

Nompumelelo Simango

(Mpumi), is the Communications Officer at the Economic Freedom Fighters. Her experience is in Strategic Communications, building strategies that increase brand awareness, promote customer engagement and ultimately drive web traffic and conversion in both the entertainment and political industry. She holds a Bachelor of Political Science and International Studies from the University of Pretoria. Mpumi will be working in our Digital Marketing team, to help drive effective communication to our community members and bring forth game-changing engagement with our members and strategic partners.

 

 

Nqobile Manqoba Zwane-Shabangu

Nqobile is a Junior Platform Engineer at Tentpole Data Sciences. She is passionate about Data Science and has experience in Telecommunications, Insurance and Public Sector industries. Nqobile will be working in the training and development team, working with Johanna to deliver on training initiatives that are geared at developing the technical and non-technical capabilities for the community.

We are grateful that Maude, Nompumelelo and Nqobile have joined us in our endeavor to connect, inspire and grow the community. We look forward to working with you ladies and making sure that our objective is achieved and impactful for all of us.