Women in business 'too cautious'
Richard Mantu
11 March 2005
A leading African businesswoman has called on women to move away from a "safety net" and start taking risks if they wish to succeed.
Titi Banjoko, a member of Women in Business International and founder of AfricaRecruit, says that while women are right to cry foul at their lack of access to finance and skills development, they ought to learn to take risks.
"While we are beginning to see many women CEOs as good success stories to inspire other women, women should learn to take risks ... to learn to be in positions to deal with profit and loss", Banjoko said.
Banjoko was speaking at the two-day Women in Business International Forum in Johannesburg last week.
The event, attended by businesswomen from South Africa and abroad, was co-sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), First National Bank, MTN and the Commonwealth Business Council.
It has been organised by Women in Business International, a non-profit
organisation based in the UK, in conjunction with the South African Women Entrepreneurs' Network, a DTI initiative.
Tanzanian Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Rita Mlaki said women should break through the cultural and social stereotypes that chained their entrepreneurial spirit.
The sooner women freed themselves from cultural bondage and myths, the sooner they would be empowered, Mlaki said, citing for example the view that women should eat less at a function, or that they should be shy and introverted.
Once you adhere to such a culture, Mlaki said, "you begin to regard yourself as inferior to men. These things really take us behind."
Mlaki said the problem in Tanzania was that women lacked entrepreneurial culture, saying that, as with many African women, the only business they would enter into was when "we fend for our family".
SA Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks called on leading businesswomen to mentor aspiring businesswomen,
saying that the DTI, together with Women in Business International, would be creating a mentoring programme for future businesswomen in South Africa and the pan-African diaspora.
The programme, she said, would involve an international board of experts and successful business people provinding support, encouragement and advice to businesswomen on a professional and personal developmental basis.
South African businesswomen, just like businesswomen elsewhere in the world, were "still a reservoir untapped, needing and worthy of being discovered", Hendricks said.
Source: BuaNews
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