The telecom industry has seen impressive growth with increased connectivity and easier access to financial and digital services, yet the gender gap in leadership has remained significant. Could it be that SA’s telecom’s boards, led by male chairpersons, have no faith in women to lead?
Gender equality is no longer a nice-to-have policy but a business imperative to achieve greater heights.
Tuesday was Women’s International Day — a global day to celebrate the achievements of women while highlighting the urgency of realising gender equality. However, the urgency towards gender equality seems absent in the SA telecom industry. While the world commemorated women under the hashtag #BreakTheBias, I wondered whether SA’s telco space would open soon for female CEOs.
It’s a shame because the last big telco to have a woman CEO was Telkom when Pinky Moholi was at the helm from April 1 2011 to April 2013. Since then, no female has been appointed CEO for any of the leading telcos. SA’s two biggest telcos — Vodacom and MTN have never appointed women as CEOs.
Struggling Cell C, which has seen a fair share of revolving doors for CEOs, also trusts males more than their female counterparts. Rain Networks and Liquid Intelligent Technologies SA (formerly Neotel) firmly put their trust in men.
What is so odd is that even MTN, which has a great succession plan, has never entrusted a woman with running the business, not even its local operation. Perhaps this is no surprise, considering that telcos have been a male-dominated industry for so long and few see the anomaly.
Reinforcing perception
Strangely, the boards of Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom are happy to appoint female executives as CFOs. The implication is that female telco executives are only good enough to be number crunchers. It cannot be correct and needs urgent attention.
The finances of SA’s biggest mobile operator, Vodacom, are controlled by Raisibe Morathi, who joined the Vodafone-owned telco in 2020. She is an excellent asset to Vodacom as she is able to help the telco with her financial services experience to navigate the mobile money space, which continues to grow exponentially. At the same time, Tsholofelo Molefe was poached in December 2020 from Telkom to join MTN Group as CFO, reinforcing the perception that telco CEO positions belong to boy’s club members.
For now, female executives must be content with being CFOs.
A look at telco and tech companies in the JSE top 40-listed companies reveals the same domination by males. Naspers, MTN, and Vodacom are led by men. However, Naspers’s local operation bucks the trend and is led by a female boss — Phuti Mahanyele-Dabengwa. Kudos to Naspers for having faith in such a fine woman leader.
But these big tech companies have a long way to go to appoint female CEOs. MTN and Telkom recently appointed male CEOs.
Meanwhile, Vodacom seems happy with the performance of Shameel Joosub, who has created immense value for shareholders.
MTN has a good crop of potential future female CEOs for the group and its local operation, such as Yolanda Cuba and Mapula Bodibe. Outside SA, MTN has great female leaders such as Mitwa Ng'ambi (MTN Rwanda CEO) and Eliane Houphouet-Boigny (MTN Guinea-Bissau).
Vodacom has Mariam Cassim who is excelling in her position.
Blowing furiously
Gender equality activists and sympathisers must keep their fingers crossed in the hope that one of these competent woman executives will lead one of Africa’s big telcos sooner rather than later.
Globally, the winds of change are blowing furiously. In January, Europe’s giant telco Orange named Christel Heydemann as its first female CEO, replacing disgraced head Stephane Richard. He was ousted after being convicted of the complicity in misusing public funds while working in the French government. Heydemann’s appointment is with effect from April 4.
It is more shocking that almost 30 tech and telco companies listed on the JSE have no female CEOs. Yet, five of these companies have woman CFOs: Jasco, EOH, Etion, Huge, and ISA. This proves again that aspiring to be a CFO as a female executive is feasible, but being a CEO still seems a bridge too far.
Clearly, the telco and tech spaces are not empowering enough female leaders.
So what should be done? Adri Führi, group CFO at fintech specialist e4, argues: “We cannot expect the gender gap to close on its own. It is only through investment in girls’ education in Stem, with a focus on technology, that we will create a sustainable pipeline of future IT-qualified employees and leaders.
“Creating gender parity also involves identifying women in tech with the necessary competencies to fulfil leadership roles through mentoring, coaching, and identification of opportunities within an organisation.
“Ultimately, walking the talk on gender equality, diversity, and empowerment in SA tech requires intentional action and strategic leadership.”
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