SMag Women of the Year issue | Meet Itumeleng Monale, the JSE powerhouse

Intentionality, a willingness to learn, grit, and a lot of hard work are among the traits that got Itumeleng Monale (46) — chief operating officer (COO) at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) — to the top.

Monale spent her school years living with her grandmother, a domestic worker, in the Joburg suburb of Victory Park and her weekends with her parents in Meadowlands, Soweto.

This arrangement was due to access — Monale was enrolled at Holy Cross Convent, which was a short walk away from her grandmother’s employer house. Her mother was so determined that she attend the school that, when she missed the cut-off for grade 1 registration, she homeschooled Monale and then enrolled her in second grade. Monale later studied biochemistry and genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand, graduating in 1999.

In 2021, she obtained an executive MBA through the TRIUM Global Executive MBA programme, facilitated by the NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris School of Management and London School of Economics.

In 1999, Monale had hoped to make impactful social change through her biochemistry degree with a special focus on HIV/AIDS research. This proved difficult, however, as no company in the country was funding such research. “The only opportunities for a person who had studied what I did was from FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] companies.

You know, I went to university to try to make a difference to society and have a social impact, but the only organisations willing to hire me for the skills I had, at the time, were the ones that made soap and beer and things of that nature. It didn’t feel aligned,” she explains.

So, faced with the knowledge that she would have to adjust her dreams, Monale had a serendipitous encounter on campus with recruiters for a management consultancy firm. “There was this one campaign by a company now called Accenture and they were distributing Liquorice Allsorts on campus, with a note saying, 'We take all sorts,’ which was attractive to me. I applied and I was taken.”

This was the start of Monale’s remarkable career. She worked for the company for six years, starting out as an analyst in the strategy business unit and ending up a senior manager. Her work involved helping various organisations in different industries solve their business problems.

“I was exposed to very senior people at a very early stage. I got to almost be a fly on the wall in boardroom conversations, [which helped me] understand how captains of industry thought, the types of conversations they were having, the types of problems they were trying to solve, and I participated in finding solutions to those problems. I think that was the best start I could have had,” she says.

Armed with this experience and still hoping to have social impact through her work, Monale was excited about the prospect of joining Standard Bank, as it would mean working to help the broader South African society. “I ended up at Standard Bank not because I chose financial services but because the role was a strategic one focused on mass-market banking, which aligned strongly with my social-impact principles,” she says.

“The prospect of finding financial solutions for the man on the street and people who were historically marginalised and didn’t have any financial offerings and products available to them really excited me.”

Her tenure at Standard Bank lasted for 16 years. Monale, now married with three children, admits that while climbing the corporate ladder she had to be deliberate about having children — at the time, corporate culture was such that a lot of women feared falling pregnant, believing that taking maternity leave would make it difficult to advance career-wise.

So, she intentionally timed her pregnancies after receiving certain promotions. She has been COO at the JSE for three and a half years.

She juggles her job with being a mom and says that balancing work and family is up to the individual. Even the definition of what that balance is, is up to the individual.

“Balance means I can fulfil the roles that I need to, in the manner that I need to. It might mean that, at that moment, something else suffers, but in the more immediate timeframe, I’ve touched everything and feel that I’ve fulfilled those things,” she adds. It also means taking some alone time so she can recharge. Monale was an IBM Global Women in AI Honouree in 2020 and named one of the top 100 Global Data Visionaries of 2020.

She says being a woman in the corporate space, especially a woman of colour, has its challenges — you have to prove yourself to everyone you meet, whereas men are just assumed to be capable. She advises young women to be very “intentional about [their] own security”, by putting themselves first, taking every opportunity given to them, applying themselves diligently to tasks, and never looking down on anything presented to them.

“Every second is an interview and you never know who is watching,” she says.She goes on to mention that the JSE focuses on empowerment, and so has a lot of initiatives geared towards young people. One of which she is particularly proud is called #SheInvests, which is aimed at women and is held annually in August — it will be in its seventh iteration in 2024.