Inspiring women in business – a focus on the JSE

The fearless leaders of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) cover a special SMag digital cover in honour of Women's Day. Itumeleng Monale, 46, is the chief operating officer (COO) at JSE and last Friday was named SMag's Woman of the Year in Business. On the digital cover, she is joined by Fawzia Suliman and Alicia Greenwood. Here is why they inspire us:

Fawzia Suliman

Suliman, 52, mastered the art of curiosity early in life and that became her driving force. The chief financial officer at JSE remembers how her quiet and steady upbringing in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, allowed her to dream of seeing the world and bettering her community.

She was born to a businessman father and a seamstress mother with six siblings – all girls. Suliman knew that to fulfil that childhood yearning, education and a good job would be her ticket.

Suliman is a qualified charted accountant; she has worked at KPMG, StanLIB Asset Management and spent 21 years at a stockbroking firm that she eventually became CEO of. She has been at the JSE for more than 18 months now.

Over the phone she’s calm and gentle as we speak, she refers to herself as being down-to-earth and a problem solver.

“I am one of those people that believe that you make a decision every morning when you wake up in terms of whether you’re going to be happy or not,” she says.   

She has tremendous belief in herself, stating that through discipline and hard work, there is nobody who can outwork her. Yes, there are disappointments and failures, but those moments act as a catalyst to ensure that she works harder.

As CFO she is in charge of various aspects of the organisation – from producing financials to overseeing and managing relationships with stakeholders, dealing with investors and shareholders, allocating capital, managing and generating resources, managing the strategy portfolio and so forth.

“A big part of the CFO role is managing people... there is no way that any CFO can deliver everything that he or she needs to without the right team in place,” she adds. 

She often works long hours and has established a routine where she makes time for herself in the early morning, waking up at 5am to either run, do an indoor cycle or go to the gym; then being a practising Muslim, she prays and also spends some time with her husband who is a business owner. The couple do not have children. 

An avid traveller, she names New York as one of her favourite destinations, citing the cosmopolitan vibe as what attracts her to the Big Apple. A favourite memory is when she and her sisters took their mom to Dubai for her 60th birthday. The destination on her wishlist is Iceland because she thinks that the pictures would come out great and that the experience would be unforgettable.

Historically, the finance sector has been largely dominated by men, Suliman states that when she started there might have been some biases against her as a woman, but most of the men she has come in contact with have proven to be great supporters of her. Her advice to young women starting is this:

• Believe in yourself. 

• Try to build a network of sponsors, that becomes more important as you go up the ladder.

• Try different roles in the organisation and move into different business units, locations and even industries because that helps you build a broader foundation of experience.

• Emphasise what you have achieved to people that matter. 

• Don’t try to be a martyr. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. 

Suliman also works with an NGO that raises funds to buy sanitary pads for young girls in need.

Alicia Greenwood

A career in finance was not the first choice for Greenwood, 53, the director of Post Trade Services and chief executive officer of JSE Clear. Growing up in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, she had a supportive father who was keen on her and her older sister being independent and pursuing their career paths. 

She would go on to obtain a PhD in Chemistry and work as a research scientist, very quickly though she realised that the job was not for her. So she pivoted and due to her strong mathematical background, she was able to find work with management consultancy Accenture and through them was placed on several projects in banking and financial services. From there she worked at Discovery and Standard Bank, before joining in 2016 JSE. 

“Effectively I have two job titles and I look after all the activities after a trade has been placed and I make sure that the person who has bought the stock or the instrument on the exchange gets it and the person who sold it gets the money,” she says.

She describes herself as a problem solver, compassionate, a team player and an overachiever.

“I am an excellent listener, I like to listen to what other people have to say and what their thoughts are on a particular problem because I am interested in diversity of thought,” she adds. 

On the topic of work/life balance, Greenwood a mother of two, says it’s all about priorities. Her family comes first, so this meant that sometimes in her career she had to wake up as early as 3am to get started on work so that she could make her commitments to her children later on in the day.

She states that leaders should speak openly to their teams about things like that and says that a trustworthy employee with a credible work ethic should be trusted to handle work and home priorities.