Championing the cause

A few decades ago it would have been totally inconceivable for a black woman to play any kind of leading role in the financial services or mining industry. That’s certainly not the case now, as Daphne Mashile-Nkosi, chair of WDB Investment Holdings and executive chair of Kalagadi Manganese, has proved.

Mashile-Nkosi attributes much of her success to WDB. She was a development officer for WDB Micro Finance, which involved assisting women to access financial resources in the rural areas of SA. She was later nominated by the company to study development economics in Nagoya, Japan, a programme that has had a profound influence on her career.

Working with rural women, MashileNkosi saw first-hand how WDB was able to provide these women with a sense of selfworth, often for the first time in their lives. “For generations these women have been told that they are useless and ignorant.

These are women who are often left alone to bring up children and grandchildren because of the migrant labour situation. Just because many of them can’t read or write doesn’t mean they’re not capable. On the contrary, many of them have skills.”

It was as a result of working for WDB that Mashile-Nkosi developed much of the passion she retains to this day about women’s rights and the empowerment of women.

“Figures show that when women earn an