Woman On Top – Zama Khanyile

Fund manager at the NEF and African Women Chartered Accountants Forum president ZAMA KHANYILE on how there are no shortcuts to the top and her passion for empowering women

In her pre-teen years, growing up in Durban’s Umlazi township, Zama Khanyile observed the numerous possibilities the accounting profession held from their then-neighbour, Sizwe Nxasana — now co-founder of the Future Nations Schools brand. “Former First Rand CEO Sizwe Nxasana was one of the first black Chartered Accountants (CAs) in the country. He established the first black-owned audit practice in KZN, and he and his then medical doctor wife, Dr Judy Dlamini, were doing very well for themselves. They were the only people I knew with a swimming pool elok’shini. This made me curious as to what they did to earn the respect of many and afford such a life of comfort,” she recalls.

Witnessing how people who’d followed this career path had access to way more than the ordinary person, chartered accountancy became top of Khanyile’s mind. But, nothing is ever clear-cut with career choices, especially those made in our formative years. In Khanyile’s case, the idea of studying fashion design dominated her thoughts in her latter high school years. But, after much consideration, she realised that just because she was passionate about this art form, didn’t mean that it needed to be her daily bread and butter.

IN THE BEGINNING

Khanyile enrolled at RAU (now the University of Johannesburg), intending to study a BCom Marketing degree. She hadn’t done accounting until matric, so the university recommended a bridging course. “I went ahead with it and realised that accounting wasn’t all that bad. There were people in my class doing accounting as a major, so I thought, perhaps I should also broaden my thinking. I decided to give accounting a shot, certain that it would give me the most opportunities,” she says. That, in a nutshell, is how Khanyile ended up in a profession that has now become her first love. She realised that she actually enjoyed balancing books and telling the story of a company’s performance through numbers and analysis.

She went on to do her articles at KPMG, and stayed on as an audit manager. She admits that part of the reason of staying was because she hadn’t yet mapped out her career plan and didn’t want to make a move until she was sure which direction to follow. In the end, corporate finance and deal-making won her heart. But at the time, she didn’t have the right experience to enter that space. Her doubts were quelled when she caught wind of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) Academy, a programme that develops deal-makers.

“What I found appealing about the IDC Academy and corporate finance was that it entailed knowing different businesses intimately, helping entrepreneurs make sound financial decisions and then based on that data, assess the profitability of that business and make an investment recommendation. That kind of stuff intrigued me because we need to have more entrepreneurs in South Africa,” she says.

THE PRESENT

Even though she enjoyed doing development work through the IDC, she knew her purpose lay in creating new industries and using her newly-acquired skills to help more black entrepreneurs come up the ranks. “I was very excited when the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) opportunity availed itself, over four years ago. Not only did I have the technical knowhow to assess deals, lead teams, write reports and present them, but I also had the requisite passion to play a role in developing more black entrepreneurs,” she recalls. Khanyile is tasked with looking after the biggest fund by allocation within the NEF, which houses four kinds of stand-alone funds. “I oversee the budgets being allocated to the other funds,” she says.

Along with her monumental task at the NEF, Khanyile is also the president of the African Women Chartered Accountants’ forum (AWCA), an organisation that supports women in the accounting profession. She’s proud of the work the forum has done over the last 16 years. “AWCA started off as an organisation whose aim was to increase female CA recruits,” she says. Over the years, Khanyile explains, that vision has evolved to also accelerate the advancement of black female CAs by giving them the edge and making them more eligible for leadership positions. “We need to change the gender splits, especially when we look at the top leadership in business, corporate as well as government. My task is to grow the pioneers and trailblazers of tomorrow by strengthening the AWCA’s leadership academy offering; this is capacity building of the women who will be tomorrow’s CEOs and CFOs,” she says resolutely.

OVERCOMING

Khanyile, like many other corporate high-flyers, hasn’t escaped the curse of being young, female and black — the general assumption being that we’re not appointed on merit. But, she doesn’t sound deterred. “I feel like we can never escape that as black women. First you’re black, then you’re female and you’re young — it’s a triple challenge. Some people will make assumptions about you or refuse to give you opportunities because, in their minds, a young black female isn’t synonymous with experience, professionalism and excellence,” she explains. Despite all of this, Khanyile is keeping her eye on the ball. Her ultimate career goal is to be part of the National Planning Commission, a group of advisors responsible for drafting Mzansi’s business plan, so to speak. She wants to contribute by coming up with ways to include women and young people, and also use entrepreneurship to boost the economy. “I entered this empowerment space because I have ambitions of being an entrepreneur myself. I wanted to be able to know business, from the inside out and across the number of sectors,” she explains.

Between her arduous roles at the NEF and AWCA, Khanyile’s schedule suggests someone with very little me-time. She does admit, for instance, to having limited time to read for fun, but always makes time to build memories with family and friends, travel, dance and listen to music. “These are some of the things I do to give back to myself,” she says. So, does she have any what-ifs still hounding her about fashion? She concludes: “I still enjoy fashion, but I explore that love of fashion through how I dress. And if I spot something that looks great, I take the creative liberty of getting someone to create it for me.”