Top women on list have become a lot wealthier
Hard work during the year bumped up their asset list
TWO roses among the thorns. This is not a script for an episode of the TV show Bachelorette ; this is how many women made it into the top 100 spots of the Sunday Times Rich List this year.
While women have been struggling to break into corporate South Africa and the business world, mainly due to a history of discrimination, some of the top women have seen a significant increase in their assets this past year.
Keeping her crown as South Africa’s richest woman is Sharon Wapnick, who grew her fortune from R352-million to R506-million this year which places her in 64th position.
She has been quoted as saying that “the best man for the job is usually a woman”.
Wapnick is the founding partner of a successful law firm in Johannesburg and chairwoman of two family businesses — Octodec Investments and Premium Properties.
Her older brother Jeffrey Wapnick (number 61 on the list) is the CEO of both these companies. The two are the oldest children of real estate billionaire Alec Wapnick.
Sharon Wapnick once told Business Day that it would be “unusual if there were not sibling rivalry” between herself and Jeffrey.
The zodiac confirms this. “Scorpio (Jeffrey) and Aquarius (Sharon) compatibility cannot reach a high level unless they give some space to each other. Aquarians have the tendency to get irritated very easily. Scorpions are dominating and cannot tolerate Aquarian’s mood swings and love for freedom,” says the Ganeshaspeaks.com website.
But, in a telephone call with Business Times, Wapnick said the pair of them worked very well together, taking responsibility for their different spheres of the business.
She commented that she was surprised that only two women made it into the top 100 positions, given the wealth of capable and talented women in the country.
Wapnick advised young women wanting to enter the business world to firstly get a very good education and a mentor … and most of all, to “work hard”.
Wapnick was not the only woman hard at work this past year to grow her fortune. Hot on her heels is Dr Judy Dlamini, whose riches grew 220%, from R157-million to R502-mil- lion in the year under review, which means she is the second-richest woman in the country and 65th richest overall.
Dlamini’s riches somewhat overshadow her husband’s — FirstRand CEO Sizwe Nxasana managed only 465th position on our list, which was 400 spots behind his wife.
Dlamini started her career as a medical doctor, but could not stay away from the thrilling and sometimes cut-throat world of business.
In 2001 she did her MBA, worked a bit for HSBC Investment Bank and then started pursuing a career as an entrepreneur.
Dlamini now chairs the boards of some of the country’s biggest companies, including Aspen Pharmacare and Mbekani Group, where she is also majority shareholder. She sits on the boards of Northam Platinum, AT&T South Africa and Gijima, among others.
Next month, she will also start her work as a director of one of the world’s biggest mining companies, Anglo American.
Women are still a bit stuck in the corporate kitchen when it comes to the salaries they earn, with only four women making it onto the list of top 100 earners — and the top two salary takers resigned during the past financial year.
Total earnings by the 100 best-paid executives in the country amounted to about R2.5-billion in the past year, and from that the four women took home about R90-million.
American-born Cynthia Carrol, previous CEO of Anglo American, took home slightly more than R32million for her work at the mining company.
This was by far the biggest cheque taken home by the fairer sex.
While this seems like a lot, Carroll still made less than her successor Mark Cutifani, who took home more than R43-million for his work at AngloGold Ashanti. Carroll was 15th overall on the earners list.
When Carroll became CEO at Anglo American in March 2007, she was the first non-South African, the first woman and the first outsider to take the reins at the company. She left her post in October last year.
The only skirt-wearing executive at Richemont, Martha Wikstrom, took home close to R25-million for the year, earning her 31st spot on our earner’s list.
Her male counterparts Richard Lepeu and Johann Rupert took home R69-million and R32.5-million respectively. Wikstrom left in May 2013.
The third-best-paid woman in the country was Maria Ramos from Barclays Africa, with a pay package of close to R18-million.
Rounding out female representation in the top 100 was mining executive Karin Wood from BHP Billiton, who took home close to R16million.