The Sunday Mail
With more than two decades in business and having bagged numerous local, regional and international awards, Dr Divine Ndhlukula has become an entrepreneur of unquestionable repute.
But her staying power, notwithstanding the country’s recent boom-and-bust economic cycles, has distinguished her the most. Despite the challenging economic environment, she still managed to march on.
The Sunday Mail Gender and Community Editor, Fatima Bulla and reporter Sharon Munjenjema recently spoke with the acclaimed businesswoman about the journey she has travelled so far.
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Q: Since you ventured into business, how would you describe your journey so far?
A: Well, I can say the journey is like a train which is going through the hills where there are valleys; it is a journey that is full of splendour and rapture. When you say splendour, you are enjoying; where there is rapture, you are obviously going through issues that are really heavy. It is an exciting journey. We have got our own issues as Zimbabwe but obviously our issues really are for the tough. I think it is happening in a lot of economies. Each economy has got its own issues. So that is the rapture that I talk about.
Q: How have you managed to stay afloat?
A: I think it is really about putting your best foot forward. You just have to say this is the challenge I am facing, how do I manage it? This is why at times one has to leave the office at 11pm despite the fact that they would be tired. You need to resolve issues, you need to manage issues and you need to work that extra bit everyday just to make things happen . . .
The good thing is I am not a man that needs to go and stand at a bar to drink one or two. And I think I am also fortunate that I no longer have kids that I am looking after because my kids are grown up . . .
When I started this business, by the way, my kids were still going to school.
Q: So how did you manage to balance family and work considering the pressure which comes with starting a business?
A: I always say I think I have worked on what I call a smart partnership kind of relationship with everyone that I work with. With my family, it is a smart partnership. I remember when I started this company we were living in Mabelreign and my eldest son was still in high school, and I was still working full-time. My husband was also still alive.
So I would work that smart partnership with them in that manner. If I got home after work — because I started the business when I was still working — I would get there into my office, which was my staff quarters, and started doing the work of Securico. I usually left Intermarket at 5pm and at 6 pm . . .
My husband would be there to help with this or the other. I remember one time on a Saturday we ran short of a guard at one of the contracts we had in Milton Park. And we had to get somebody. So I took my maid, gave her a uniform, we dropped her to go and fill in. Then we had to go and pick up a trained guard somewhere.
She had to stand in for an hour or two. So you need to build those kind of smart partnerships . . .
So you need to bring everyone close to what you are doing. One of the problems that we have, I think, is that you think you have started your own business and you do not involve your husband. You are going to run into problems because he is going to be working against you.
The time I started this business my husband had just been diagnosed with kidney failure, so he had just started dialysis sessions. So I said to him “I am not going to start this business because obviously it is just too much, I have a full-time job, I have these kids, I have got this company that I am starting, one of the things have to stop”. But my husband said you cannot stop to live your dream on my account.
Q: You have won so many awards, got numerous recognitions, which one is your favourite?
A: I think the defining moment in our awards was the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship. They were just in a class of their own because just the process for them to determine a winner is rigorous. It takes almost 12 months because all potential participants complete a very involved form which has all the information that a business is expected to have. Normally, they are 900 to 1 000 applicants.
Then from that they have to select the first 50; from there, they narrow down to 30. Then from the 30 they send analysts from McKinsey International to go and visit those 30 businesses across Africa. They spend two days with you in your business.
Then from the 30, they select 10. The 10 are expected to go to a selected country; for that year it was Nairobi.
Read full interview on www.sundaymail.co.zw
Then you do a presentation in front of a panel of judges of esteemed people like Richard Branson, Tony Elumelu and McKinsey International. From there, they spend two days just interacting with the 10 finalists.
And then they announce the winner at the grand gala dinner. So we were totally surprised that we won that award because we had companies from Nigeria that when you speak to them you think we are not even near what these people are doing.
It was a surprise that from Zimbabwe — in an environment which a lot of people think ‘how are you doing business in Zimbabwe?’ — we won the grand prize.
So for us that award speaks volumes about what we are capable of doing as a business.
And it was a game-changer because it opened doors for us. The whole world noted because it is a serious award globally.
Q: What are some of the doors that have been opened since then?
A: From there, I started to get a lot of invites all over the world to be a speaker on entrepreneurship.
The Economist, the Times of UK, everyone really wanted me to speak ‘how have you succeeded so much in an economy like Zimbabwe? You are a woman in a security sector.’ Obviously we are a very gendered company, one of the things that also gave us a lot of marks is we have given opportunities to women to get into formal employment, particularly the security sector, where they were perceived as not suitable.
But we have had deliberate initiatives to push women first and foremost, convince them that they can be guards and very good security practitioners, and then to start putting them in areas like being gunners and supervisors. We really started developing them to a level where we managed to identify the ones that we could push through so that they could climb the corporate ladder.
And, yes, some of the guards we started with as women are high-flying officers, some of them have even gone into management. . .
You know, when we gave them the opportunity, they rose and became even better practitioners than men.
Q: What is the gender composition in your company?
A: Our gender composition is 26 percent women. However, the industry employs less than 4 percent on average, so we are way ahead of the average.
But even to have achieved that 4 percent in the industry it was because a lot of other companies in the sector started employing women after they saw the business case to employ women.
Whereas right at the beginning colleagues in the industry were questioning me, ‘why are you employing so many women because it will cost you? First, they go on maternity leave, so you still pay them; number two, whenever the child is sick at home, they are asking for days off to look after the kid. This is a labour business, so if you employ women that are going to be taking time from work, you are going to have less profit margins, why are you doing that?’
And I said, ‘it is not about money, there is more to life than just money’.
So that really changed the whole face of the industry because a lot more companies started getting more women.
Q: There is a general assertion that women pull each other down. What is your take?
A: I do not believe that! To me, it is a myth, it is not true. I also want to believe it is men who propagate it a lot more . . . they emphasise it so much that you end up not supporting each other.
I stand on the shoulders of women who came before me, women I have looked up to, women who have mentored me, women that have supported me even currently in my business. I get a lot of support from women in the corporate sector and I support women. This is why I employ women; I have deliberate policy to promote women. This is why in our supply chain most of our suppliers are women. And I have started a lot of initiatives to grow women’s businesses.
I am sure you have heard about the women’s desk where we started the women enterprise conference and awards that happen every year. I have an initiative that is called “Buy from a woman” campaign, where we talk to corporates to say ‘how much of your supply chain is going to women?’
What I know is women support each other. For me, I have had to go out there and start seeking out the women that l look up to.
Q: Where is Zimbabwe in terms of women economic and social empowerment?
A: We are quite far behind. What I know is there is a lot of rhetoric by even Government itself. Government itself talks a lot about women economic empowerment. A typical example, there is the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe; I know in some of their statutes there is something to do with a certain percentage for youth, a certain percentage for women or for disadvantaged groups. But when you go there to say, ‘you are saying you have these quotas for the youth and for women, are you tracking it, are you really supporting it, what are you doing to ensure that it happens, there is nothing.’
That is one of the biggest problems we have. We have the necessary legal frameworks but they are not being implemented.
So you find that each time somebody says how many women have done business to a certain level, they are very few because a lot of women start businesses but unfortunately they do not grow.
They lack that support of getting into supply chains even of Government and parastatals.
And because there is a lot of corruption, women usually do not want to be involved, so they always would remain behind. This is where we have a problem. If Government were very sincere about it, they would ensure that they have a mechanism to monitor these policies and that they are working. .
When we talk about socially, yes, women are very much aware of their rights. I think there has been a lot of work done by civic organisations, but if you know your rights as a women in the social sphere, if you are not economically empowered, you still get the short end of the stick.
So everything is still very difficult for the women.
Q: If the odds are stacked against women, how is it possible for them to still venture into business?
A: It is important to belong to women organisations because in those organisations you get to know the opportunities . . . It is important to belong because you get inspiration, you get support from other women and you also get opportunities.
If you are going to run your own small business from your own small mind and your own small room in your own small world, you are not going anywhere.
Q: Can a woman have it all?
A: If l may ask you a question, why is it that it is the women who cannot have it all, the man can have it all? A man can have a successful business, successful family and happy marriage, what is the difference?
Q: What characterises your typical day?
A: Usually I am a late riser but I am a late sleeper. I wake up to say a word of prayer, but I normally read until about 7am. I read anything to do with business. I read all papers, I go through them, I read a lot of business journals, whether it is Harvard Business Review, whether its farmers’ magazines – you know I am also a farmer – I read enterprise magazines. I leave home around 8.15am and usually my day is already pre-planned in terms of what happens. If I am early, I leave the office at 7.45pm . . . at times I leave the office at 11pm. To me, it is normal, I am used to it.
Q: What are your future plans?
A: I am a business person; I am an entrepreneur. My mission is to support women; that is what I spend a lot of my time doing. I have taken it upon myself to really support women to grow their businesses as much as I have grown mine.
