The event, Women in Leadership, kicked off on March 18 at Wits Business School’s Parktown, Johannesburg, premises. The programme aims to provide women in management positions with the skills they need to succeed in the energy and water sectors of our economy.
Mpho Mookapele, CEO of EWSETA, said: “According to the EWSETA 2019/20 Sector Skills Plan, during 2019 the sector employed 34% women and 66% men. The same report details that while there has been an increase in representation by women in managerial positions, women still remain under-represented at 38% in these roles.
“As a SETA we are mandated to not only drive skills development in the sectors we serve, but to ensure that we drive gender imperatives so that our sectors are more equitably represented by women.
“In funding this programme, EWSETA seeks to capacitate women operating in mid to senior level management positions with the skills they require to gain their rightful place in what for too long has been a male-dominated environment.”
EWSETA has selected 20 women to attend this executive leadership programme at EWSETA’s expense.
Among them is Bridgete Bodlingwe, a manager at Eskom’s Smart Grid department, which oversees 130 employees. As part of the company’s coaching and mentoring team, Bodlingwe is passionate about personal development, motivation, mentoring and mindset shift. Among other accolades, she was appointed the Eskom Women Advancement Programme (EWAP) champion of the year in 2016, and the team which she co-led won a EWAP Team of the Year award in the same year.
EWSETA’s objective with this initiative is to help transform the thinking patterns of women working in leadership positions. It seeks to create an innovative, culturally intelligent workforce which will thrive through the use of strategic thinking and cutting-edge leadership skills.
Ultimately, the intention is to help women in leadership positions gain skills for their own growth, to help other women do the same, and to build networks of similarly minded individuals who will bring gender transformation into the sector.