Videsha Proothveerajh (F)
Chief Executive Officer
While gender equity may be enshrined in the constitution, the slow transformation persists because those who sit in the boardrooms of commerce and industry don’t always champion the cause, despite the mounting research indicating that diverse teams generate better quality decisions and outcomes. We have to act now as waiting for the current situation to fix itself organically will take hundreds of years – and that is not a viable option. I’m painfully aware that as the CEO and Chairperson of the Board of LNSA, I’m counted among a small percentage of women on corporate boards or as top business leaders, with only 18.2% of firms globally being led by a woman and only 10% of South African EOs being women. We have to create a future where this statistic changes fundamentally.