A salute to all phenomenal women
To celebrate National Women’s Month during August PG Bison profiled some formidable women who work at PG Bison as well as in the furniture manufacturing industry. Here we highlight some particulars of their individual stories.
Bellah Malema
Bellah Malema, Head of Credit Risk at PG Bison, is responsible for the division’s debtors’ portfolio across its four sites. She joined PG Bison in 2019 and has been in the credit control and risk space for more than 18 years.
Bellah’s advice to young women in her industry is to mind the gap between their intentions and the impact they can make in others. “Don’t just go to work for the sake of going to work. Show up and make a difference, every single day, whether it’s a good day or a bad day,” she says.
Click here to read more on Bellah’s story.
Phuti Mathekga
Phuti Mathekga, HR Operations Manager at PG Bison, says she’s been passionate about helping people since she was a young girl, and her problem-solving skills and ability to bring people together led her to pursue a career in HR.
Her advice to people beginning their career journeys is to firstly decide on what it is they want to do and then to determine what they need to do to get there. “Start doing, now! Even if you take small steps, these steps will bring you closer to your goals and never stop learning,” she says.
Read more about Phuti here.
Lucy Wu
Lucy Wu, born and raised in China, moved to Botswana in 2010 after she graduated, and found a job working in a furniture manufacturing company. Her boss was also Chinese, but didn’t speak much English, and so he relied on Lucy and his other staff members to help market the business and bring in new customers. It was her first job and Lucy decided to push herself to learn everything she could about how the company ran and the products it created and sold.
In 2015, five years after moving to Botswana, Lucy and her husband (who she met at work) decided to relocate to Zambia where she started her own furniture manufacturing business in Lusaka, called WHY Furniture, using all the skills she had learnt.
Delve further into Lucy’s journey here.
Marina Veiga
South African-born Marina Viega began her business 13 years ago and she has since had the privilege of working closely with her daughter, who completed her degree in Fine Arts in 2020 and continues the family legacy of Sariga Designer Kitchens.
“Having gone through various economic seasons in South Africa over the last 17 years, we have had to design smartly with local products. I have successfully shown my clients that a quality design is not about the price tag on a product, but rather creativity and what you can do with a product,” she says.
Marina advises others pursuing a career in kitchen manufacturing to “listen, listen, listen, under-promise and over-deliver! It’s never too late to live your dream and take a leap of faith into the industry of your choice.”
Catch more of Marina’s story here.
