Women in the furniture manufacturing industry: Lucy Wu
To celebrate National Women’s Month this August, we’re profiling women in the furniture manufacturing industry. In this feature, we introduce Lucy Wu, who runs a business called WHY Furniture in Lusaka, Zambia.
Lucy was born and raised in China, where she also studied. When she graduated, she moved to Botswana in 2010 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.
She worked alongside her boss to find new suppliers and began working with an agent who sold PG Bison boards in Botswana. As the business grew, PG Bison sent a sales representative to visit her and she set up an account with the company to buy boards directly. “The job allowed me to learn and to see how much I could do,” she says. “Over time, it built my confidence and I saved up funds to start my business. Then, when I felt the timing was correct, we moved to Zambia.”
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, using all the skills she had learnt. “I’ve been using PG Bison products since my employment and continued in my own business. They are good quality and PG Bison is a reliable supplier,” Lucy says. “I know I can trust PG Bison.”
Lucy’s advice to other women is to focus on what they want to achieve. “Just try your best and trust yourself,” she says. “I believe that if you try your best and work hard, the gods will guide you to the right path.”
She also suggests finding a good life partner who can help with achieving shared dreams, especially if women have children – having a supportive partner makes it much easier to build a successful business.
Lucy finds motivation in giving her all. “I love what I do, and whatever work I’m doing, I try to make it the best I can,” she says. “My dream is for my business to be the best in the country, to open up more branches, and to even open branches in other countries.”
