Women in the workplace: Tamaryn Whittal-Steynberg

As we close off on the women in the workplace profiles, Tamaryn Whittal-Steynberg, Innovation & Operational Excellence Executive at PG Bison shares her insights with us.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I lead the Woodchem manufacturing facility in Mkhondo. This facility was established to produce local resin, or the glue, that holds together our engineered wood panels. I also lead a new department that we have established at PG Bison – Innovation and Operational Excellence. The focus of this department is to prepare the business for the future by exploring and implementing new ideas with the intention of growing the business and staying relevant in the eyes of our customers and within the South African and international context. We all understand how fast the world is changing, and how we must constantly seek new ways to add value to our offerings, our people, our customers, and our shareholders. These ideas extend from implementing new technologies, to increase cap improving or creating leaner, smarter systems.

I joined PG Bison in 2021 and am both excited and grateful to have joined a strong team that through many years of solid decisions has placed the company in an excellent position – and I believe it’s our responsibility to take this forward.

I have a strong manufacturing and engineering background. I’m a mechanical engineer by training and I’ve worked across several factories and technology centres in South Africa, the Ivory Coast, Kenya and Nigeria and the Netherlands. I also attained my governance certificate of competency, which was both a challenge and a humbling experience. More recently, I have completed my MBA. I started off my career at Bell Equipment, in the automotive sector, working with fantastic engineers. I then realised that I needed to get into a larger factory environment, and joined Unilever, a large multinational. I was there for a decade, and worked in various roles, including process, production and project engineering roles and assignments, that enabled robust experience.

From a leadership perspective, I lead with my heart and my head. I believe in the power of simplicity, hard work and staying passionately curious (in the words of Einstein), and I believe in the concept of “lift as you rise”, which really means growing yourself and those around you.

From a personal perspective, I’m a woman of faith and am family oriented. I’m happily married to Lion. I love nature and the outdoors and especially enjoy running, hiking, sailing, and kayaking. I have prioritised travelling from a young age, in order to immerse myself in different cultures and experiences.

What are some of your highlights and challenges of being a woman working in the manufacturing sector?

I love it! I love that as a woman I can bring in a different way of looking at a problem and proposing and advancing solutions. I love that as a woman I can be warm, gentle, strong, and effective. As a woman I also value my ability to easily balance both the technical and the people aspects. I appreciate both the strong women and male role models that I’ve had in my life so far, and I’m also grateful for the strong and secure men that are comfortable to partner with equally strong women.

Do I think that it’s always easy? No. “Life is tough, but so are you”. I believe that almost anything in life that is valuable, takes grit and time. I also really enjoy getting older: when I was younger, on the factory floors or sites where I worked, I would often take off my earrings and tie up my long hair because I thought I needed to appear less womanly to be respected. But as the years go by, I believe it’s far more about who you are, what you do and what value you bring, even in typically male dominated spaces such as the manufacturing or engineering environment.

What gets you up in the morning?

Finding new, improved ways to add value to our business and the world and the valuable and authentic human connections we get to have at work. I also really believe in being part of driving economic growth – being wise about decisions for yourself and the business space that you’re currently in. That’s what I love about this role that I’m currently in – that I get to combine a lot of that and engage people to get their ideas and build something stronger together.

Something else that was a shift in my thinking was the concept of innovation and how we are all capable of it. We often think of a NASA or Tesla-type change when we think of innovation, but innovation is “a combination of either existing products and services in new combinations” or “new combinations of thought processes or business models” (reference: Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs). And these ideas can span an entire organisation. This illustrates that we all have a role to play in innovation.

What words of encouragement do you have for other women?

I believe one of the biggest challenges women face is recognising that there’s enough space for all of us, that if you can light someone else’s candle, it does not take away from your flame. I think we really need to embrace that. This is not a competition; it’s about finding your own voice.

One of the other big lessons that I’ve learned is that women need to be secure in their value-add – if it gets personal or you feel judged or disregarded, stick to the facts and the solution at hand, and work hard to deliver it, but never forgetting to bring others along. The respect will come.

It’s also important to partner with men in this journey of recognising that we all have different backgrounds, cultures, skills, ages, looks – we all can and should bring value and different perspectives to our own spaces and to the greater whole.

I encourage women to have a plan or dream, and then to surround themselves with a few, authentic and constructive relationships and to seek mentorship – be that in the form of face-to-face meetings, new assignments with a senior, or even something as simple as reading a book by someone admirable. We recently hosted a guest speaker, Cindy Norcott, who we believe added practical and humorous ways to navigate some of the challenges that we as women face both in our personal and professional lives – I really encourage you to watch it if you have not had the opportunity.

I end off with recommending books that I have found inspiring:

• Lean in – Sheryl Sandberg
• Becoming – Michelle Obama
• The Moment of Lift – Melinda Gates
• Thrive – Arianna Huffington