Happy International Women’s Day!
It’s International Women’s Day today.
We’re celebrating with an all-women panel of speakers in Heavy Chef’s March entrepreneur gathering. The topic focuses on event organising and creating community around events.
The sub-theme is around creating community that is equitable and accessible to all.
At Heavy Chef; we know that just over 50% of our community are women. Many of our success stories coming out of the programmes are women-led businesses. Much of the innovation and needle-shifting within our community has been initiated by women.
This is great, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
Only one out of five of businesses in SA are led by women.
The vast majority of investment in Africa goes to men.
There are billions of rands left on the table, crucial contributions to our GDP, by being exclusionary against women.
Amanda du-Pont, the enigmatic actress, model and entrepreneur, has an electric Heavy Chef recipe on strategy. In it, Amanda highlights how she feels it necessary for her to fight twice as hard just to be heard in business meetings.
A well-known woman investor told me, off the record, how she is sexually propositioned in nearly every investment pitch she has. She says, “It’s like a shark tank of a very different kind.”
This stuff sucks.
We must do better.
We must be better.
Thankfully, there is some good news. Heavy Chef seeing a resurgence of women-led businesses coming through the ranks. We will be discussing these in upcoming Heavy Chef recipes, events and reports.
Lesley Waterkeyn is one of the leading lights in the SA business scene. With her business Happy Friday (previously Colourworks) she has won a slew of awards celebrating her successes. Her team has been involved in some of the biggest branded events held in this country.
Dineshrie Pillay led the panel of judges at 2022’s Top 35 under 35 awards. I was also on the panel. For two days we witnessed an array of impressive women that underpinned just how much potential is in this country.
On Thursday 30 March, both these extraordinary women will be on a panel hosted by Heavy Chef board member Zinhle Novazi.
The topics we will be covering will include:
How to create safe, inclusive community gatherings.
How to create community through events.
How to convey your business message using events of any size.
How to create a branded event.
And yes, how to be more intentional about including more women in your panels.
My Heavy Chef colleague Lukhanyo jokes about the prevalence of ‘manels’ in our business culture.
This certainly won’t be the case in this month’s Heavy Chef session.
The event is in Cape Town, at Workshop 17’s stunning Watershed venue. Thanks to Xero and Payfast, we will have amazing facilities and a strong team running it.
There will be wine and juice and CBD waters.
There will be prizes and good vibes thanks to our partners Creed Living, Global Citizen, Capitalise, xneelo and Whipping The Cat.
Aaand, there will be you.
Pull in.
There will be an evenly-split, representative crowd of good people and you’re invited. Leave your prejudices behind. Join us and participate in building a better society for all.
Book your seats here.
See ya then!
Peace -
