OPINION | Skip the credentials. Say her name

By Gina Schoeman South African women hold more senior management roles than women anywhere else on earth.

So why does the ladder stop one floor short? Many years ago, as a graduate trainee at a bank, I emailed one of South Africa’s top economists, asking for an introduction over coffee because I had been reading her column in the Financial Mail.

She was the chief economist at Merrill Lynch and one of the most astute voices on the South African economy, so I honestly did not think she would respond.

But she agreed to meet.

I arrived with countless questions about her life and career, desperate to use the hour to work out the path ahead of me.

Halfway through our conversation, I realised she was interviewing me.

I grabbed the opportunity, moved roles, and doors opened.

Within a couple of years, I was a financial markets economist on a trading floor.

This led to me building a twenty-five-year career just because of a cup of coffee that she did not have to take.

I used to tell that as a story about luck, but now I realise it was not really luck, but sponsorship.

We use mentorship and sponsorship as though they are the same word, but there is a significant difference: a mentor talks to you, a sponsor talks about you.

From rooms you are not in, to people you have not met, sponsors attach their own credibility to your name.

The research is remarkably consistent: the Harvard Business Review found women to be over-mentored, under-sponsored, but not advancing in their careers.

Nothing I have experienced in South Africa contradicts that.