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Much has been written about the dearth of women in technology-related fields and industries. The roles of coders, engineers, product designers, software developers and yes, CEOs, are usually associated with titles preceded by ‘Mr’. Yet there are undoubtedly many women doing great things in tech in South Africa, carving out their own paths and creating cool stuff along the way.
finweek caught up with a few of SA’s dynamic female techies and digital pioneers to find out more.
Annette Muller: Enabling the ‘corporates of the futurE’
Annette Muller is the founder and CEO of DOTNXT, an African innovation management firm. Last year, she was recognised by Forbes as one of the ‘10 female tech founders to watch in Africa’.
As Muller puts it, she is intent on “building the corporate of the future”, and spends her time helping companies to weave innovation into their daily reality. She founded DOTNXT in 2011, and says the company has evolved from being a consulting firm to offering research and strategic advisory, technology execution management and SA’s first Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) accredited Innovation Management corporate training course.
“We saw a gap [in companies] between strategy and execution, and began to offer more hands-on, strategic programme management,” she explains. “We try to avoid the old-school ‘PowerPoint’ way of doing things, and focus on agile delivery, providing always-on, live mission management and innovative strategic tools. We are always breaking the traditional corporate rules!”
In Muller’s world, she says the only constant is that they’re continually “doing stuff that’s never been done before… so there is no right formula, just challenges, and we love solving complex challenges”.
To stay inspired, and keep fuelling the innovation that she believes is so essential to business success, Muller admits that it takes “a lot of imagination”.
“I watch a lot of science-fiction movies,” she says. “But the key ingredient is obviously people. You need to surround yourself with people who have a similar mindset, who are inquisitive, off the beaten path.”
She adds: “We are running the corporate of the future − constantly trying to create, educate and improve − so you need to ensure you have inspired, practical and smart innovators around you.”
Catherine Lückhoff: Proving the value of niche
Catherine Lückhoff is the founder and CEO of NicheStreem, which she describes as a company that “builds specialist music streaming services for passionate fans of niche music”. Fuelled by a love for mobile commerce, music, and the ways in which these worlds are beginning to intersect, Lückhoff’s impressive career has been shaped by her pursuit of ‘niche’ – recognising value and potential where others have not.
In addition to driving NicheStreem, which will launch its first stream, Liedjie.com − aimed at the Afrikaans market – in September 2015, Lückhoff also leads strategy for HQ Africa. HQ Africa is a business development and strategy consultancy, which over the past 18 months has worked with companies such as Naspers-owned PriceCheck.co.za, WeChat and 24.com, as well as Mozilla FireFox and The Dating Lab.
As an entrepreneur, Lückhoff says that a general frustration is “the fact that as entrepreneurs we spend a great deal of time explaining what we do and being told how high risk our industry is”.
“No one ever asks a doctor or a lawyer to validate their career choice or explain how they will change the world,” she says. “Being an entrepreneur is by no means the safest or easiest career choice, but we do it because we are frustrated with the status quo, truth be told, we think we can make/do something better. It’s risky and hard work, but it truly is worth it.”
This is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared in the 18 June 2015 edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.
