By Lwazi Dlamini
“If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we are going to have better business success,”
Mary Barra was not smoking her socks when she uttered these words and most importantly, she seems to have had EswatiniBank’s first female Managing Director Nozizwe Mulela in mind when she uttered these never-to-be-forgotten words.
Mulela has broken many records than plates, being the first female MD for the bank after taking over from the cool-as-a-cucumber Zakhele Lukhele in the bank that will be celebrating its Diamond Jubilee, 60 years this year.
She has been leading the bank’s transformation strategy informed by the digitisation journey in an ever-evolving banking industry world over.
An avid and seasoned banker, Mulela clearly has the backing of her staff as they navigate the unchartered terrains of technology in a competitive industry that has also seen Fintech services biting a bite in the cherry.
Mulela is indeed a living proof of what the leadership landscape in various sectors in the country has become.
The last few years have demonstrated that workplace change is possible, when the force that drives it is strong enough to overshadow the way things have been done for centuries.
However, when it comes to gender parity, more momentum is needed to ensure that men do not predominantly fill future leadership positions.
A recent survey conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value has found that whole C-Suite level and executive board roles are increasingly being occupied by women, and they need more support in their early careers so they can make that jump to the next level.
“Perhaps the biggest incentive for businesses to take action is the evidence that organizations that take gender equity seriously outperform their peers and are setting themselves up for future growth and success,” BusinessTech says.
On a weekend when the world celebrated International Women’s Day, the charismatic Mulela shared her amazing journey from being a wanna-be legal eagle transitioning to the dog-eat-dog banking industry.
“My professional journey began in the country locally, even though I studied tertiary outside the country, but I came back home.
I had opportunities to continue my professional career outside the country, but I opted to come back home and now I understand why, and I am really happy that I made that decision to come back here.
It started with a local law firm then I moved into the financial services sector with a local bank and I have been within the financial banking sector, in particular the banking industry, since then.
I must say that for me this is what has built my knowledge and my understanding of the banking profession.
I think the key to all that is, I began my working career at home and that has had a lot of impact in terms of developing and understanding of my country, its traditions and values,” she says matter-of-factly.
Mulela, always belting a Colgate smile, adds: “I could imagine if I had continued my career outside and there are some things I probably would not have known and understood.
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Even kugidza nje is something that I learnt in my older age. But I learnt it because I spent a lot of time here.
There are lot of traditions, values and norms that I have developed simply because of keeping my career here.
I think the good thing about that is, whilst moving around with professional knowledge and understanding, one then tends to acquire the skill and knowledge of how to infuse their cultural values and cultural activities in their being and that for me is the key highlight in maintaining buve bami as liSwati regardless of how much education or literacy I have attained over the years and how much exposure I have gotten in my work or career,”
While Mulela advocates for teamwork, she takes time to reflect on her personal success in being the first female liSwati to lead the people’s bank after the dearly departed Sam Kuhlase, Stanley Matsebula and Zakhele Lukhele amongst its Managing Directors.
“Well, the key highlight in my professional journey is being the first female LiSwati woman to be the Managing Director of EswatiniBank.
Since the establishment of this big local entity there has never been a woman who has run it or headed it.
I think that is the biggest and the greatest highlight which obviously takes me to the history books of this country and of the bank itself.
That is the greatest highlights that quickly comes to mind that here is a woman leading a financial service sector and you would understand that the sector I am working in is one of the key sectors, the backbone of the economy of the country. You can imagine how that makes me feel,”.
But what drives EswatiniBank’s MD in the ever-evolving banking industry?
“EswatiniBank was established in 1965, we are actually celebrating 60 years of establishment this year.
You can imagine what has been going on in those 60 years in the bank, evolving from time to time and as we are right now, we are keen on aligning to the first world status that His Majesty has always envisioned for our country and EswatiniBank can never be left behind.
I think strategies such as digitalisation for us are key in ensuring that we are also at the level where all other institutions locally, internationally and in the region are at,”
Mulela hints that her team has already embarked on a project that will certainly sound like a sweet melody to the ears of the bank’s customers.
“We want our customers to be able to bank outside of the country through EswatiniBank whilst they are in various places in the world is what we are aspiring to do, and we are at it already.
So, for us, is to ensure that we can provide our customers with financial services and solutions that are first world and develop the country in that regard,” she affirms.
While many emaSwati decry the lack of access to funds, Mulela is of the view that this predicament could be overcome.
“The issue of access to finance is still a challenge, not just in Eswatini, but even in other economies. So, I think what is important is to understand what exactly the barriers are because as financiers, sometimes we believe we are doing as much as we can, but the market says otherwise, there is actually no funding.
I think we need to take further steps in collaboration with all stakeholders involved and truly understand what the issues around access to funding are because for financial institutions you find that sometimes there are requirements that have to be met before the access to be met yet the customer or SME is urgently requiring these funds to commence and to take on the business.
We need to be able to meet each other halfway and just work out what exactly can be done without compromising the other party but all of us ought to work out a strategy or a plan,”
She further stated: “As a bank, we have partnered with some entities that we would assist, for instance technical support is one of the key things that you find we need but also the customers would require some kind of support in terms of preparing their business proposals.
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That is all we need to basically work out together on how we can support each other in this instance.
Indeed, I would agree that access to finance is still a challenge, but I don’t think it is not a challenge we can’t work towards overcoming.
We need to appreciate the barriers and what work jointly in order to remove those barriers,”
Mulela glows instantly when she talks about the bank’s transformation strategy in particular the digitalization which has “eaten” a lot of the bank’s resources leading to two years of huge losses as EswatiniBank embarks on processes to make banking easier and enjoyable for its customers.
“Certainly, there has been a lot of progress around digitising our products and services as a bank and there is so much more on which we are working.
We are currently working on a new strategy that will take the next three years, and in that strategy, digitisation continues to be a priority for the bank.
We will introduce more products as we have in the past three years introduced digitized products, we have our e-wallets and internet banking to name just a few and we have Mpos that is being rolled out in the market shortly and now, I think we need to be more innovative.
In the next three years you will be able to see more digitized products and unfortunately the industry is going that direction, banking is digital and therefore we need to move in that direction and as fast as possible.