Arivia.kom cracks stiletto ceiling with four executive appointments

Arivia.kom has appointed four female executives to key positions, placing the IT company at the forefront of the industry`s gender empowerment drive and cracking the "stiletto ceiling" which separates women from the top echelons of business.

"Promoting diversity in its ranks has been important to arivia.kom for some time," says arivia.kom HR executive Ann Ngutshane, herself a member of the top squad and the driver of gender empowerment at arivia.kom.

"This proves that we are committed to gender equity and a diversified workforce. But besides that, these women were appointed because they were simply the best candidates for the positions. What makes me particularly proud is that all these executives were promoted from within arivia.kom. This is testimony to the growth opportunities within our company and the success of our management development process.

"No other IT company can boast that almost 50% of its executives are female. In fact, there are few major companies in SA that have achieved this level of representation on their executive committees. Two further noteworthy accomplishments are that four of our executives are black women and blacks occupy eight of the 11 executive positions."

Nicky Mogorosi, Mickey Mashale, Johanna Tshili and Ann Ngutshane occupy the positions of chief financial officer (CFO), business development executive, infrastructure business executive and human resources executive respectively.

"We are proud of the progress we have made but we still have a long way to go," says Ngutshane. "The IT sector has a responsibility to eradicate the disparity between the number of women represented in its workforce and those in senior management positions."

She notes that when appointing someone to the level of CFO, for example, the incumbent needs to be suitably qualified as outlined in the Employment Equity Act. "It is important to have women in top positions, as this broadens the company`s vision and lends perspective. We believe that diversity enhances performance, making the organisation more reflective of its clients, partners and staff. Having diverse points of view available yields a wider and better approach to decision-making."

Nicky Mogorosi, now chief financial officer and an executive director of arivia.kom, has an honours degree in accounting science and is studying towards a masters degree in financial management. She commenced her career with Deloitte & Touche and was later financial manager at Moribo Sports division, SDS Express Services, and Viamax Logistics. She joined arivia.kom as financial manager responsible for budgeting and reporting. Mogorosi was subsequently appointed group financial manager of arivia.kom. As CFO she will serve on the arivia.kom board of directors, alongside CEO Zeth Malele and COO Hugo Knoetze.

Mickey Mashale, appointed in April 2005 as business development executive, has a BSc, telecommunications and marketing diplomas, and is studying towards her MBA. Her career started at Vula Communications and she later headed marketing strategy for Nextcom before joining Ericsson`s New Business Department firstly as the bid, price and sales manager and then as its strategy representative. Mashale went to Mergent Technologies as a key accounts manager and led the South African Communication Forum (SACF) bid for a stake in the second national operator (SNO). She received the SACF industry award for outstanding performance, management and leadership of the team.

Ann Ngutshane has postgraduate diplomas in both public administration and management engineering. She holds certificates in teaching and production management. Her undergraduate studies in psychology and history took place overseas and she led an active political career to promote democracy in SA.

Her career spanned teaching, counselling and projects coordination before moving into organisation development. She has served as HR manager for both the Nampak Group and the Land and Agriculture Bank of SA.

Johanna Tshili has a BCom Accounting, an HDip in Computer Auditing and a teaching diploma. She has over 10 years risk advisory, corporate governance, financial and audit experience at corporate level. Prior to joining arivia.kom, she served as manager of information systems assurance and advisory services at Ernst & Young. Tshili was instrumental in establishing arivia.kom`s corporate risk management division and thereby gained in-depth understanding of arivia.kom business operations