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Although the 2012 Grant Thornton International Business Report may observe that 21 percent of senior management roles are held by women globally, around the world women are expertly succeeding in business and in growing their fields.

In South Africa, the Oliver Empowerment Awards, a prestigious event to highlight leadership and innovation in empowerment, showcases two talented and driven businesswomen with their top awards.

“Women lead governments in Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Thailand and now head the International Monetary Fund and one of the five oil companies, Ron Fletcher, Impumeleo magazine’s publisher said to Biz Community. Impumelelo, Topco Media’s annual empowerment publication, hosted the event this year.

“Sadly, just 9% of businesses have a female CEO. This is despite the fact that women constitute more than 50% of the population. It is therefore even more gratifying to identify and thank these two trailblazers for their contribution to transformation which is about gender equality as much as it is about ethnicity,” he said.

Sibongile Maseko won the award for The Top Black Entrepreneur of the Year. Maseko finished her schooling and jumped in civil engineering at a construction company. As she began to work her way up, she found herself interacting with several small business entrepreneurs in the industry and decided to join their ranks. She started her business Bongi-M Construction from her own personal savings.

Nonkululeko Gobodo received the Top Black Business Leader of the Year award. Gobodo became the first black woman chartered accountant in South Africa. She then took on owning her on business, Gobodo Incorporated. Her business has gone from a few employees in South Africa’s Eastern Cape to a staff of 450 with seven regional offices.

“The winners clearly demonstrated that they had integrated transformation as part of their business processes,” Fletcher said. “The merits of this approach is evident in the business’ sustained success and worthy of celebration.”

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