How many of you have heard about this phenomenal intervention? If you haven't, let me shed some light on it for you.
10,000 Women is a five-year program to provide business and management education to underserved female entrepreneurs around the world. The initiative was founded on research conducted by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, and others, which found that expanding education and developing the entrepreneurial talent and managerial pool in emerging economies – especially among women – is one of the most important means to reducing inequality and ensuring more shared economic growth. One of the seminal research reports that inspired 10,000 Women was Womenomics, a study written by Kathy Matsui, a managing director and chief strategist in Goldman Sachs in Tokyo. Her report examined the potential impact of expanding workforce opportunities for women in Japan. “The ideas behind 10,000 Women, in many ways, began in Japan,” said Masanori Mochida, President of Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd. “Realizing that the connection between women and economic growth was extraordinarily powerful, we came up with 10,000 Women – a confluence of our knowledge of markets, our desire to spur growth and our tradition of service.”
The program has been running for the last 5 years, this is the final year, and in South Africa, the concluding cohort, 7, is well under way.
I first heard about the program on 702, and saw various articles about it in the media. This year, my curiosity finally got the better of me, and i researched it. In typical Hayley style, the day I enquired was the last day ever in South Africa, for applications. I managed to submit everything with a second to spare, and then I sat back, and waited. Anxiously. Nervously. The more I contemplated the program, the more I HAD to be on it! Along the way I met some amazing ladies who had been on previous cohorts, one being the beautiful and phenomenal Eugenie Drakes, who made my hunger for this journey even greater!
Eventually, after what seemed like decades, I got the email I had been waiting for. My application had been successful! I had been hand selected, by a committee in London, to participate! I was so thankful and so very proud!
The day of orientation arrived. So nervous. Palms sweating, pulse racing, head held high and concentrating on my breathing, I walked through the doors of GIBS. Here, my journey would begin. I had arrived. Somehow I just knew that my quest for knowledge, and thirst for growth, would be realised ten fold!
On my first morning I was fortunate enough to make some awesome friends. Angela Blakeway, who is the owner and Managing Director of Event Marche, Bridget Van Oerle, owner and Managing Director of Buz Publicity, and Peta-Lee Woolf, owner and Managing Director of Peta-Lee.
These ladies all were so well spoken, so well dressed, and I thought wow.......... how can I even hope to keep up in the company of all of this muchness?!
The orientation was fantastic. Turns out, while we had to do our 30 second elevator pitch, that we were all equally awed and enamored by each other! The fantastic, successful, brilliant women we were, was being subdued by our alter egos, telling us that we just were not up to scratch.
Well, after a month on this program, late nights, ridiculously early mornings, being hot, being cold, being on fire and being plain inspired, I can say with ENORMOUS confidence that I am honoured for being chosen\. That I will make both VCA, and GIBS, innately proud of what I will accomplish over the next few months as I continue learning, and in the years and decades to come as I implement my learning, employ more people, upskill our community and help to grow South Africa!
So THANK YOU for believing in me, GIBS and Goldman-Sachs, enough to show me how much I should be believing in me!
Be kind to one another.
Hayley
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