In celebration of Women’s Month, we asked some of the incredible women at Ozow to share their thoughts, experiences, and advice. Here’s what Tendi Hlatshwayo, our Chief Legal Officer, had to say about leadership, fintech, and the future of women in the industry.
Time at Ozow: +8 years
Q: What does Women’s Day mean to you?
A time to pause and reflect on the strength, fortitude and beauty of women. A time to give thanks to Jesus for the beautiful traits he has embedded in each of us women and how we positively impact society.
Q: What message would you share with young women considering a career in tech or payments?
This career choice is a space for women who are intellectually curious about innovative ways to impact society. For the ones who like to question first before running to answers, and for the ones who are comfortable with inserting a bit of grit and perseverance into their day to day lives. An exciting and challenging place to be and a space that is in need of women who want to assist in driving digital inclusion and financial inclusion in this country. It involves a lot of hard work but comes with the reward of positive societal impact in an exciting time of change in the payments / fintech ecosystem in South Africa.
Q: What does it mean to be a woman in the payments and fintech industry?
It is exciting to be an outlier. There are too few women in this industry, which is why it is exciting to contribute to changing its institutional make-up and to be part of the innovative transformation currently taking place in payments and fintech.
Q: How do you see the role of women in fintech evolving over the next few years?
I see the role of women in fintech evolving, not just in leadership or operational roles, but in shaping technological progress and driving meaningful transformation in the industry. It would be great to see more women contributing to the technical core of fintech - a space that has historically been very male dominated. I would love to see more diversity reflected in the teams building the actual products and systems.
Q: What do you love most about your role at Ozow?
The continual progress and strategic pivoting that we do is quite exciting! Watching as the industry evolves and doing deep and meaningful thinking of where we can address gaps and opportunities - problem solving is what excites me, and it is what we do on a daily basis.
