Businesswomen

"Right now, our world and our people need a resilience revolution. And we, as women, are perfectly placed to lead it"

"Appoint more female professionals to increase gender equality and build trust"

"Most mining companies, government and big businesses do not procure from local women-owned businesses. Yet, I resigned from a well-paying job to create a private business in steel and metal manufacturing. I’ve hired four women in my company so far and I want to create more jobs for rural youth and women"

"[I’ve connected with] women’s networks and learned that for women to succeed in the industry, we must not be afraid to take risks"

"Because when we tell our stories, we make room for all stories."

"Before being a mom, I was career driven and I was selfish person, but I have been a lot more selfless."

"I believe as creatives, our biggest responsibility to create work for ourselves and others."

"The reason why I am where I am is because someone mentored me and helped me."

"It’s all completely de-identified and anonymized data — nobody in the company can ever see anyone’s Facebook profile. It was to protect the user and to protect us. The guiding principle is transparency. There is no open ended generative conversation — everything is scripted. We want to launch an app to have more privacy."

"The only strategy that we’ve done is press — that has been reasonably successful. Interestingly, we got far more conversations as a result of blog article reviews than mainstream press. Bloggers just seem to find us. The tongue and cheek name helped and launching with data and the study helped. Some of the other mental health bots are less than useful and possibly dangerous — so having actual data from a study was important."

"We use AWS Lambda and NodeJS. Our app will have an animated Woebot tied to NLP that can respond to verbal language with animation. We do our analytics in house as we move to HIPAA compliance for our apps. We don’t want a 3rd party looking at data. We built a dashboard over the summer. It’s hard to find really good data scientists and AI people, and Android engineers."

"At the end, we always ask: How are you feeling, better, the same, or worse? We look at the failed transcripts and try to troubleshoot on what went wrong — we try to minimize people feeling worse. It’s hard to figure out what we can do for those feeling the same. When you get it wrong people are not shy about telling you — when a button doesn’t cover everything users want to say, users will tell you."

"We also use standard search metrics, like precision and recall. For example, to detect people in crisis, we prefer recall search methods over precision as we want to be overinclusive and to identify anyone who could have a problem so we can refer them to human counselors or a help hotline."

"We learn all the time and have learned to keep track of our learning. If you have two buttons, they should represent genuinely different pathways. If there is no natural response or utterance, we use an emoji as an easy button filler. We’ve learned a lot about images. We used to have a black and white image of a bomb and we found it was triggering for certain people, so we had to remove it. Generally I like the black and white images. Many people really dislike minions. There’s a lot due to personal taste here — some people are into videos, others aren’t into it. We have veered away from videos, but we may make some to help teach people difficult techniques. When people are upset, they can only process a little — so our language and scripts have to be really short. We find it easier to have many chat bubbles with 1 or 2 lines — we try to keep it lean and bouncy. There’s almost a rhythm to it — there are a few flows where we can capture help."

"We are planning an iOS and Android app so people have extra privacy and to be HIPAA-compliant. There’s a good reason to keep it with text and to NOT do it in voice. You cannot see a negative thought in voice, but in a text chatbot you write it out and this externalization helps you overcome it. Messenger was a great launch platform — they make it easy to create and launch a bot. Users loved our prototypes there and we decided to launch there as it was easy."

"I really like ParentSpark — it helps parents with parenting. Their storytelling is great. It’s a mom coaching her kids and they help you as a parent. I also like Jeyant for medical screening; they have over a million users and screen for Zika and other diseases. PullString has done some nice character-based chatbots like Dr. Who. The Mabu chatbot, with eyes that follow you, is neat and I think IDEO designed it."

"My background is in clinical psychology research and I reached out to the best in the field. We all agree that our work doesn’t scale. Athena Robinson, a former Stanford psychiatry professor just joined as our Chief Clinical Officer. Other than that, some of my other colleagues or friends have joined too — people who really care about mental health issues. It makes for a really great workplace — this idea is bigger than any of us. When you look at the data and what people share, it’s so personal and you don’t even hear things like this in human therapy."

"It was a nice to have a paywall at first to get validation that people would pay for it. We had a decent conversion rate, but I wanted to gather data. Direct to consumer will be the longer term model. People were emailing us saying this is less expensive than our therapist; they were the ones who valued us the most. Convenience was a huge value proposition."

"Initially it was myself and Pierre building web prototypes and games. We tried to make video games for CBT for 9 months, things like interactive fiction prototypes for dynamics of engagement. They all had so much dialogue it made sense for us to move to chatbots. Pamela Fox stepped in as our head of engineering and helped rebuild the stack."

"The first is to just ask people if they want to converse. I’m not sure if we’ve nailed the invitation. Some of our push navigations were like “beep boop” — we are trying to understand the re-triggering schedule. [Note: Checking in to see what someone’s mental health is is a great reason to re-engage — Woebot naturally does this.]"

"Some users want to be served something else. We always issue an invitation to engage in a conversation. There’s no assumption people want help. Some people just want to chat, they don’t want help. So we try not to explicitly ask people what they are looking for. There really isn’t a lot of open chat away from buttons in Woebot. People may want a past video or lesson."

"I had done some vacation jobs at PwC during my studies and when I signed up to do articles, so I had a two week advantage over most people in my group. During articles I gained great experience in the financial services sector, especially working in insurance, working with firms like Fedsure, African Life, Alexander Forbes and Regent Life."

"While it's crucial to use every opportunity to learn, I was never complacent. I focused on doing my best rather than being preoccupied with leadership succession."

"During articles I used to win the awards for the most productive employee in my group and billing hours is what counts at a firm like PwC."

"David Beckham’s coming to Sierra Leone and these boys meeting him wearing the FC Johansen shirt with a number seven, Beckham, all of that was just an amazing time for us. The kids were amazing and then I realized that, you know what? This is so powerful, we could actually change our story in a big way, in a bigger way."

"It became a big reality,.and I think that was the time it dawned on me that, you know, I think I can actually do something really big for my country through football."

"I didn’t know about the political structures.I didn’t know what it was to build a career as a football administrator to becoming an FA president or anything like that, let alone FIFA."

"During the last year of articles I was given a lot of responsibility, because I was always dedicated to ensuring I add value and go the extra mile for the client. The quality of the companies I worked with on audits was high and I worked with some really smart PwC people, some of whom I am still in contact with now."

"Everything I have done in the past three and a half decades has been driven and motivated by a humanitarian vision. In the late 90s, I published the first in-flight magazine called Kabo, which promoted the beautiful side of Sierra Leone and was used by the National Tourist Board for promotion. I also initiated the first Women of Excellence Awards to recognize and celebrate women from all walks of life, especially in the aftermath of a bitter civil war which impacted women and children the most."

"I founded the Pink Charity Fund, a breast cancer awareness program providing screening facilities to women with low income."

"These were just displaced kids as a result of the war in the neighborhood, and all I wanted to do was to get these boys off the streets at night, get them at home where they should be, get them off the streets in the morning and during the day, put them in school where they should be."

"For me, it was very obvious that they lived and dreamed for their football, so that was my focus, and this was all I was about."

"The core business philosophy of owner management is still deeply ingrained in our culture. We believe in empowering exceptional people, giving them ownership and trusting them to deliver. This ethos continues to attract talent, which we're very proud of. When I joined in 2018, a company-wide survey showed that this culture is still very much alive and valued across all our jurisdictions."

"I joined FirstRand for the opportunity to get into banking. I was also drawn to the opportunity to work closely with Alan Pullinger, whom I held in high regard. It was a compelling and exciting opportunity that leveraged my experience with risk and compliance. Alan's sponsorship was also a factor, but I always operated with the mindset that I was there to learn. I'm grateful for the board's decision."

"Jacques has been leading FNB for 10 years successfully. He has now been given a new mandate to develop future business models. He is a builder. We are counting on his skills to build something new and exciting."

"Johan has been on the board for several years. I've observed his interactions with Alan over time. It's always interesting to see someone transition from an executive to a non-executive director role. Johan has been quite mindful of this. I've worked with him in a different context before, and I believe having experienced bankers on the board is crucial. They challenge us constructively, and I look forward to working with them."

"Besides,And then came football. Football has always been a part of my background, but projects like the Women of Excellence Awards and the Pink Charity Fund were more visible."

"The FC Johansen story is one of the most powerful and inspirational stories, especially in using football as a tool for change. It involved underprivileged kids from the streets having trials in famous football clubs. This is just a natural progression for me as these initiatives are aligned with my humanitarian vision."

"Football for Change and Reform is no different from all the other projects that I have embarked on. It uses football to empower the girls; it is about rehabilitation, transforming their lives to get them back into society. Through football, we all come together. This is the power of our beautiful game."

"Each day, I strive to be better than the previous day and move a step closer to the goals ive set for myself. That’s enough for me because life is not a race, and I understand that the only person I’m in competition with is myself."

"I have met with people in government, people in the parliament. But I have also met with women working to improve productivity on farms in Kenya which, as you know, really affect women since women are 70 percent of the farmers in Kenya, as in the rest of Africa."

"Even on this trip, I have had a very productive and mixed agenda of meetings."

"I’ve learned that it’s all about balance. I am not perfect and will never be perfect at everything, but I do the best I can and keep on moving. Its very tough, but I believe that women have the innate capability to handle it all.The modern African woman doesn’t have to choose between a career or a family."

"This annual event is called the Sardine Run. The shoals are so incredibly big 15km long, 3.5km wide and up to 40m deep that they can be seen by satellite. In their wake you can see hundreds of birds, sharks, whales and dolphins, all eager to feast. It’s a great tourist attraction and opportunity to see nature at its most impressive."

"For example, did you know that in South Africa, we have an annual fish migration that is so huge it can be seen from space? Between May and July every year, millions of sardines travel in vast shoals from the cold waters off South Africa’s Cape Point up to the coastlines of the northern Eastern Cape and southern KwaZulu-Natal."

"I am very much enjoying my visit in Kenya. I only wish it were longer. And it’s been like a wonderful appetizer, so I will have to come back for the full meal and see more of the country."

"We wanted to be best in class in this exciting industry, to provide a really helpful service to our clients and to make a real and positive difference to their bottom line. WSI is the perfect match and their track record, their warm and helpful attitude to us while going through the on-boarding process, and their depth and breadth of industry knowledge was extremely attractive to us."

"I’ve been with WSI for just under one year."

"Blu Flamingo is fortunate enough to be based in 5 countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. We can tell you many things about each of these amazing countries that you might not know, but we’ll stick to our headquarters in South Africa for this one."

"And I am very excited by the potential to deepen and strengthen our partnership and friendship, which goes back 50 years, for President Obama, who is a son of Kenya, to be able to help Kenya move towards fulfilling its potential. And I wanted to come to Africa and take an extended trip early in my term because I think Africa is such an important place of the future."