> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://pulse.pressportal.co.za/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Women’s Month Ends In August. Accountability Shouldn’t. - URL: https://pulse.pressportal.co.za/43c6a6105792d445-2026825/ - Published: 2026-08-25T08:49:50.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-25T08:49:50.000Z - Author: Bronwyn Levy - Tags: Business & Economy *Women’s advancement cannot remain a women-only conversation. If transformation is part of the strategy, it has to include the whole system — women and men, girls and boys — and it has to survive the speeches and show up in the decisions leaders are measured on.* By Ntombizone “Zone” Feni, Group CEO, 21st Century I want to begin this Women’s Month reflection with an acknowledgement: I write from a position of privilege. I grew up with parents who invested in my possibility, in a family that told five girls that we mattered. I had access to education, exposure to alternatives and, later, professional sponsors who opened doors. That foundation shaped the woman and leader I became. It is not the starting point for every South African woman. That matters because every August, we become very good at celebrating women. The breakfasts happen. The panels happen. We tell the stories. Much of it is sincere, necessary and worth protecting. But Women’s Month can become a little too comfortable if the stories we amplify are mostly those of women who have already found a way through. For far too many women, the starting point is shaped by poverty, violence or the threat of it, economic dependence, heavy care burdens, fractured support systems, and little exposure to a life that looks materially different. Before we get to boardrooms, succession plans and sponsorship, there are women fighting for safety, dignity, income and the basic freedom to imagine another future. Our empowerment conversation has to hold them too. But I want to introduce a slightly uncomfortable plot twist into the Women’s Month conversation: we cannot keep talking about empowering women while leaving boys and men outside the room. That is especially difficult to say in a country carrying the devastating reality of gender-based violence. We have to confront GBV, misogyny, unequal power and abuse. Accountability is non-negotiable. But I do not believe transformation comes from collectively positioning men as the enemy. Collective blame may give us somewhere to put our anger; I am not convinced it gives us somewhere useful to take our society. If we want different outcomes for women, boys and men have to be part of creating them. I say that because my own life makes it impossible for me to believe otherwise. My father was my first and probably most important example of what a man can contribute to a girl’s belief in herself. My mother gave me the other half of that equation. She was a formidable woman, a champion in the medical fraternity, a community builder, and the person who taught me never to become so obsessed with women’s empowerment that I stopped seeing the importance of boys and men. There were five girls in our home. My four sisters and I are now accomplished women, wives, professionals, an artist, and community advocates in different ways. We did not grow up believing that empowering girls required diminishing boys. We learnt that people build people. That lesson followed me into my career in a way I appreciate more at 39 than I did at 25\. And here is an irony I think is worth naming: much of my professional trajectory was sponsored by white men. At the start of my career, Mr Jurie van Zyl and Kuben Naicker saw something worth investing in. Over my last 11 years at 21st Century, Dr Chris Blair and Dr Mark Bussin became important figures in the next chapter of that journey. Chris, in particular, mentored, challenged and stretched me over years before ultimately handing me responsibility for leading a company he helped build. Today, our Board Chair, Mr Maphutha Diaz, continues to play an important role in that journey. And Craig Raath and Shaun Barnes, fellow members of our Group Exco, are two of the people I speak to daily, about the company, difficult decisions and often just life, as we build 21st Century together. I do not name these men to turn them into heroes of my story. I did the work. But sponsorship matters. They challenged me, advocated for me, opened doors, disagreed with me, trusted me with responsibility and sometimes created the space for me to discover that I was ready before I was completely convinced myself. Sponsorship does not take agency away from women. Done properly, it creates the conditions in which agency gets exercised. And the women? They have been just as formative - and in this chapter, many of them are right here at 21st Century. Tarryn Gandy, our Operations Manager, sits two levels below me on the organogram but, in the lived rhythm of my role, often feels like my operational 2IC and friend; our monthly business meetings somehow hold both. Vuyelwa Dantjie runs our biggest business and largest staff complement; she is an intellectual sparring partner, a lover of fun and one of the people who keeps me accountable as CEO. Dr Lynne Derman, a Director, connects with me at a deeply human level and helps keep the company honest. Barbara Lombard, a former client turned Director, is a friend and informal mentor - an older Black woman whose local and global leadership journey gives me perspective I value deeply. These are not women I admire from a distance. They are women I build with. So perhaps the empowerment conversation needs less women-versus-men and much more: what kind of women and men are we producing together? That starts at home. It starts with the messages we give girls about confidence and possibility, but also with what we teach boys about women, power, dignity, vulnerability, consent and responsibility. Eventually those boys and girls arrive in our organisations. Then the question becomes institutional. Who gets the stretch assignment? Who is on the succession slate? Who gets promoted? Who is paid fairly? Who is allowed to fail once and recover? Who gets trusted with actual decision-making authority rather than an impressive title? That is where empowerment stops being a slogan: in the decisions, in the money, and in who gets trusted with power. The latest Commission for Employment Equity report tells us women held only 29.3% of top-management positions in 2025, against 45.7% of the economically active population used as the benchmark. So here is my second uncomfortable question: should leadership remuneration be affected when transformation repeatedly stalls? I think it should, but not through a crude female-headcount target. This is South Africa. Gender sits inside race, disability, occupational level, pay equity, access to opportunity and a very particular economic history. A single percentage can move while the institution barely changes. You can appoint one woman into Exco and still have no credible pipeline behind her. You can give someone a senior title without equivalent authority. You can achieve representation and still have unexplained pay gaps. You can attract talented women and create an environment they do not want to remain in. The number moves. The organisation doesn’t. I would rather measure leaders against the system they are building. Are women progressing through succession? Are they getting the assignments that prepare them for bigger jobs? Are remuneration decisions explainable? Are talented people being retained? And what does the leadership bench look like two levels below Exco, where tomorrow’s problem is often already visible? I probably sound like a broken record saying this, but one of the humbling realities of leading a consultancy is that sometimes your clients are living your own case study. Our people at 21st Century advise organisations every day on reward, job architecture, organisational design, change management, performance and workforce transformation. Then we turn around and have to confront many of those same questions ourselves. Are our structures doing what we designed them to do? Do our people experience the business the way the organogram suggests they should? Are decision rights really clear? Are we creating meaningful opportunity? Are we listening closely enough when lived experience differs from intended design? A company does not need to become a multinational before it takes transformation seriously. It is something you practice while you build. We cannot say women’s advancement matters and then outsource it to HR. Boards have a role. CEOs have a role. People leaders have a role. Line managers have a role. Women have agency. And men absolutely have a role. Everybody cannot support transformation while nobody is accountable for it. That is why Women’s Month still matters to me. But perhaps the conversation needs to mature. The question is no longer whether women are capable of leadership. We have answered that many times over. The harder question is whether we are building families, communities and organisations capable of recognising, developing, challenging, rewarding and retaining that leadership, and whether we are raising and engaging men who see themselves not as casualties of women’s empowerment, but as participants in a more equitable society. Women do not need men to grant them permission to succeed. But women and men need one another if we are serious about changing the systems we share. That is the complete equation. Maya Angelou, one of my idols, whose birthday I happen to share, often said, “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” I think that is a useful challenge for Women’s Month too. If you have learnt what exclusion costs, teach differently. If you have influence, sponsorship, authority or opportunity to give, use it, women and men alike. So when September comes, do not ask me what your organisation did for Women’s Month. Show me who you promoted. Show me who you sponsored. Show me who you paid fairly. Show me the boys and men you brought into the conversation. Show me the women whose authority became real. Then show me the systems that will make all of that happen again when nobody is watching. Because transformation is not an August campaign. It is what we choose to build together. Ends. SOURCE NOTE Leadership representation data: Department of Employment and Labour, 26th Commission for Employment Equity Annual Report 2025/26\. Employment equity framework: Government Gazette No. 52514, Determination of Sectoral Numerical Targets, 15 April 2025. Maya Angelou quotation: “When you learn, teach. When you get, give.” Verified through Caged Bird Legacy, the official Maya Angelou legacy site. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ntombizone “Zone” Feni is Group CEO and shareholder of 21st Century, a proudly South African business, human-capital and remuneration consultancy. Across 17 years in consulting, her work has spanned public and private-sector organisations confronting complex questions of reward, workforce transformation, change and institutional performance. She is completing an MPhil in Inclusive Innovation at the UCT Graduate School of Business. **Total Words:** 1767 ### Submitted on behalf of - **Company:** 21st Century - [Website](https://www.21century.co.za/?ref=pulse.pressportal.co.za) ### Media Contact - **Agency/PR Company:** The Lime Envelope - **Contact person:** Bronwyn Levy - **Contact #:** 0760781723 - [Website](https://thelime.co.za/?ref=pulse.pressportal.co.za) ### Social Media Post **Women’s Month Ends In August. Accountability Shouldn’t.** Women's advancement cannot be an August conversation. Zone Feni explores why accountability, sponsorship and the active involvement of both women and men are essential to creating lasting transformation... 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