Women in Engineering

Despina Senatore answers questions about her career.

Reflecting on 2018; looking forward, with purpose, to 2019

​ The start of a new year is always a good time to set new goals for the year ahead, or to reassess and check progress made towards long-term goals previously made. However, I invite you to reflect on 2018 first, before you look forward to what you want to achieve in 2019. One of the first exercises we do during the RenewYou workshop is to reflect ...

Who am I? I am every woman

I was recently invited to do a talk at a women's day breakfast celebration at a branch of one of the financial institutions in KwaZulu Natal (KZN). Being women's month, I decided to focus the talk on the different stages of being a woman, by looking at some key events in my life over the past 18 years. What I want...

The five books I read in 2017 and highly recommend

Books have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money. My parents, especially my dad, worked in the café 14 hours a day, seven days a week. During school holidays, when all my friends were going away with their families for a fabulous holiday (well, at least that's what I thought was happe...

Purposeful Woman: Yvonne Perumal

I'm very privileged to work with amazing women in my corporate caree r. Yvonne is the Divisional Director: Group Legal Services at the Liberty Group. She's an admitted attorney with over fourteen years progressive professional experience in the financial services industry. She is as beautiful as she is educated: she holds a Masters in Law, a Certif...

Purposeful Woman: Tanya Kabalin

In addition to being a loving wife and mom to two beautiful children, Tanya is an accomplished and inspiring leader with 20 years international experience in sales, marketing, strategy, portfolio and supply chain management gained from the operational 'front line' to Board level. Before starting her own consulting business, Olakira (Pty) Ltd, Tanya...

Be fearless!

This past weekend, I was watching my one-year-old "flying" down the slide, the look of pure glee on her face as she picked up speed and then landed on her nappy-covered bottom with a gentle thud on the grass below, only to pick herself up, run into my arms with laughter, pointing to the slide so that we could repeat the entire process again … and a...

"I appreciate you"

At the end of November 2017, my three-year-old son's teacher passed away; it was sudden and it was surreal. The day before she passed away, I spoke to her like I usually do; she took my son, who hated the morning "good-bye", from me, assuring me that he would be fine minutes after I'd leave, as he always was. Later that afternoon, she was interacti...

Purposeful Woman: Tendani Mantshimuli

Tendani Mantshimuli is a career woman, economist, mother, friend, mentor and an inspiration. As a young woman, she was interested in becoming a Botanist. However, economics appealed to her at her University orientation week … and the rest as they say, is history. She was one of the first female African economists to sit in the newsroom and provide ...

Gratitude: when last did you give thanks?

Earlier in the year, I was working with a business coach and at one of our sessions she asked me to write down a list of the 50 things that I am grateful for. Needless to say, I gave her that "you must be joking???" look – you know the one. It's hard enough to think of three things to be grateful for on any given day; on the really bad days, I can ...