FLORENCE Sempebwa-Makada’s mother was one of 13 children at a time when girls had predetermined futures – that didn’t involve careers or higher education. When Florence and her sister were born, two girls among six brothers, Mrs Sempebwa-Makaba was determined they would have the life she could never have.
“My mother
never put limits on the things that my sister and I could do,” the managing
director of Motorcare in Uganda remembers. She and her sister rode bicycles and
motorbikes, while her mother taught them all, boys and girls to cook and do the
housework.
When it came to
education Sempebwa-Makada was sent to the finest girls’ school in the country,
Gayaza High School, after attending a co-ed primary school. When she finished, she
was handpicked to take part in the East African university exchange programme,
being sent to Dar-es-Salaam University in Tanzania, where she was in the first
group of students to study a BSc degree in computer science and statistics.
Finishing top of her class, she was asked to stay on in Tanzania, but instead
returned home where she joined Motorcare after a brief stint at a bank as
network administrator and Accounts Assistant.
“I’ve always had two
titles at Motorcare,” she says, “it’s because I’ve always offered to help.
Running the network saw me helping out in finance. I don’t do things to finish
but to have a positive impact.”
She was worried that she
didn’t know enough so she went back to study, completing a degree in applied
accounting from Oxford Brookes in the UK and qualifying as a chartered
accountant of UK too. From there she became finance manager, combined with
Human Resources manager, or people manager, as she prefers.
Then it was finance and
business planning, setting targets for the different departments, measuring
results and coming up with action plans for the variances together with the
Heads of departments. While in Finance, she sold four vehicles to an NGO,
leading the company to design a specific department that would service Aid and Development
agencies. She even helped out in the After Sales Department putting in
structures that would see it crush old production records and set new ones.
Six years ago, Motorcare
appointed her MD, the first Ugandan and first woman to hold the position. She’s
still the only woman today in the country. She ascribes her success to
meticulous preparation and thorough knowledge of what she is speaking about.
“I succeeded,” she says,
“not because I was technical, but because I know processes and I know what to
ask and how to guide the technical experts.”
“I was the only woman in
a boardroom full of men, but when I spoke people respected me because they knew
I was on the ground. Every time I contributed; my ideas made sense because they
were based on experience.”
When she became managing
director, she made sure she led by example.
“My leadership style is
instead of saying ‘do this’ and then doing the opposite, I walk the talk. When
you do that you gain their respect.”
The same comes for
setting standards: “I’m always the first to get to the office and most of the
time the last to leave. You can’t have a disciplined workforce if you aren’t
disciplined yourself.”
On Sunday 31 July, 2022,
the continent celebrated African Women’s Day on Sunday 31 July. For Sempebwa-Makaba,
the message to young women is simple: “Be knowledgeable, be prepared to help
and to learn.”
She sees a future where
women will take their rightful place in the boardroom, but they have to work at
it.
“Truth be told we can do
anything that men can do. The days of women not being in the boardroom are
fading away. Women are very dependable and very focussed – they have to be able
to do their jobs and balance their careers with being mothers and carers.”
She speaks from
experience – and not just of her own career. “I’m results orientated and I’ve
got super results from women in Motorcare.”
When she started as MD,
women comprised 10% of the company, now their numbers are 40%.
“We’ve put the
structures in place to help them excel but in the end it’s up to them.”
But she has a word of
warning too.
“We have families and we
have careers. We have to learn to balance them otherwise one or both will fail.
But if we do learn to balance, we will have more and more women at the top.”
Source: Nissan Africa