A leap year is said to be the year where women take the first step, make the first move and leave their mark. There is no better way to celebrate this than to get all the formidable women together in the same place at the same time with an inspiring guest speaker to further fuel the fire of success of being a woman, being successful and loving every moment of it.
And this is exactly what happened on Wednesday 29 February at the Oubaai Hyatt Regency Hotel. In collaboration with Interface by Goji they launched a new female business initiative, FeMail, a power breakfast for female business executives which will take place at least four times a year and will feature dynamic speakers from across the South African business spectrum to inspire guests and share their wisdom.
The first speaker was a formidable force in the media world, Me Ezilda Becker, the editor of DE KAT, a glossy Afrikaans magazine. She held the women spell bound while telling them how she had to fight for her place in the sun after nearly falling flat on her face many years ago.
Becker who had qualified as a teacher was looking for a new challenge at the age of 22. She decided that the media was the place to be and that she could definite make a difference to newspapers and magazines.
With lots of self confidence she walked into the offices of the Rapport newspaper and announced that she was there to take up a job as a journalist. Needless to say the only job she was offered was as a classified sales lady without an office of her own – even without a desk or chair on her first day.
“Nobody who has ever had to sell advertising space will know how difficult it is to ask someone for his money in lieu of space in a paper” she said. “And I had promised myself that I would never do it again if I had a choice” she added.
After six months of perseverance she was made head of the department.
She then moved on to Rooi Rose magazine and was ready to take the fashion world by storm. “We need to do a modelling competition, the readers will love that” she told the editor and was greeted with a cold shoulder. Her job: telly sales!
After befriending a few of the more senior employees and sharing her ideas with them, they went with her to the editor and the idea was accepted. Our own golden girl, Charlize Theron was the winner of that modeling competition.
“Here I learned a very valuable lesson – you need to get off your butt and ask people for help and share your ideas if you want to accomplish anything” she told the ladies. “Use your contacts, ideas, strengths and intellect to accomplish your dreams. If you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you” she added.
From Rooi Rose she moved to RNA a distribution company. “Here I cried more than I did in any of my other jobs. Somehow the people were very different and the whole situation was one of awkwardness. I did not understand at that stage why I was being put through all of this, but looking back today I realise that it was all part of a plan to equip myself for my present job as editor” she shared with the audience.
In 2002 she was the manager of a publishing house, but she decided that she wanted to do her own thing. “I bought the De Kat, which was a sinking business without any money. The magazine had already folded twice, the first time in 1996 and again in 1999. Now why would it became a success this time around? “But when a guy stood up and said that the magazine would fold because the Afrikaans language was a dying one, I got up and told him in no uncertain terms that I would make a success of it. Who was he to tell me that my language was dying and that a prestige publication did not have a right to survive?” she said.
“Churchill said that success is not forever, it is the will to persevere that will pull you through” she said.
Today, 10 years later DE KAT is a 144 page glossy magazine that comes out five times a year and they also have their own television programme.
“It was not an easy or a smooth road, but today we produce 60 000 words which are read by 200 000 people per year and we have 500 000 viewers. For each of them we are a ray of hope, a piece of humour and a very good read” she said.
“If I had listened to that guy way back in 2002, I would not have tasted the satisfaction and success of my work. Never give up and especially not when people tell you that you are barking up the wrong tree” she concluded.
(written by : Denise Lloyd)
