While there has been an increase in the number of females entering South Africa’s ICT sector, transformation is not taking place fast enough within the cloud and data centre industries.
This was the word from Wabo Majavu, executive of strategy and business operations at Africa Data Centres (ADC), discussing gender transformation and succession planning in SA’s ICT sector, during a recent interview on ITWebTV.
A seasoned leader in the telecommunications industry, Majavu’s focus at ADC encompasses strategy execution across technology, operations, planning and design, and product management.
She has held various senior leadership roles, including GM for engineering at the South African Broadcasting Corporation and market advisor at Intelsat, focused on delivering connectivity and digitisation capability for Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific.
While there have been pockets of progress in diversity and inclusion in the ICT field with the number females taking up executive positions, there is room for improvement in the pace of females transitioning into middle management positions, compared to male counterparts, Majavu commented.
This is an even bigger concern in the more technical and scarce skills fields, such as cloud computing, data centre-related fields, mechanical and electrical engineering, and business analytics, she noted.
“When you look at the advancement of women, and you analyse, for example, transformation in entry-level jobs, you realise that more young graduates, especially black and female youth, are entering the fields.
“And then when you look at board representation and C-suite level, you get an optimistic perception. But when you take a closer look at middle management and observe the rate of progression and calculate how long transformation is taking place at that level, you realise it happens at a very slow place. So, it takes the girl longer to climb the corporate ladder and move from intern, to manager and then to senior manager – than it takes her male counterpart.”
Data from the Commission for Employment Equity for the 2023/2024 financial year shows the ICT sector had a workforce of 253 859, ranging from top-level management, to unskilled persons.
According to the report, while African female representation within the ICT sector took a slight dip between 2023 and 2024, it is the second-biggest demographic behind white males.
With SA’s severe skills gap, greater emphasis is being placed on skills, with companies concentrating more on diversity and inclusion-focused hiring, with a broader vision to achieve greater operational efficiencies and productivity in the workplace, she added.
“I'm lucky because the ideology of the organisation that I work for [ADC] is driving an African agenda, so transformation is a priority for our company.
“The progression metrics that are often used by some organisations can be deceiving when we look at women representation across the board. So, it’s important to focus on asking: What are the core functions of that organisation and what are the more technical skills required? Then you ring-fence that and start monitoring transformation based on incoming and outgoing female talent. Succession planning requires important tools of change to be incorporated to measure the rate and the real impact of transformation.”
Women represent a minority in the ICT arena largely due to the low number of girls that have been taking up STEM-related subjects at school, which hinders them taking up ICT-related courses at tertiary level institutions.
However, the growing STEM skills development initiatives established as part of partnerships between government and the corporate sector are reaping rewards, she stated.
“As government and corporates increasingly support initiatives aimed at encouraging young girls to enter STEM fields, this is having a great impact on the status quo.”
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