Gender equality and the rise of businesswomen in South Africa

Sandra Burmeister, CEO of Landelahni Recruitment, spoke to Alan de Sousa Caires about women in business, and gender equality in the boardroom.

By Bronwyn Engelbrecht S

into one that supplies services to executives, professionals and general management. She has especially championed the development of women in business, and Landelahni now places more women in executive and non-executive roles than any of their 50 partner companies worldwide. “Women bring an array of unique skills,

andra Burmeister is a founding member of Landelahni, and she has done a great deal to develop this recruitment company

strengths and qualities to the business arena and are shaping their own futures” Sandra Burmeister, CEO Landelahni. Landelahni is not simply focused on finding you a job, they are also involved in research and they conduct surveys to know the employment environment better, and to assist with mentoring and training. They are forerunners in the leadership development business, from below the mid-management level right up to board level – they also look at the gaps in the markets that could be filled, and the trends. In 2001, they began an annual research

project in the mining sector – looking at gender equality, race equality and skills development. The project focused on looking at where the skills were, what the graduate numbers were, and other key areas that companies are focussing on. This project was such a huge success that Landelahni now run four biannual surveys that each focus respectively on the mining infrastructure, financial services, ICT and global mobility. Sandra is personally committed to gender issues and since 2004 Landelahni also have three annual surveys that focus particularly on gender issues in the workplace, such as women’s earning differentials and women on executive boards. These surveys help to see what women can

do for themselves as individuals, and as there is plenty of comparative data between 5 and 10 years, the trends in skills development become very apparent. South Africa has had a big issue with skills moving offshore, and now many skills are coming back. These surveys conducted by Landelahni help to see the implications of these

August 2011 | Management Today 55