13 minute read
Elmarie Maritz blazing a trail for women in mining
BLAZING A TRAIL FOR WOMEN
INMINING
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Elmarie Maritz, Sedibelo Platinum Mines CFO, knows that you can’t create gender equity simply by hiring more women; you have to create a safe space for them to work as well. This is why she has prioritised hiring, supporting and mentoring women in an industry that doesn’t usually accommodate them. And Sedibelo Platinum Mines is reaping the rewards. By Ronda Naidu and Caylynne Fourie
It’s a challenge for women to get into and be promoted in the mining industry, says Sedibelo Platinum Mines (SPM) CFO Elmarie Maritz. But she also sees this landscape as an opportunity for women to get into leadership roles and support each other on the journey to becoming successful. “It is a very difficult industry to incorporate women in all areas of the operations, and it’s a result of the nature of the industry and women’s physique,” she explains. However, she adds that there are many roles in a mine that women can fill, both in the office and on site.
“Women bring a different perspective, that something else to the table,” she says. She believes that promoting and nurturing women will benefit the industry as a whole. “We all have different personalities and skills sets that we develop. Each individual, regardless of gender, needs to make the choice to do this first before they will be seen. However, in my experience, women are more collaborative, good listeners, mediators and definitely better at multitasking.” This is one of the reasons she advises women to speak up. “We often have something to say but think it’s not important, so we tend to keep quiet. Our male colleagues put themselves at the table and so should we as women.”
Elmarie explains that, every time she steps into a meeting with a new audience, she needs to dig deep and find her own voice. “The first time I had to report to a board of directors that was male dominated was daunting,” she says. “In order to find yourself, you have to remember that you know your subject and you are, in most cases, the person closest to the subject. Your opinion on the particular subject adds value, there is no reason not to speak up and share your views.” Elmarie sits on Sedibelo’s special committee at the board, Pilanesberg Platinum Mines’ Women In Mining, which is dedicated to looking after women in mining and in the workplace, and ensuring that they are safe, secure, equal and included. “If more organisations can set that tone from the top and then roll out policies to ensure that they are reaching those goals, we can enable our colleagues as well as the women in our communities and give them more of a growth path.” Sedibelo is also part of the leading global organisation International Women in Mining, which gives the company a great platform for mentorships and networking with women at all levels in the mining industry. But Elmarie believes that change can start in the simple things organisations do to ensure their women are included. “In the mining industry, most of our people wear safety gear, but to this day the safety gear is designed for men. Even when women take the smallest sizes available, the sleeves are still too long and it isn’t comfortable for a woman’s body,” she says. “By simply changing this one thing, we acknowledge that there are women at the table.”
The Mining Charter requires that there be 20 percent women inclusion at board level, 15 percent at executive level, 15 percent at senior management and middle management level, and 25 percent at junior management level in mining companies. Thanks to Elmarie’s determination to uplift women in her working environment, along with her CEO and COO’s support, gender parity at Sedibelo has increased significantly to 33 percent across the organisation, and it is anticipated that it will increase to above 40 percent in the next few years. But it’s not just a numbers game for Elmarie. She takes care to ensure that the women who work with her feel comfortable and accommodated – and she takes mentorship very seriously. “When I look at our targets and what we’re doing around internships, bursaries, adult education programmes, vacancies and new recruitment, I try to analyse our current numbers, what the division in gender is, and where we should improve and make it more equal,” Elmarie says. She explains that her strategy when recruiting and promoting people into management roles, which are still male-dominated, is to fill the gap with women. “I look at the women we have in the workplace and women outside the organisation and see where I can build them up into these roles.” When she started recruiting for her current finance team, she would look at CVs that had certain qualifications and experience, regardless of gender. However, the appointees usually ended up being women. Now, she explains that she actively looks for women when she needs to fill a vacancy in her team. She believes that every CFO should promote a strategy like this, because they are on a leadership platform where they can make sure that there is governance around these important changes. “As a women leader, bringing something to the table and setting an example for other women will give them the courage to bring themselves to the table too.”
A science
Elmarie’s views on uplifting women certainly come from personal experience. She has been at SPM for over 10 years, starting as a financial accountant and holding the role of CFO since 2016.
Her love for maths, accounting and economics started at school and her passion for the discipline has grown stronger over the years. “Finance is a science, even though it is not always exact. Finance gives you access to business and I really enjoy that. People think we are just bean counters. Today the CFO is a business partner to the CEO and the COO. We help the company and operations achieve their long and medium-term goals.” For Elmarie, the role offers something new every day and allows her to interact with a wide range of people, including engineers and clerks working on the mine. “It’s a diverse role, from the mundane to the great. I am busy daily with cash flow, treasury, budgeting, analysis, governance and financial statements. We’ve also got great work like commercial negotiations. I also look after the IT function, and it is now so important to look at digitisation with digital mining, data and smart computing,” she says. Elmarie finds it very interesting to identify and develop platforms for the company to grow, and gets her whole
team involved in the process. “It’s forward looking and setting up for the future.” Together, Elmarie and her team have developed different strategies during the 10-year PGM slump to be part of the future where PGM prices rise and add to the bottom line. These strategies varied from cost-cutting, driving efficiencies and recovering capital from certain commercial agreements. “Building solid relationships with stakeholders is critical to us,” she adds. “This is why we refer to ourselves as a stable and growing platinum metals producer that is committed to the wellbeing of its employees and an active member of the Bakgatla-Ba-Kgafela community.” The company has grown over the years and, with these new strategies in pace, is now ready and able to position itself as a next generation producer, delivering PGM’s from mine to market while being an enabler of green technology. “I honestly think it is a team effort and, without a strategy for the organisation as a whole and all levels of work supporting inclusiveness, we will fail,” she says. “Setting the example is important and I think the finance team has done exactly that.”
Safety
Elmarie sees digitisation as an opportunity to sort out inaccurate information, get additional information and make better decisions. In this way, people will spend more time on evaluation, and it can provide smart metrics to make better decisions on safety and mitigate risks.
Safety is a key metric in mining. Elmarie believes that South African mining companies work hard to ensure the safety of their people as an industry, especially when it comes to standard operating procedures for safety. The mining industry prides itself on its ability to implement policies and procedures that worked particularly well during the Covid-19 hard lockdown in the first half of 2020. “The pandemic has hit the mining industry quite hard. We had to shut down the mine, ensure that mine assets were safeguarded and enable employees who could work from home home to do so, as well as taking people’s emotions and job uncertainty into account. There was zero production for about 45 days,” she says. “After that period, we were able to ramp up to 50 percent of employees. The mining environment is different – people must operate safely – so employees went through medicals and rigorous training and screening for a period of time, before they could return to work. We also couldn’t have too many people in a small space. It brought a lot of challenges and the employees were amazing. There were no serious incidents and Pilanesberg Platinum Mines (PPM) [Sedibelo’s operating structure] kept communication going through SMSes and newsletters.”
New experiences
On a personal level, Elmarie admits that she felt trapped during the hard lockdown. “I don’t enjoy working from home. I like being with my colleagues, seeing them and talking with them,” she says. “Like other families, my husband and two teenagers were also at home. We had to find a space for each of us, where there couldn’t be too many interruptions. My youngest didn't always understand that I was in a meeting and would just walk in when she had something to say to me.” She adds that she also missed what she previously had, like being able to go for a jog or a cycle. “I missed my in-laws, family and friends. The hardest thing during the pandemic was that I lost my colleague, Noma Mabikwa, a financial manager at the mine. It affects you personally. I don’t think we appreciate what the pandemic has actually done to us.” Despite these work and personal challenges, Elmarie was able to use the time productively, to update the future development plans for the Sedibelo Group as Platinum Group Metal prices recovered during the period. “This is certainly positive as it will bring new experiences and technology. We are negotiating a few new finance arrangements and planning new development projects. This will give the finance team scope to change and grow,” she says. “We have a great finance team in the operations, which was set up by my late colleague. They are smart, intelligent, independent women who are drivers and ready to grow. People are often headhunted from outside the company for the top jobs. I was fortunate to be promoted from within the company and I now want to offer that opportunity to other women in the company.” l
THE FEMALE FINANCE TEAM
CFO Magazine paid Pilanesberg Platinum Mines a visit to see the female-strong finance team in action during a team-building activity as they took a trip through the mine. Not only is it evident that they are passionate about their roles within the finance department, but they spoke enthusiastically about the serious challenges that go into operating a platinum mine. From the processing plant to the mining pit, the team were excited to showcase the work they are doing in a male-dominated industry. Elmarie’s finance team at PPM is almost entirely made up of strong women, whom she has helped grow in their roles. One of these women was the late Noma Mabikwa, PPM’s finance manager, who has also worked hard to represent women at the company and given them a voice during manco strategic meetings. While Elmarie was looking for a candidate to succeed Noma, she gave corporate financial manager Zonra Zietsman an opportunity to become the acting financial manager. “We believed her accepting this role would empower her to grow beyond her current role and also add enormous value to the finance team and the organisation.”
Zonra Zietsman
Zonra says that mining chose her. She was working at PwC, with mining being one of the industries to which she supplied a service. When one of her clients offered her a job in the mining industry, she couldn’t resist. Nearly 10 years later, she is still in the platinum industry. She explains that PPM has set the tone that there should be no differentiating between men and women. While she believes that mining in general does have some inherent differences, she doesn’t think there are distinguishing characteristics between male and female in finance, and certainly not within the PPM finance department. “Over the past few months that I have been acting as the finance manager for PPM, I have gained a lot of knowledge around women in mining’s needs,” she says. She is also one of the members of the team who is passionate about the company’s initiative towards making female employees more comfortable in their work ‘suits’ by introducing female PPE.
Relebohile Nkuna
Sedibelo Platinum Mines has just appointed Relebohile Nkuna into the role of financial manager. Looking at the women in the finance team she has joined, she says she believes mines have come a long way in empowering women. “One thing I love about this company is that it is constantly making an effort to better the lives of its employees as well as its host communities. They’re not waiting for the government to set quotas, they’re always at the forefront.”
Bonolo Letsholo
Pilanesberg Platinum Mines senior financial accountant Bonolo Letsholo, who grew up with a father that has worked in the mining industry, says that the mining industry has definitely opened up more to women since she stepped into the industry herself. “I went into the industry at a very young age and didn’t think I would fit into this very male-dominated industry. But, once I joined mining, I realised how Pilanesberg Platinum Mines has opened up to us quite significantly.”
Tamara Glasi
SPM company secretary, Tamara Glasi, chose a career in the mining industry because it is “dynamic and multifaceted”. She says that the ever-changing nature of the industry makes every day interesting and creates a workplace of continuous learning. “Mines have a large array of stakeholders and it is exciting to be part of an industry that has such a widespread impact.” She adds that it is motivating to know that SPM embraces women in senior positions. “The team has developed a culture of non-bias towards women,” she says. “This culture is driven from the top, which is evident from the strong female presence in the management levels of the organisation.” She explains that Elmarie has been very supportive to the professional development of her employees by encouraging them to participate in projects that may be new to them. “I am inspired by how she has also recognised the need for female employees to have flexible working arrangements in order to navigate their roles as mothers, caregivers and breadwinners.”
Tshepiso Mataboge
As part of its efforts to improve women inclusion in the company, PPM also sponsored a bursary for Tshepiso Mataboge to study finance right out of high school. Once she completed her studies, she joined the company as a finance intern, where she is learning a lot from her fellow female colleagues. “The culture at PPM is a friendly and family type of culture,” she says. “Because of this accommodating environment, I’ve been able to learn from different professionals in our finance department. The team has been very supportive towards ensuring that I grow in my career, and I have gained so much during my time at PPM.” l
