Allowing other women to shine

Allowing other women to shine:

Meet the Railway Safety Regulator’s CEO Tshepo Kgare

After fulfilling the role of the Railway Safety Regulator’s Acting CEO for three years, Tshepo Kgare was appointed permanently in May of this year.

She’s been in the transport sector for more than twenty years, in a career that has seen her work in various countries on the continent, and in the United Kingdom.

In her time at the African Union, she worked on the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Programme, hosted by the World Bank.

It was at the African Union that she was given more “exposure to the continent and an understanding of the transport issues and some of the solutions - in some instances very innovative”.

Having begun as the Railway Safety Regulator’s Chief Operations Officer, the discipline and humility she learned from her parents is evident in the pride she takes in the regulator’s clean audit, while recognising the collective effort it took to obtain it.

The former HOD in the Eastern Cape’s Transport Department was instrumental in the development of the Public Transport Integrated Master Plan.

Q. What are the key services offered by the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR)?

A. We are established in terms of the Railway Safety Regulator Act, which stipulates that the role of the body is to oversee safety in the railway transport industry, promote the use of rail as a mode of transportation, and develop any regulations that are required in terms of the act, which includes monitoring and ensuring compliance.

Q. What is your vision for the RSR?

A. My vision for the regulator, which is guided by the overall vision that is articulated in our strategic documents, is to have safe, reliable and sustainable railway operations which are recognised globally. That is important because of the environment within which we operate.

Of our workforce, 52% are female. We’ve done a lot of work to advance this part of the transformation agenda.

At a personal level, if you look at our record in the last couple of years, we’ve been very effective in ensuring there is clean governance and that’s demonstrated through our audit outcomes and ensuring that the business is run well.

Much of what we’ve done is really inward looking in terms of putting in place the foundation - we can’t lose that. What is important is to ensure that those who interact with our services begin to feel that we do have an impact and we’re positively impacting the railway space and improving safety levels. What is also important is to ensure that we establish ourselves as global leaders. We have been strengthening our research capacity so that we can add to the body of knowledge, but also to help us become experts in terms of management.

Q. Please comment on the role of women in male-dominated industries, including your own.

A. We must recognise the progress we’ve made in various sectors. While there may be a few barriers to entry, which may not necessarily be institutional, I think as a country we generally are supportive of transformation and having more women in every sector. But there remain some societal expectations and beliefs that may hinder the rate of transformation. If you look at the two public sector operators, Gautrain and Prasa, along with Goldfields - who have a relationship with the public sector - two of the three are led by women. And, of course, you’ve got me here at the regulator. We’ve made a lot of progress as the RSR, in particular; of our workforce, 52% are female.

We’ve done a lot of work to advance this part of the transformation agenda and at the executive committee level, we have a 50/50 split. What is important to note is that when you have more women in the sector, it influences the sort of decisions we make around the work space and how suitable they are for women. We have a little bit more consideration about that. We are also a little bit more considerate about the experience of a woman in the rail system.

Q. What excites you about your role?

A. We know that the passenger rail system serves the poorest of the poor in South Africa, particularly Prasa. It serves the majority of our rail users. For me to know that I can contribute to making that journey to work safer is a great source of inspiration. Every time I wake up and I look at my work and how I should approach it.

Q. What exciting plans do you have for the coming year?

A. We are looking to roll out some of the activities for the Safety Risk Model (SRM). We had a team go to Australia to take some lessons from the development of their own model.

One of the things that’s come out of the rail policy, that the regulator has to put together, is what we call a Risk Matrix. Because it is very much aligned to the work on the SRM, we decided to set the goal of delivering in the current year. We are in the process of getting our Annual Performance Plan amended in order to include that.

Q. Do you have an inspirational message for our readership?

A. It is important that we lift one another. Allowing another woman to shine doesn’t take away your own shine. We can all shine in our own way. As we go through Women’s Month we must support one another, professionally and otherwise. •

Contact

Head Office: Building 4, Waterfall Point Office Park, Corner Waterfall and Woodmead Drive, Waterfall City, Midrand, 1685

Tel: +27 10 495 5391 Web: rsr.org.za