Makapanstad-born Morongwe Raphasha (36), says, when growing up in the North West, she never dreamt of becoming the engineering manager of State-owned power utility Eskom’s Hendrina coal-fired power station, in Mpumalanga, but a CEO.

Coming from humble beginnings, she grew up in a family of eight children, consisting of five sisters and two brothers, which meant bread without any butter and no money for tertiary education. Her mother was a domestic worker and her father a driver for a construction company.

“My mother built a strong foundation for me to go to school and study. She didn’t go to school at all, but knew the importance of education.”

However, Raphasha confesses to never having read a book from Grade 1 to 12, but still managing to matriculate. “I was born intelligent,” she quips.

But, when she did not obtain university exemption, it opened her eyes. “I got a wake-up call. Being one of the intelligent ones, I always assumed I would make it, but when I got an ‘S’ – [for senior certificate] – next to my name, I was shocked. And, from there, I had to turn around 360° and start studying hard.”

It was her older sister, Oniccah, who studied mechanical engineering, that drove Raphasha to study mechanical engineering, and who applied on her behalf for a grant from the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa.

Raphasha had always been interested in the mechanics of things from an early age, spending a lot more time with boys than girls as a result of her interest in building wire cars, windmills and rain gauges. Therefore, things did not change much when she decided to study mechanical engineering at Tshwane University of Technology, where she obtained a national diploma in mechanical engineering. She later obtained a certificate in engineering management from the University of Pretoria.

“I find it a lot easier to hang around with ‘the boys’” – something that did not change once Raphasha got to university or started working, admitting that she has “few lady friends”.

To survive and excel in a male-dominated field, women need to ensure that they are passionate about their field of study, advises Raphasha, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of South Africa (Unisa).

Women also need to be “mentally attractive” to ensure that they know what they are talking about to gain their male counterparts’ respect. “You have to play the ball, not the person,” she adds, highlighting that male engineers are very competitive –

although, so is Raphasha, who, in view of her CEO status aspiration, has completed a master’s degree in business administration at Unisa’s Graduate School of Business Leadership.

Working in a male-dominated environment gives Raphasha “a rush”, especially when commanding the attention of her male counterparts’ in the boardroom.

She admits that being a women engineer has played in her favour and made it easy to excel, because “I have all the advantages”, Raphasha explains.

“As a women, I was born with almost 98% of all the leadership qualities and, while men can only focus on one thing at a time, I can multitask.

“Women are creative by nature, are good with relationships, have a gut feel about when something is going to go wrong and attend to the situation before it does, and are able to build teams,” Raphasha says, noting that, when people work in teams, it is to the betterment of a business.

However, the Women In Engineering Symposium chairperson points out that, when women reach a certain level in their career, they tend to become complacent. “I’m not sure if this is because they have other responsibilities, such as kids, but women engineers are [deficient] at a high level.”

Raphasha, therefore, is trying to build up women from a young age in an attempt to counter this trend. Through her company, Ladies in Heels, she has been “paying it forward” in an initiative that has been running for the last two years, where she provides career guidance, mentoring and coaching for female learners.

“I noticed that people entered the field of engineering not because they like engineering but because they think there is money in engineering. This has a huge impact on the industry, because now you have an engineer that does not like engineering and does not excel. Therefore, getting that person to be productive becomes an issue, impacting on the productivity of the business as a whole.”

As such, Ladies in Heels assesses girls from Grade 11 to 12 from disadvantaged backgrounds to gauge their strengths, weaknesses and their thinking preferences using the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument and other tools. This assessment method helps determine an individual’s thinking style and, hence, ideal careers to prevent mismatches and lessening the chance of people going to work purely for a salary, says Raphasha, noting that the company assesses about 100 girls a year.

In line with this, Raphasha and her partner, Audrey Baloyi, had their talk show broadcast on 1 Gospel, channel 331, on the July 30, where they discussed the roles of professionals. The partners have another session planned for November 28. They also were both guests on a television programme called Tholu’lwazi, where different issues are discussed, such as being unfairly treated in the workplace. Ladies in Heels is also launching a work shadow project called ‘Step in2mi World’, a television programme to be aired in March 2016, “because we tend to choose careers without knowing what they entail”.

In addition, Raphasha promotes the Engineering Council of South Africa’s Engenius Programme, which she joined in 2013, to create informed awareness and excitement at school level about being an engineer.

The mother to 13-year-old twins is also a Girl Guide leader, called Eagle – Epic, Authentic, Gorgeous, a Lady who is Extraordinary. She says: “I don’t find time, I make time” to accommodate her hectic schedule. Raphasha is also an editor, having edited two books, Wired for success and Jungle on my mind.

“My purpose in life is to grow people in all aspects of their life; that is what drives me to be a part of everything that involves growth. I believe in what Albert Einstein said: ‘Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid’.

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