No challenge too daunting for mining engineer-turned MD Flora Jika.

Flora Jika is used to taking leaps of faith in her career. Of her latest bold move – taking the reins as Managing Director at Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) in Ghana – she says the reception she got as a foreigner and a woman business leader was warmer than she had expected.

Like the balmy climate.

A fluid policy environment and fluctuating Ghanaian currency have kept her on her toes and she has found it necessary to be highly adaptable.

“I always say to my team, I thought FMCG in SA was ‘it’ in terms of fast, but here it’s much faster. The macro environment is very different and it has pushed me out of my comfort zone.”

The scale of the business is also different, and she’s enjoying the opportunity to get involved in a hands-on way
– recounting how a colleague had been taken aback to find the managing director walking through the warehouse.

She is no stranger to blazing a trail where no woman has gone before, having started her career as a mining engineer and heading underground as a leader of all-male teams. It was only after her arrival that two-piece overalls were introduced for women, and separate ablutions provided underground.

Having completed a postgraduate degree in industrial engineering to complement her BSc in Engineering from Wits, she left a promising future
in mining for the wider horizons of the FMCG industry, joining CCBA in South Africa (ABI at the time) as a depot manager.

Again, she found that as a woman she had to learn faster and find things out for herself more than her male colleagues. Whereas they would already know how a truck was put together, Flora would physically inspect it, down to counting the wheels.

She says women sometimes put unnecessary pressure on themselves in this way. Whereas the expectations of men and women are exactly the same, in her view, women interpret these expectations differently, pushing themselves to be better prepared, more knowledgeable, and harder working.

“If a man goes home at 7pm he will almost certainly find dinner waiting for him. As a woman you will get home and have to start preparing the meal, so you have to learn to do things differently.

This is a fundamental theme in the story of how she has flourished in male-dominated environments.

“It’s very easy to lose yourself and try to be one of the boys. I think it’s a trap we shouldn’t fall into. Stay true to yourself and stay true to being feminine if that will give you confidence. Don’t lose yourself in thinking you have to sound like the men, you need to find what works for you.”

She is passionate about women drawing strength from each other, having led a women’s forum at Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa where they could share experiences and learnings.

“The issue for women in the workplace doesn’t start in the workplace,” she believes. “It starts with girls learning to be quiet about how they are feeling.”

For example, this leads to professional women soldiering on through illness instead of speaking up, which Flora believes is very unhealthy and can lead to them performing poorly.

Starting with one of the root causes of this issue, she has initiated a personal “passion project” in Ghana to donate free sanitary towels and pain killers to high school students from the ages of 12 to 14.

There is much to be hopeful about, and attitudes have changed significantly since she started her career in mining as “a 22-year-old bright- eyed young woman”.

“I’ve had more wins than losses. The wins create confidence and trust. More people in the industry trust you, and your opinions are valued. Attitudes towards me have definitely shifted since I started my career.

“In terms of attitudes towards women, I think people realise that we need women in the workplace - and their ideas. Companies that employ women in management positions are more successful,” she notes.

This is one of the reasons that CCBA has set itself a target to have 50% women representation at management level by 2025.

With Flora and others like her leading the charge, the company is well on its way to achieving this goal.