The female powerhouses in FORBES AFRICA’S OVER 30 UNDER 50 list – compiled for the second consecutive year- are the business leaders, musicians, models, movie stars, innovators and entrepreneurs who have intent and impact on their vision boards, as they scale greater heights, reinvent themselves and rewrite the rules in their 30s and 40s.
Reinvention is not to be taken lightly. Just ask the women in their 30s and 40s doing just that, armed with a tote bag filled with hard-learned lessons and a playbook stuffed with life notes.
These women will tell you that their 20s were spent wearing out their heels, to be able to bring their true selves to work and confidently stride into the next chapters of their life – the thriving 30s and fabulous 40s – that they are determined to script themselves. They are defying society’s conventional definitions of success to boldly stand out from the crowd – in their pointed Manolo Blahniks. “The biggest lie we have ever been told is that we are stagnant at this stage. I am thriving; I love my 30s,” says Rawdah Mohamed, a Somali-Norwegian model and activist, to FORBES AFRICA.
“In your 20s, you think you have this deadline; you have this rush and unnecessary anxiety. And then you come into your 30s – you’re settled and you have better self-esteem. You love your life. Then you meet other women in their 30s and they’re also thriving. Life is just so much calmer and better, and there’s quality in everything.”
The Over 30 Under 50 list is inspired by formidable women, from age 30 to 49, who are reaching career peaks, in addition to fulfilling their roles and responsibilities as daughters, wives and mothers.
Loading...
But the balance between the personal and professional – particularly for women with ambitious career goals and children and/or parents to look after – is often portrayed as unachievable.
“What’s interesting about that narrative is that ‘state of play’ was imposed on women in their 30s and 40s,” explains award-winning Ugandan-British actor, singer, composer, and play-wright, Sheila Atim.
“It wasn’t innate to us; what I mean by that is it’s not that we suddenly fall off a cliff and sink into irrelevance and inertia after we turn 30. It’s that certain industries had decided for us [that] they would shut us out, or decided that it was too complicated to work with women who also want to be mothers. They had their kind of arbitrary ideals about what to prioritize when it came to ‘platforming’ (placing on a pedestal) women, supporting women, and raising women. And it’s a massive conversation with so many branches.”
Lisa Z. Lindahl, in a 2024 Forbes opinion piece, queried, Is This The Age Of Women in Leadership? Lindahl found that, as of 2023, women held 10.4% of leadership positions at Fortune 500 companies. She also noted that there were a total of 52 women running businesses on the Fortune 500 list at the time – an all-time high.
“The most profitable Fortune 500 companies, according to a 2007 study, also had the highest percentage of women directors,” she writes.
However, a 2021 report from McKinsey & Company, co-authored with LeanIn.org, found that only 86 women are promoted to the position of manager for every 100 men, across all industries.
In their Women in the Workplace 2024 report, they noted that women’s representation had increased at every level of corporate management over the past decade, but that progress had been much slower at the entry and manager levels.
However, equitable representation at every level is an important part of fostering growth and advancement in the workplace.
“There were few women that we could look up to as role models,” Doris Ahiati, CEO and Co-founder, of Crescendo Consult, says to FORBES AFRICA. “I set out that, by the time I was [at] age 40, I would like to be a CEO to serve as an inspiration to other women, especially girls, so that they wouldn’t feel like there’s a certain glass ceiling when you get here [and] you can’t go any further. I have this written as a goal on my performance contract, wherever I work.”
It’s much the same in the creative industry. This is according to Ana F. Borges, Co-founder and Creative Director at Itsanashow Studio, who wrote a LinkedIn op-ed and a blog online, titled, Why is there a lack of women in the creative industry, and what can we do about it? “Women are still struggling to break into the creative industry at the same rate as men, particularly in technology and video games. To break through another glass ceiling, we should work on encouraging, supporting, and creating opportunities for this next generation of working women to take leadership roles in creative industries and build equity,” Borges notes.
Surprisingly, breaking the glass ceiling is not always top of mind for the women on this list – their focus is on ensuring that they are paving a path for others.
Captain Londy Ngcobo, for instance, is Africa’s first female dredge master and passionate about unlocking the continent’s ocean economy. More importantly, she has dedicated her 16 years in the maritime industry to ensuring that she “pushes past the narrative of multiplying as a woman and that there are more youth, more Captain Londys, more little BlaqMermaids [as she is known]”.
Ntsiki Biyela, who became the first Black female winemaker in South Africa, was unfazed by the male-dominated liquor industry. She had grown up with boys so that was not the difficult part.
“The only difficult part of entering the [wine] industry was figuring out how to navigate the different culture…,” she says, “but I like introducing myself to people. I don’t like the word ‘networking’ because I like building connections and friendships.”
For the women in this age cohort, it’s about acknowledging the statistics but also following it up with concerted action. They would rather embrace the opportunity to adapt to challenges and create success stories.
“I feel like we need to stop focusing on the naysayers; people who keep saying the things that don’t make sense,” Grammy-nominated Nigerian singer, Yemi Alade says to FORBES AFRICA.
“We need to shed more light on the people who say the truth about reality and the positives, which is that ‘if you believe it, you can achieve it’. Age is not the restriction and age is not the determinant. It’s all about what is in your mind. Just go for it.”
“What Iwant women in entertainment to know is that I don’t want them to be limited by just being on screen,” says South African actor and TV personality, Minnie Dlamini. “There’s so much more in this industry. But more than that though, I want people to look at my journey and realize that I didn’t do things conventionally. I didn’t do things the same way everyone did.”
These are the resolute and resilient women gracing the pages that follow. Their stories exemplify both bravado and brilliance, and are about breaking new ground.
Editor’s note: The list is unranked and in no particular order.
Loading...