<p>Half of the 10 richest South African women either inherited their wealth from their fathers or built businesses together with their husbands. A few are standalone entrepreneurs, while some are renowned corporate executives.</p>
<h3>Wendy Ackerman, $300 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Retail</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30774 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-600x800.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920.jpg 750w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Wendy Ackerman’s husband, Raymond, founded Pick ‘n’ Pay, one of South Africa’s most dominant retail empires. She and her husband control the Ackerman Family Trust, the vehicle through which they own more than 40% of the retail giant. She has also served as a Non-Executive Director of the company since 2010. Pick ‘n’ Pay has outlets across Southern Africa and Australia.</p>
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<h3>Wendy Appelbaum, $200 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Insurance</h3>
<p>Wendy Appelbaum is the daughter of revered South African multi-millionaire insurance mogul Donald Gordon who co-founded Liberty Investors, an insurance and real estate company. She worked at Liberty before divesting her significant shareholding in the company. She used the proceeds to pursue other interests, most notably, DeMorgenzon, a wine estate in Stellenbosch. The philanthropist has donated millions of dollars to causes in education and health in South Africa.</p>
<h3>Irene Charnley, $150 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Telecoms</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30776 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-276x300.jpg" alt="" width="276" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-276x300.jpg 276w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-300x326.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-600x652.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-768x835.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-942x1024.jpg 942w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd.jpg 941w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px" /></p>
<p>Charnley burst into the limelight as a trade unionist when she was a negotiator for the National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa. She subsequently left union politics and joined MTN as an Executive Director where she was instrumental in negotiating for a GSM license in Nigeria, MTN’s most profitable market. She earned hefty stock options which translated into more than R2 billion ($71 million) as far back as in 2006. She divested her shareholding in MTN and founded Smile Telecoms, an internet services provider active in West and East Africa. Smile Telecoms recently closed a $365 million funding round from international investors to expand its broadband network.</p>
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<h3>Elisabeth Bradley, $100 million</h3>
<h3>Source: Investments</h3>
<p>Elisabeth Bradley is the chairperson of Wesco Investments, an investment holding firm and Toyota South Africa, a company that has the lucrative distributorship of Toyota in South Africa. Her father, businessman Albert Wessels, had the foresight in 1961 to acquire the distribution rights of the automaker in South Africa. It has paid off handsomely for Bradley. In 2008, she sold off 25% of Toyota South Africa to Toyota Motor Corp of Japan for more than $300 million.</p>
<h3>Judy Dlamini, $100 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Aspen Pharmacare</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30777" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-300x177.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="177" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-300x177.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-600x353.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-768x452.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-1024x603.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini.jpg 1023w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<p>Dlamini, a medical doctor by profession, is the leading shareholder in Imithi Investments (Pty) Limited, a black economic empowerment vehicle that owns more than 4% of Aspen Pharmacare, Africa’s largest pharmaceuticals company. She is also the chairperson of a black women-owned and managed company with operations and investments in health, facilities management, tourism, fashion retail and retail property.</p>
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<h3>Sharon Wapnick, $80 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Investments</h3>
<p>Sharon’s father, Alec Wapnick, founded Octodec Investments and Premium Properties, both Real Estate Investment Trust companies. In 2014, both companies merged to become Octodec. Sharon is one of the largest shareholders in the company. She also serves as a partner at TWB Attorneys, a commercial law firm in Johannesburg.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30772" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-300x184.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="184" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-300x184.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-600x368.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX.jpg 680w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></p>
<h3>Pam Golding, $60 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Real Estate</h3>
<p>Pamela Golding is the founder of the Pam Golding Property Group, a real estate brokerage which she started in 1976 with one sales assistant and no capital. Five decades later, Pam Golding is one of the largest real estate agencies in Africa, closing more than $1 billion in deals in 2015 and employing a workforce of more than 3,000 professionals. Golding is the chairperson of the company while her son Andrew is CEO.</p>
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<h3>Vanessa Gounden, $45 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Diversified</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30775 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Vanessa-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vanessa-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Vanessa.jpg 267w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p>
<p>Gounden serves as the CEO of the Holgoun Group, a conglomerate she co-founded with her husband, Sivandran Gounden, in 2005. Holgoun started out in the clean energy business, but after it flopped, she and her husband set out to buy platinum prospecting rights and developed platinum mining assets through which they made their first fortune. The company now has an asset base of $250 million and interests in mining, healthcare financial services, property, media and security among other sectors. Gounden is now attempting to make her mark in high fashion. In 2011 she launched her own fashion label named Vanessa Gounden, a luxury womenswear brand that has a pop-up shop on Beauchamp Place near Harrods in London.</p>
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<h3>Bridgette Radebe, $25 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Mining</h3>
<p>Radebe is one of the few females to have thrived in South Africa’s male-dominated mining industry. Mmakau mining, a Johannesburg-based junior mining company she founded, has lucrative mining assets in coal, gold, uranium and platinum. Radebe started out in the 1990s managing shafts for larger mining firms on a contract basis. She is elder sister to South Africa’s first black billionaire Patrice Motsepe.</p>
<h3>Yolanda Cuba, $10 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Diversified</h3>
<p>Yolanda Cuba currently serves as Executive Director for strategy and business support for South Africa Breweries Limited, but in her former life, she was the CEO of Mvelaphanda Group, an investment company with interests in mining and natural resources. Mvelaphanda was previously listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, during which time Cuba was awarded stock options worth around $10 million.</p>


South Africa’s 10 Wealthiest Women In Business

<p>How different it could have been. Property’s loss could have been the theater’s gain. Believe it or not, if she hadn’t become a property queen, Pam Golding wanted to be a singer and dancer in cabaret.</p>
<p>“I love dancing, music and singing!” she says of her little-known longing for the limelight.</p>
<p>Golding’s millionaire career, too, started out on a small stage in the 1960s in Kenilworth, Cape Town, with a handful of agents selling houses around the corner—the first of which was a cottage. The business now has 300 offices; 2,500 agents and 30,000 properties, including a French château. It is the fruit of the forceful approach of a woman who invested in difficult times in South Africa’s history when companies like Barclays and General Motors were pulling out. As the world locked South Africa with economic sanctions, Golding was opening an office in London, selling South African properties.</p>
<div id="attachment_1002" style="width: 235px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1002" class="wp-image-1002 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Pam-as-a-young-woman-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /><p id="caption-attachment-1002" class="wp-caption-text">Golding as a young woman</p></div>
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<p>“I started the company when South Africa was going through a recession and people said I was crazy to go on my own. But I rarely take notice of things such as recessions! I was determined to succeed and that is half the battle already won,” says Golding.</p>
<p>It was this drive that led to a strategic alliance with Savills—a property group based in the United Kingdom with more than 200 offices around the world. This alliance has helped Golding expand in the international market.</p>
<p>“Ms Pam Golding is a pioneering business woman who has built a formidable international business. She stands as a testament of the capability of women and as a role model for all those women who have what it takes but may be unsure about going into business,” says Kunyalala Maphisa, president of the Business Woman’s Association of South Africa.</p>
<p>It all sprang from humble beginnings. Golding, who is part of South Africa’s real estate royalty, attended the Collegiate School for girls in Port Elizabeth, before earning a degree from the University of Cape Town. Her early working days were spent selling the Treasure Casket children’s books door-to-door. With the commission she earned she took her mother on a trip to England. With time, she developed a knack for selling, which gave birth to her real estate career.</p>
<p>There was humility too. Golding’s husband, Cecil, had to persuade her to name the company after herself. More than 30 years later, the Pam Golding Group sells everything from franchises to hotels and has turned over more than $1.48 billion for the financial year, ended February 2012.</p>
<p>The franchising of Pam Golding Properties helped the company expand. The franchisees are given management training and support through the Pam Golding Training Academy. The group’s current CEO, Dr Andrew Golding, feels that franchising is not about saturating the market but rather about filling a gap.</p>
<p>Pam Golding Property Management Services manages 150 schemes at a market value of more than $1.46 billion. Golding herself has taken a step back from the business but remains its president.</p>
<div id="attachment_1001" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1001" class="wp-image-1001 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dr-Andrew-Golding-pic-1-pic-resized-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" /><p id="caption-attachment-1001" class="wp-caption-text">Dr Andrew Golding</p></div>
<p>“My son Andrew Golding became chief executive of the group in 1996, and I realized that the company was in good hands… Trying to achieve a balance between career and personal life has always been a challenge,” says Golding.</p>
<p>Golding may not have been a cabaret dancer but she has waltzed through the tough real estate market—without missing a step.</p>


Tag: Pam Golding

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

South Africa’s 10 Wealthiest Women In Business

From A Cottage In Cape Town To A Château In France