Maureen Makole Manyama CA(SA) knows that a senior title counts for little without the authority to influence decisions. Her career has taught her how setbacks can test self-belief and how often women must prove themselves again, regardless of their experience. She believes organisations should trust women with difficult work and give them genuine power at executive level. Women should also lead as themselves rather than feel pressured to imitate men. Appointments may improve the numbers, but the real gender dividend comes when women have the freedom and authority to lead in their own way.
MAUREEN MAKOLE MANYAMA’S first cash book was a two-quire notebook in her parents’ hardware store in Mokwasele village, Ga-Modjadji. During the school holidays, she recorded sales, balanced the day’s takings and helped with stocktaking. She may not have known it at the time, but the family business was teaching her a lesson that would stay with her throughout her career – every transaction has to be accounted for.
The family business also introduced her to timber products and the wider supply chain. Years later, when she became CFO of the South African Forestry Company Limited (SAFCOL), she returned to the same industry from the producer’s side.
Now she is taking that experience into the energy sector. In July 2026, Manyama was appointed CFO of the National Transmission Company South Africa. She joins NTCSA as it builds the financial capacity to invest in new transmission infrastructure which is part of the Transmission Development Plan, and support South Africa’s changing and transforming electricity market.
The opportunity first came her way in September 2024, when a headhunter approached her about the position, which she could not pursue. At the time, she was leading a finance transformation programme at Wits University and wanted to finish what she had started. NTCSA, through a leading search company, approached her again towards the end of 2025. This time, she was ready to pursue the role and opportunity at hand.
Manyama began studying at the University of Cape Town at the age of 16. She had little career guidance at high school but knew that she wanted to become a chartered accountant. Accounting appealed to her because it explained how a business worked.
She was used to doing well academically, so failing CTA and the Board examinations on her first attempts came as a shock. She wrote again and passed.
FAILURES ARE TEMPORARY DETOURS
‘Never camp in your failures,’ she says. ‘Failures are temporary detours.’
She began her career at an audit firm as part of the bursary obligation and transferred her articles to another auditing firm and became a manager while completing her articles. Her work included reviewing the audit of United Nations peacekeeping missions and headquarters, checking whether funds were spent and accounted for in line with the prevailing laws and legislations. She later put that experience to work at SARS and the Department of Trade and Industry, in the internal audit departments. In 2004 she changed her career into finance and, she also began serving on boards and audit committees.
After qualifying in 2003, she set her sights on becoming a CFO. She chose roles that widened her experience and brought her closer to executive decision-making. In 2010, SAFCOL appointed her CFO.
By then, her time at Postbank had already changed her understanding of finance leadership. As executive for finance and support, she contributed to the benchmarking work behind its corporatisation and establishment as a separate legal entity.
Her immediate supervisor (2006–2009), Totsie Memela (Managing Director: Postbank), also showed her what good sponsorship could achieve. Manyama calls her a ‘boss from heaven’.
Memela trusted her with responsibilities beyond her formal position. She asked Manyama to prepare strategic presentations, represent Postbank internationally and sometimes chair executive committee meetings. She did more than telling Manyama that she had potential. She gave her the chance to demonstrate it.
Manyama now tries to do the same for other women. Encouragement has its limits, she says. Talented people need demanding work and access to the rooms where decisions are made.
At SAFCOL, Manyama put that executive experience to work. The organisation had recorded two years of losses, and its management structure had become too costly.
As CFO and acting CEO, she helped lead a restructuring that reduced the executives from 11 positions to four integrated portfolios.
Employees and organised labour were consulted through a CCMA-facilitated process,and the proposals went through the required governance channels.
CHANGE MUST BE LED
‘People are more willing to embrace change when they understand why it is necessary and when they feel heard,’ she says. ‘Change cannot simply be announced. It must be led.’
SAFCOL returned to profit, recording R51 million. Employees also received their first salary increases in two years.
For Manyama, the turnaround showed that finance should do more than report what has already happened.
‘The most effective CFOs help answer “What happened?” as well as “What does it mean?” and “What should we do next?”’
She wants finance teams to help decision-makers see what lies ahead rather than simply report what has already happened. Dashboards and balanced scorecards can link financial results to operational performance, but only when leaders choose the right measures and know how to interpret them.
Her later roles prepared her for the work at NTCSA. At Airports Company South Africa, she dealt with infrastructure funding and capital allocation in a regulated sector. She also led the integrated reporting process, and ACSA’s reports received several awards between 2014 and 2016.
She went on to help improve the Agricultural Research Council’s financial position. At Wits, she led a multi-year overhaul of the university’s finance operating model.
At NTCSA, Manyama is again building a finance function while the organisation goes through major change. Her first priorities are to establish how finance will operate and appoint its leadership team. She will also put in place the controls and funding approach needed to support the Transmission Development Plan.
She wants finance involved in investment decisions from the outset while building confidence among lenders and regulators. NTCSA must secure the funding to expand South Africa’s transmission network without putting its own financial sustainability at risk.
Manyama also knows how quickly women’s authority can be questioned. She has faced assumptions that women are promoted to meet diversity targets and seen their mistakes judged more harshly. Having entered university at 16 and moved into senior roles while still young, she also met people who equated age with experience.
LETTING HER WORK SPEAK FOR ITSELF
She dealt with those doubts by preparing thoroughly and letting her work speak for itself. She never believed women had to copy traditionally masculine leadership styles to be taken seriously.
For Manyama, gender diversity must go beyond appointments. Women need real authority, important portfolios and the opportunity to take part in executive decision-making. ‘The real test of inclusion is whether women have decision-making power,’ she says.
