Profile: Building firms that can last – Zimkhita Matinyana CA(SA)

When Zimkhita Matinyana CA(SA) registered Kazimo Accountants in 2016, she had recently qualified and begun working at Standard Bank. She took on clients alongside her corporate job, gradually building the practice. Her articles at A2A Kopano Incorporated had taught her that an accountant’s work went beyond the numbers.

As the practice grew, she encountered the business challenges that technical training alone doesn’t necessarily prepare an accountant to solve: pricing services properly, putting systems and controls in place, winning clients and developing the confidence and networks needed to grow.

’I found myself facing different challenges in isolation,” she says. “I thought, surely there had to be other firms going through similar challenges.‘

WINA now brings together 18 women-owned accounting, auditing, tax and advisory firms. Its members include Brenda Hurudza of B Advisory Global, who specialises in business coaching, and Nwabisa Saba-Mkunqwana of Chapu Chartered Accountants, whose expertise includes quality assurance and governance.

From practitioner to business owner

Matinyana has built Kazimo while continuing her career in central finance at Standard Bank, where she has worked since 2015. More recently, her MBA studies prompted her to take a harder look at Kazimo as a business.

Towards the end of 2025, she decided she needed to become more deliberate about its strategy, plans and growth prospects.

Her experience has also expanded her view of what the CA(SA) designation prepares people to do. ’It gave me more than technical accounting or financial reporting skills,‘ she says. ’It taught me how businesses create value, how to manage them responsibly, and how financial information can be used to support better decision-making.’

For Matinyana, there is an important d ifference between running an accounting practice and building a business.

’Technical competence builds a practice, but if you want to build a business, you need to be more intentional about strategy and governance.‘

That means putting systems in place, planning for growth and reducing founder dependence. Good governance supports compliance and provides the business with the structure it needs to carry out its long-term plans.

She once planned to become a doctor and still uses the analogy to describe her work. ’I consider myself a doctor of business,‘ she says. ’Instead of diagnosing patients,

I help diagnose business challenges.‘

Increasingly, she wants that work to focus on what businesses do next, not simply on reporting what’s already happened.

Building together Matinyana describes WINA as ’a collaboration ecosystem‘ for women-owned firms. It’s intended to help women move from practitioner to business owner and, ultimately, ’enterprise builder.‘

Its first Founders Circle, ’Overcoming the Loneliness of Leadership & Entrepreneurship,‘ gave members a closed forum to discuss the commercial realities of running their firms, from pricing and profitability to finding clients and growing beyond the founder.

WINA is also developing its Growth Partners Initiative, a peer-to-peer mentorship model that allows members to share expertise. A firm that has already strengthened its systems and controls, for example, can help another member do the same.

Smaller practices can struggle to compete for large tenders when they lack the required capacity or systems. An established network makes it easier for members to form consortiums and bid together. WINA has also entered into an agreement with a TVET college in Ekurhuleni to place learners with member firms for workplace experience.

Matinyana sees plenty of room for firms to collaborate even when they operate in the same market. ’The pie is very big, so we just need to find ways to work together,‘ she says.

Bringing accountants in earlier

Matinyana applies the same business focus to the SMMEs Kazimo serves. She believes accountants can contribute more when entrepreneurs involve them in decision-making, rather than bringing them in only when financial statements or tax returns are due.

’We don’t want to be brought in at a later stage when guys want financials or they need assistance with tax returns,‘ she says. ’Bring us earlier on.‘

Kazimo recently launched its Virtual Finance Office, aimed at SMMEs that don’t yet have the resources for their own finance department. It provides virtual CFO-type support, including budgeting and cash-flow planning, and helps businesses assess whether projects are profitable.

Matinyana wants accountants to become part of those decisions. ’If you’re just bringing me in as an accountant, then I’m not really part of your strategy team,‘ she says.

She also sees scope for WINA to work with SAICA and The Hope Factory. WINA’s member firms could provide financial management and compliance support to entrepreneurs already receiving enterprise-development assistance.

Her proposal to SAICA is intended to complement existing initiatives while creating opportunities for practitioners and extending the financial support available to the SMMEs they serve.

Building a South African base

WINA’s immediate strategy is to strengthen its position in South Africa. It already has members in different provinces, but Matinyana wants a stronger national membership base before expanding elsewhere on the continent.

The longer-term ambition is for WINA to become Africa’s leading ecosystem for women-owned firms.

Its focus remains women-owned practices, although Matinyana says WINA is open to working with male-owned firms and other partners facing similar business challenges.

Matinyana wants WINA to change one thing in particular: ’No woman should have to build her own firm alone.‘

For her, that means giving women building accounting practices access to people who understand the business challenges they face and can help them solve them.

Author
Monique Verduyn