With the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (8 March) being 'I am Generation Equality', Lara Rosmarin, Head of Incubation and Entrepreneurial Development at the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CiTi) is helping to level the playing field for South African businesswomen through CiTi’s Women in Business Programme. The fully-funded programme equips female entrepreneurs with the tech tools and skills they need to participate in the digital economy.
My day starts at around 05h30 with an exercise session of either pilates or cardio. I am usually in the office by 8am. My days consist of meetings, planning sessions, presentations, strategic think tanks, checking in with my team, checking in with clients and working on projects that are currently in our ambit.
I was given a fantastic opportunity many years ago to join an innovative team of strategic thinkers who created one of South Africa’s first tech-based business accelerators. It was the start of an exciting journey.
There is a massive focus on supporting female entrepreneurs and those in the youth categories. There is a shift towards specialised high impact incubation programmes.
As a team, we work really hard to ensure that we are creating meaningful and impactful interventions across all our verticals. To remain relevant, we need to ensure that we are creating offerings that support market demand in a high impact meaningful way.
In business, remain strong principle while exercising compassion for people. Forget perfection. Giving back is essential.
For me, it looks incredibly positive. Opportunities for entrepreneurs are exponential!
Limited seed funding and limited access to business networks often pose as a stumbling block
We need to be continually creating environments in which entrepreneurs can flourish.
For sure. Not everybody’s thinking fits a conventional corporate environment. Entrepreneurs want to shift things, build things, change things, solve things. Entrepreneurs are out-the-box-thinkers in a landscape where that quality is celebrated.
Ensure you surround yourself with the right people. Select a qualified mentor with lots of experience and a track record of success. Keep moving forward. Be accountable. The results of your efforts are not all in yet.