Nazli Jugbaran
ByWBSComms
A defining moment in my career has been the realisation that my purpose as an entrepreneur is far reaching, not just to create jobs and wealth, but also be a leading example of charting a path others can follow, especially women.
The defining moment of my career happened when I was 12 years old. My father was the managing director of Glenton & Mitchell in the Eastern Cape, the company that launched Joko Tea during the first half of the 20th century.
The glow of the newly installed blue iridescent Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream logo on the opening of our first the store in The Zone, Rosebank, in December 2015, was a moment that brought with it an understanding of where my career was rapidly moving.
It seems like just yesterday when I moved almost 2 000km from home, Thohoyandou in Venda to Bellville in Cape Town, left a secure comfortable job in academia and joined Sanlam as a research consultant in their employee benefits division.
After coming back from South Africa to Germany I started my career at Mercedes. I had the great opportunity to work for a well-known company and brand. I made a corporate career by going through different projects, functions and divisions. But after some years I had doubts that the corporate career path was the right one for me.
Every day is a great opportunity to claw one back for the ordinary person in a corruption-infested South Africa that is making every one of us poorer.