Nazli Jugbaran
ByWBSComms
J.R. Morgan said, “A man always has two reasons for doing anything – a good reason and the real reason.” At the end of 2009, I found myself at a crossroad in my entrepreneurial journey.
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.
My career-defining moments involved starting long processes with a payoff coming much later. One most important career-defining moment for me was when I realised the power of making the right choices and displaying my risk-taking characteristics.
The most defining moment in my life was when I realised that black women could own a bank that focuses on entrepreneurs, but most importantly it was having my own people affirming my dream by supporting it financially.
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.
I was in the hot seat in the M-Net boardroom packed with suits. At the end of the presentation, he asked me two simple questions – if we did this, what would be different the day after, and what is our right to win?