Time to hear the Lionesses Roar!

November 22, 2020 Melanie Hawken

“But every person in poverty, they dream of a better life, they want a better house, they want to provide for themselves, they want better roofing, they want water inside, they want electricity inside their homes.”

…so said an inspirational Lioness who is setting the world alight winning awards for her work to bring clean water to villages and into homes in Rwanda. At the tender age of 26 (so she is still a Lioness cub!), she is of course Christelle Kwizera of Water Access Rwanda.

Dream with ambition

November 15, 2020 Melanie Hawken

“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they've never seen it before.”

…and so said the brilliant and inspirational Kamala Harris in a speech that many of us feared might not be possible as we saw the initial numbers coming out of the US Election on the night of the 3rd November 2020.

How not to lose your ‘mojo’ as your business grows

November 8, 2020 Melanie Hawken

It was the morning after the night before and the Head of Finance (HoF) was in a pensive mood, finally calling us one by one into the Boardroom.

What was this all about?

Why all the secrecy from the HoF?

Had we possibly made a terrible error and put decaffeinated beans in the Coffee machine?

These questions and many other horrific thoughts rushed through our minds.

Grab that opportunity!

October 31, 2020 Melanie Hawken

The AbsaLionessesXpo opened with a bang to a VIP guest list on Tuesday and to the whole world on Thursday 29th October (although there will be other special invite days ahead - so keep an eye out for that VIP Gilt-Edged Invite from Melanie!).

The best decision was not to follow consensus

October 25, 2020 Melanie Hawken

The above is a quote in an FT article by the highly successful outgoing UBS CEO, Sergio Ermotti (he is off to Chair SwissRE) and was on our desks when we arrived this morning. Given the coffee-grain fingerprints, there was only one possible person who could have left this and indeed the HoF (Head of Finance) was deep into the FT (as well as a 3rd cup of coffee) as we walked over to discuss.

Failures are silent (sadly)

October 15, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Tuesday morning means one thing in the Lioness Hub, the Head of Finance (HoF) makes us think outside the box, takes us away from whatever we are doing to watch or listen to something slightly different and thought provoking. It is apparently (according to the HoF), as important as occasionally walking shoe-less on grass, as it ‘grounds’ and ‘nourishes the soul’.

…now there’s an idea!

October 11, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Screen Shot 2020-10-11 at 5.30.58 PM.jpg

It was looking like it was going to be a quiet day in the Lionesses Hub. It was 9:30am, the Head of Finance (HoF) was deep into a third coffee, all was as normal. But was it? Emerging from the darkness that is the Finance PowerRoom (as the HoF likes to call it!), we were shocked to hear the announcement, “Retail is Dead. Long live Retail!” boom across the stunned room.

Don’t be the weakest link!

October 3, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Tuning into the fabulous Harvard/Lionesses of Africa ‘Women and the Changing Face of Entrepreneurship in Africa’ Conference this week, and seeing all our friends from the 100 Lionesses Club (we really must change that to ‘Celebration’, not ‘Club’) made us think of one legend of a Lioness who went to Harvard, (who’s short, simple yet very effective obituary we recently read from A16Z in their September newsletter here), who led before us creating the pathway for so many of us to follow. Sadly recently departed, the one and only RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Oxygen for your Transformation, or “Show me the Money!”

September 27, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Last weekend, we looked at ‘Lean Transformations’ and within that we pointed out that McKinsey had shown that 70% of transformations failed due to no buy-in from or a failure to carry these important stakeholders: Board, Management, Employees (and not necessarily in that order).

Let’s go ‘Lean!’

September 20, 2020 Melanie Hawken

We ended last week by introducing the term ‘Lean organisation’. To create more value for customers with less resources. What you are aiming for is to provide perfect value to the customer through perfect value creation with zero waste. As we pointed out ‘perfection’ cannot be attained, but by aiming for perfection, so we get incredible results…

Evolution or Revolution? Part 2

September 13, 2020 Melanie Hawken

So last week we looked at easy wins on the Sales side to reduce your Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and who would have thought that one of the easy wins, in automating the process of sending out invoices, would have such a huge impact!

Evolution or Revolution?

September 6, 2020 Melanie Hawken

The Head of Finance (HoF) waltzed into the office this morning and called us all together. “Time to come down from the incredible high of the VW Lionesses Den and crack on with our Business Unusual take on business in difficult times! So let’s look at one of my favourite topics! - Crisis Transformation.”

Pitch Books Part 3: The Home Stretch

August 30, 2020 Melanie Hawken

So as we turn into the home stretch we have these left:

The Product
The Customers
Business Model
The Marketing Plan
The Ask
The Team
and finally
Company Overview
Mission/Vision of the Company

Pitch Books Part 2. The Engine Room.

August 23, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Continuing our look at Pitch Books we again break them down into bite-sized chunks… Last week we looked at what grabs the attention of any potential Investor: The Problem, The Solution, and The Competition.

Hope is a 4-letter word!

August 15, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Our Head of Finance (HoF) was in an excited mood and called us in to watch an interview from Stanford University with Marc Andreessen (founding partner of the massive and highly successful USA VC firm A16Z). One hour later and shocked, we began to realize why this was so important. A16Z look at 3,000 of the 4,000 startups in the USA searching for VC funding each year in A16Z’s sectors. Of those they only look at 200 in depth and of those they only invest in about 20 a year.

Caught in the headlamps

August 8, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Our Head of Finance (HoF) arrived this morning and made straight for our desk, sat down, picked up the spare coffee (which wasn’t spare as it happens), looked to the heavens as if for some divine inspiration, took a deep breath and started…

Agility trumps forecasting

August 1, 2020 Melanie Hawken

Question: “What do you get if you wrap all the Economists in the world around the globe end to end?” Answer: “No conclusion…” This was attributed to George Bernard Shaw in May 1933 and he does seem to have a point. With so many conflicting views in the early stages of the Coronavirus attack, even from Scientists who we have always believed live in a binary world rather than the ‘Is it a Science or is it an Art’ world of Economics, should we start to question the worth of forecasting? What conclusions can any of us draw currently?

Credit is ALL about the 5 C’s

July 25, 2020 Melanie Hawken

So we’ve all heard of the 4 C’s of Diamond buying (cut, colour, clarity and carat) and now thanks to a fabulous Lioness Co-Lab we have the 5 C’s with an amazing collaboration between Clare Appleyard, founder of Katannuta Diamonds and Vicki Bain, founder of Chocoloza, meaning we now have Cut, Colour, Clarity, Carat and Chocolate! Who could ask for more?

The Loneliness…and the Bravery

July 19, 2020 Melanie Hawken

“You're always one decision away from a totally different life”…

There is a book by Alan Sillitoe called: “The loneliness of a long distance runner” that was then made into a film. It’s about a boy who had made wrong decisions (who hasn’t somewhere in their lives!) and was then sent to a youth detention centre / school in the UK, one of many so called ‘Borstals’. While there he found a passion in long distance running and single-mindedly pursued this becoming very good indeed. The problem was that the people in charge wanted him to bend to their will and run just so that they could brag and boast about beating the local private school in a big race that was due. They wanted to control his power to further their agenda. They were determined to use this boy’s skills and bend his will for their own glory. This became not about him, but all about them.

Private Equity is not for everyone!

July 10, 2020 Melanie Hawken

So we had a very interesting and busy week. It got us thinking that the issues we were seeing from the Lionesses sensible enough to give us a call and get our Head of Finance (‘HoF’) to simply ‘kick the tyres’ of deals before they sign (including one that was initially refused finance and has now gone back with a tighter and more rounded application) were probably representative of many issues that our larger membership was also facing and having to decide upon.

Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletters for Africa's women entrepreneurs.