By Charmaine Ndlela
Three women entrepreneurs have each secured R50,000 and a place at the national Standard Bank Top Women stage after winning regional legs of the Standard Bank Top Women EmpowHER initiative.
Lesego Seloane of Ronewa Creations, Kiki Sepuru of Afrique360 Solutions and Refilwe Moreno Barahona of Tsogomath emerged as the regional winners representing Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng respectively.
The three entrepreneurs went head-to-head at the Standard Bank Top Women Conference, held at the Sandton Convention Centre, where they pitched their businesses to potential investors, buyers and business leaders.
Their journey began in June at the Radisson Collection Hotel in Cape Town, where 10 pre-selected women entrepreneurs from each region and across various industries gathered for the EmpowHER initiative.
The programme focuses on networking, mentorship, skills development and practical business opportunities, while providing entrepreneurs with access to experienced mentors and business-building knowledge.
The pitching platform forms part of the wider programme aimed at helping women entrepreneurs strengthen their businesses and access new markets and networks.
The three regional winners will now compete at the 23rd annual Standard Bank Top Women Awards in Johannesburg on December 3, where the national winner will receive the Standard Bank Top Women Trophy and an additional R100,000 cash prize.
The finalists operate in three sectors — landscaping, cleaning and property management, and mining — but share a common challenge faced by many women-owned businesses: moving from an established small business to sustainable growth.
Seloane founded Ronewa Creations in 2015, drawing on her background in botany and her grandmother’s garden in Soweto.
The business, which she runs with her aunt, Dinah Kgeledi, has expanded into environmental and facilities management.
According to the company profile, Ronewa Creations has employed more than 50 people and trained more than 200 young people, landscapers and entrepreneurs.
The company has also been involved in landscaping work linked to the G20 Summit and is now looking to establish a Green Academy to expand its skills-development work.
Sepuru, the KwaZulu-Natal winner, took a different route into entrepreneurship.
After spending nine years in the corporate IT sector, including at BMW Group South Africa, she left her career to enter the commercial cleaning and property management industry.
She founded Afrique360 Solutions, a technology-driven cleaning and property management company that seeks to modernise facilities management through digital tools.
Its SmartClean platform is designed to improve quality inspections, workforce management and predictive maintenance by bringing real-time digital monitoring to an industry that has traditionally relied heavily on manual processes.
For Gauteng winner Moreno Barahona, entrepreneurship grew out of more than a decade in the mining industry.
A mining engineer with 15 years of underground experience, she moved from working as a miner to management before establishing Tsogomath.
The company focuses on designing lighter and safer underground mining tools while helping rehabilitate underperforming crews.
Her entrepreneurial journey has involved significant personal sacrifices, including using her pension and provident fund, renting out her home and moving into her garage. She also drove for an e-hailing service when the business was not generating enough income.
The three businesses qualified for the EmpowHER pitching platform after reaching annual turnovers of between R1 million and R5 million.
Their experiences come against a backdrop of persistent challenges facing women entrepreneurs in South Africa.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor South Africa Women’s Entrepreneurship Special Report, published in 2024 using 2023 data, found that 4.1% of women aged between 18 and 64 were running established businesses, compared with 7.9% of men.
The report also found that 4.9% of women entrepreneurs had businesses employing 20 or more people, compared with 11.8% of men.
South Africa’s broader entrepreneurial environment also remains challenging.
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2026 National Expert Special Report, released in July, scored South Africa’s entrepreneurial environment at 3.9 out of 10, compared with a global average of 4.7.
Access to finance remains a major barrier.
The State of the SMME in South Africa 2026 report found that more than 90% of small businesses rely on their own resources and personal networks, while only 9.7% reported using bank loans and between 2% and 3% relied on grants or investors.
The report further found that women-owned enterprises received 22% of nearly R2 billion in direct loans issued by the Small Enterprise Development Finance Agency between 2022 and 2024.
For entrepreneurs operating in sectors such as mining, cleaning and landscaping, access to capital is only part of the challenge.
Businesses often have to carry the costs of staff, equipment and operations while waiting for large clients to pay invoices.
Building credibility and gaining access to corporate procurement networks can also determine whether a growing business secures its next major contract.
Standard Bank South Africa head of business and commercial banking Simone Cooper said the focus needed to shift from representation to “meaningful economic influence”, with women entrepreneurs requiring access to finance, markets, networks and technology.
The EmpowHER initiative seeks to bring some of these elements together by providing women entrepreneurs with opportunities to network, gain insights and pitch their businesses to potential partners and decision-makers.
For the three finalists, the national stage provides an opportunity to take their businesses beyond their existing markets.
Seloane is looking to expand the skills-development side of Ronewa Creations through its planned Green Academy, while Sepuru is positioning Afrique360 Solutions as both a facilities management business and a technology company.
Moreno Barahona is using her experience in mining to develop solutions aimed at improving safety and productivity underground.
The Standard Bank Top Women EmpowHER Development Series consists of a three-part live event series aimed at building communities and creating access to networks for entrepreneurs.
