PROFILE
(CSARO) operations division as operations
director. In this role, I was responsible
for leading a centralised function,
delivering on operational efficiency
improvements and compliance, whilst
also leading the cross-border entities of
Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and
Zimbabwe as general manager.
Then, on 1 September 2018, I
was appointed as managing director
for Cummins Southern Africa. I’m
responsible for the leadership, operations
and strategic direction for Cummins’s
distribution business in South Africa,
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar,
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia,
Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
PEH: Your accolades and
accomplishments are impressive given
the relatively short timeline. How did you
find yourself on the senior leadership
path?
RN: I have been very fortunate to have
good managers, which in turn inspired me
to aspire to the same calibre of leadership
qualities. My managers were willing to:
number one, pay attention to me; and
two, give me meaningful work. I’m the
kind of person that gets bored easily, and
they picked up on that very quickly, and
were able to give me very meaningful, but
also challenging work. At times I would
think, “This is impossible, what are they
asking me to do?” but I found that it’s
through working through what seemed
impossible that I found solutions that can
advance the business, which in turn leads
to being noticed, and as a result, being
given bigger responsibilities.
I went out there saying that I definitely
want to make sure that I leverage on
the theory I’d learnt at school; I want to
make a difference and make sure that
I am learning, and that the business is
benefitting – that, combined with great
managers and a great environment was
a recipe for success. I don’t think I would
have stayed with Cummins as long as
I have if it wasn’t for the environment I
found myself in. I joined as an intern and
would hear about people who’d been
www.plantonline.co.za
working here for 30 to 40 years, which
speaks volumes.
PEH: What challenges have you
encountered as a woman in such a senior
role?
RN: I think that challenges are an
everyday part of a leader’s role. If you
don’t have challenges, and things are
running too smoothly, you should be
worried. You have to learn to live with
challenges and become comfortable in a
challenging situation.
Speaking specifically from a woman’s
perspective, I have never thought of
myself as a woman first, and then an
employee. I’ve always thought of myself
as an employee who happens to be a
woman. So, my approach is, when I walk
into a room, I am there to contribute as
an employee, not as a woman who is an
employee.
I’ll admit this is a very male-dominated
industry, but I had the advantage of
growing up with five brothers. Through my
lens, male colleagues are mostly like my
brothers. I also studied IT, which is very
technical, and I was mostly surrounded by
males – being the only woman in class,
or one of few. I became very comfortable
with the concept early on.
While there may have been instances
of some men finding it a challenge to
report to a woman, I say to them, “Don’t
see me as a woman, because I don’t
know if that will make any difference – I’ll
be utilising the same brain cells that you’ll
be utilising; let’s rather treat each other as
fellow peers, fellow colleagues – and work
together to move on.”
PEH: What kind of support has your
professional environment afforded you,
particularly as a woman?
RN: Sometimes the environment you find
yourself in engenders whether people are
going to be sexist or not. At Cummins,
people are seen as human beings first.
The professional environment doesn’t
encourage situations where people are
disadvantaged because they happen to be
the minority. People know that they come
to work as an equal; they rise in position
as an equal, with equal opportunity to
grow – and not because they belong to a
specific race or gender.
PEH: With the recent launch of the
Power Hub, what kind of effect will this
have on Cummins’s customer support
strategy in Africa, and to what do you
attribute Cummins’s confidence in
investing so heavily in the southern
African market?
RN: Our new facility means a few
things for us. It’s a consolidation of
various businesses, which provide a
technologically advanced world-class
suite of products and capabilities, all
available in one place. The Cummins
Smart Office design encourages
improved collaboration and innovative
thinking among employees. So, the place
that we now call home, is really a fortress
for us, where collaboration and the work
environment are part of the design,
allowing us to work as a team as we
find new solutions for the benefit of all
stakeholders and our customer support
strategy in Africa.
With regard to investment confidence,
this stems from a plan to continue to
deliver on our brand promise – powering
our customer success, innovation
and dependability. We will continue to
demonstrate the power of Cummins to
our customers through delivering world-
class sales, service and support. The
facility represents the power behind a
global organisation that is able to continue
to invest in the African region and create
a centrepiece in the journey of innovation
that signals our long-term intentions in
this region.
Plant Equipment & Hire’s takeaway
from our encounter with Racheal Njoroge
is that she clearly shares the company’s
vision of making people’s lives better
by powering a more prosperous world.
As the ideal ambassador for Cummins
Southern Africa, Njoroge leads by
example and encourages her team to
continue to innovate for their customers
to power their success through integrity,
diversity and inclusion, excellence and
teamwork.
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