The only WOC at the table – a blessing and a burden

Kihisha Suleman, a civil engineer by qualification and eCommerce Operations Lead for KFC Africa by occupation, says that while there is a sense of accomplishment in breaking barriers and becoming the first (and most times the only) woman of colour (WOC) at the leadership table, the blessing can feel burdensome if not well managed.

“The feeling of isolation can be a prevalent challenge for brown women leaders in the workplace. Being underrepresented in positions and facing unique obstacles can lead to a sense of loneliness,” she says.

The numbers don’t lie

According to a study released in 2023 by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org titled Women in the Workplace, women of colour face the biggest gap in C-suite representation. The data in the report revealed that “women of color face the steepest drop-off in representation from entry-level to C-suite positions”.

While the sample of the survey study is from the United States of America and Canada, local research paints a similar picture for South Africa. A 2023 report by non-profit organization, Just Share, showed that a significant increase in the representation of women in lower-to-middle occupational levels has not translated into comparable gains in gender representation in top management.

According to the Commission for Employment Equity Annual Report covering the period 2022 – 2023, “the South African labour market continues to be racialised and gendered” and adds that “the provision of opportunities appears to remain inherently linked to certain population groups and gender at the upper occupational levels”.

Balancing the cause with authenticity

BGB community member Kihisha believes that when women of colour take on “firsts” in corporate SA, it also comes with unspoken expectations and pressures.

“As a woman of colour, I entered the engineering world as a minority who was expected to show up perceiving yourself as “lucky” for being in the role. There’s also this uncommunicated expectation to advocate for the representation of women of colour as well. A fair expectation but also a heavy one,” explains Kihisha.

“What made it hard was that the sisterhood of women of colour didn’t exist in my space at the time and so I was challenged feeling very alone while trying to bravely walk unchartered territory and take on the pressure of succeeding at being the first black woman in my workplace.”

She adds, “For a long time, while trying to also discover my own identity, I took on the challenges of climbing the corporate ladder and being in boardrooms that no other woman of colour had yet entered as my own personal fight. I was becoming the woman of colour others had envisioned but I wasn’t becoming my own. I tired. I left engineering.”

Kihisha says the decision to leave engineering was the toughest decision that she ever made.

“Because I felt like I was meant to “do it for the people” you know – be a great black woman engineer. But in the end, while the cause was a worthy one, I found the journey of engineering was not my own – it didn’t feel like me.”

“That took me through a very meandering path of several careers, organisation types and jobs. It then became my own journey to figure out what I want, who I am and most certainly what I am not and do not want to be.”

Kihisha now leads eCommerce Operations for one of the biggest fast food chains in South Africa. Optimistically looking ahead, Kihisha says she hopes to cross paths with more women of colour at the tables and in the boardrooms.

“I hope one day we will collectively look back and see how, as a community, we were able to crack codes that break old systems that no longer worked in order to see waves of change,” she concludes.