First Agilitee’s female billionaire gets international recognition – As the company eyes Lesotho
KEISO MOHLOBOLI
MASERU – AI and green tech company, Agilitee’s Bonisile Roberts, joined the rarefied ranks of self made billionaire women as Africa’s first electric vehicles manufacturer.
She is also encouraging more women to seize control.
As a young female Agilitee CEO, Roberts strongly believes that technology is shaping the world we live in, yet women and many minority groups in society are currently under represented.
She says that being fully surrounded by South Africa where Agilitee’s headquarters is based, Lesotho will be one of the first countries to work with so that Basotho women can be encouraged that digital transformation must be accompanied by human transformation if everyone is to reap rewards.
Roberts said: “Increasing representation of more Basotho women in tech is very important not only for career opportunities it can offer to Basotho, but also the ability of technology industry to meet the needs of Societies in Lesotho.”
She says Lesotho and the rest of the world need more women in technology because they can provide more balanced view to female gender and technology sector issues.
“When only one gender is emphasized, issues that females can identify with and address remain largely ignored.”
In her leadership, Agilitee has been climbing ranks in Johannesburg Stock Exchange IPO which is marked as the first EV, AI and Green Tech IPO in Africa, the IPO values Agilitee $20 billion and this has bumped up Roberts’ net worth to $1.2 billion – which makes her one of the richest women in Africa, in the same rank with Angola’s Isabel Dos Santos.
Roberts joined Agilitee in 2018 as a consultant, after delivering astonishing results the founder of Agilitee, Dr Mandla Lamba. decided to bring her on board on full time basis in late 2019.
She has been with Agilitee from founding, and is also the second largest individual shareholder in the company. She joins other female billionaires that include, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, Julia Koch, Alice Walton, Jacqueline Mars, Gina Rinehart, Miriam Adelson and Abigail Johnson among others.
Last year the green tech firm, Agilitee, was qualified as one of South Africa’s Top Gender Empowered Companies, making it to the scoreboard with other top empowerment brands in the country comprising top listed counters and other major businesses in both the private and public sectors.
With few years since its founding, the company qualified for the listing endorsed by Standard Bank Group with support from South Africa’s Commission for Gender Equality.
Amazons watch confirmed to this publication that on the side-lines of the 77th United Nations General Assembly, Roberts has been nominated to speak as one of the keynote speakers of the Global Power Women’s Conference and Awards scheduled for September 2022.
Themed “Advancing resilience and transformational women leadership for sustainable high performance and global impact”, the conference commits to continually highlight the huge strides of women in Africa and the rest of the world.
