Women in Business: Frannie Leautier, SouthBridge Investment

Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, African Business is collecting the experiences of women leaders in African businesses and asking them how future progress can be assured.

In this interview, we hear from Frannie Leautier, partner and CEO at SouthBridge Investment.

AB: Is the glass ceiling getting easier to crack for African women in business?

Throughout my life I never thought of glass ceilings or limits when I approaching my studies or my work. I just did what I was interested in and went after any opportunities open to me at the time. When I was being interviewed for a role or a position was being offered to me, and the people interviewing or making the offer, made reference to or mentioned that I was being considered because I was a woman, I would systematically stop the interview and turn down the opportunity. So it is hard for me to give you a fact based answer on whether I have seen the glass ceiling getting easier to crack.

However, I do see a lot more women in finance, engineering, and in high level positions in investing, as well as in boardrooms. And I serve as a board member on a listed company with a woman CEO. I serve on boards with more than one other woman on it, so I am not the only woman, which I used to be for a long time. So from my perspective things seem to have improved compared to what they were even five years ago.

AB: Which leaders inspire you / have inspired you?

I am inspired by excellence, by those who have struck new ground and discovered new theories or concepts or brought new ideas to the fore. They may be men or women. Usually in my case, the inspiration comes from people in the fields of science, engineering, technology and finance. But not in the academic way of defining these fields; rather in the practice was of action. I am inspired mostly by ways of doing things. I am impressed and seek to learn from people who are brave and who have taken bold decisions.

As such there are quite a few people who inspire me. And I find inspiration every day and in many people. Here are some examples. The peule women in Chad impress me. They have preserved techniques for water preservation over centuries and have innovated blending their traditionally learned techniques with new ideas, thereby providing us with solutions to deal with the growing water shortage challenges the world is currently facing. As a student I was inspired by the relentlessness of Marie Curie who I admired when I first learned about her. What inspired me about her was that she took such risks to experiment and learn and leave us with not only new theories but a method of work we can learn from, build on and improve.

I am inspired by my grandfather who built a connected system of single column housing units for his chicken, using local materials he found around him, and taught them how to nest and be safe at night amongst all the predators that could snatch them. He was adept at combining natural instincts and ways of learning with his own keen self-taught observation and training skills. He taught me to use all my knowledge — intellectual, analytic, instinctive and sensual to arrive at a solution to a problem I was facing. This made me interested in physics and math where I could feel the equations and theories in my person. And learned later on how to use my own understanding of a subject and starting knowledge at each stage, combining it with what I learned, so I could take things to the next level.

Because I grew up in rural areas and doing agricultural activities, I have long been inspired by the pioneers of finance who quantified risk in the early markets for traded coffee beans from Yemen to Amsterdam, giving birth to modern techniques from risk management to credit risk assessment and pricing of guarantees. And of course very early on in my childhood I was inspired by my mother who never set any limits on what I could possibly do or be. I learned from what she did, what she said, and what she let me do. My mother was a hero. She could multitask and make amazing things with such limited resources — like making us dresses from recycled old drapes, mending our shoes using pieces of leather recycled from older pairs of shoes, or making interesting meals using plants that grew naturally around us and could serve as greens for the grains she would grow on the land around us, or how she would mix brilliant shades of paint for our walls from natural earth tones taken from around us. She was the first person who introduced me to circular economy ideas. And she was the one who taught me that I could always start from what I have to make what I need. I apply this principle every day to this day.

AB: What mentors have facilitated this journey?

I have been very fortunate to have one mentor who guided me during my early career and life. He helped me learn many things. For example, about satisficing rules, and defining my lifestyle to a resource level that made me happy. And he showed me how once I reached that level of happiness and satisfaction, to hold it, and save or invest any extra income I earned. That allowed me to do what I wanted to do since the age of 40 without having to depend on anyone to hire me or give me a job. I could do impactful work without worrying about what it would earn me. And I could take risks in investing to test new ideas and strike new ground.

Other mentors I have had have been mostly men. I make it a point to recognize them on International Women’s Day. Politicians who put their neck on the line to support me build an institution that could provide capabilities to ministers of finance and central bank governors in Africa. Two Bank presidents who took a chance on me, giving a first time leadership role with major responsibilities, from which I learned and grew. A peer who guided me through major risks that had materialized, helping me learn how to communicate effectively under crisis scenarios. One mentor was also a boss. She taught me how to learn from failure and how to cover people who report to you so they can take risks, fail fast, learn and restart.

AB: What were the biggest hurdles you had to overcome on your journey to the top?

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome on my journey to the top was to pace myself and be patient. I was always anxious to see results or to see change or transformation quickly. And I learned that in some situations, most situations really, one had to be patient. First, patient enough to bring other along to your idea or vision or to build teams and capacities and develop others. I learned to be patient, and to simply give a solution time to work. And also from experience I figured out that what I was able to do in one setting which may not have achieved results would be a brilliant solution in another setting. Another major challenge to navigate was how to manage my desire to be a mother with my desire to see transformation and work in the most difficult settings or on the most challenging problems. Balancing where I needed to be when and whom I needed to prioritize and how was a constant effort. I learned how to do it eventually but there are things I would differently today if I had the chance. And I share these lessons with people that I mentor.

AB: What surprised or shocked you most on your journey ?

What surprised me most was what a vast array of challenges are just waiting for someone to take them on and bring a fresh perspective. And that when you try to propose new ways to solve long standing problems and overcome them, people are very quick to adopt the ideas and make them their own. And you then have to go and figure out something else to do. I have rarely, if ever, stayed in a role where I could benefit from the tough work and new ideas that helped resolve major problems. As soon as the pathway to resolve challenging issues was uncovered and shared, I would be asked to go and do something else.

What shocked me is how hungry the world is for fresh thinking. And that when you bring such thinking and execute the ideas successfully there is no shortage of opportunities to go and try something new. It also meant for me that I was never really in an easy role. I was always taking on major challenging roles. But I guess that is what makes me happy. Seeing solutions implemented and moving on to tackle new challenges. I am an adventurer at heart and like seeing new territory and learning new things. But as I grow older I am learning that I also want these days to stick around and see things through their first, second and third wave of innovation.

AB: What would you tell your 20 year old self?

I actually feel as energetic or maybe even more energetic than I was when I was 20! I feel a strong sense of confidence as if I can take on any challenge. I feel somewhat invincible if that is a possible way to feel being human. And this is what I would tell my 20 year old self. Don’t be afraid. Just do it. It will all work out in the end. Even when it looks bleak and hard. Even if the end doesn’t seem in sight. Just keep at it. It will get done. As we face a world that has changed so much there is hardly anything that resembles what we understood just five years ago, this lesson strikes me as important.

I would also say to my 20 year old self, be confident that you know what you are doing, but also be humble enough to learn from others and learn from failure. Many things fail before they succeed, or you experience many disappointments before you can celebrate success. So keep at it and don’t despair and drop a good idea because it didn’t work initially. The idea may have use in another time for another problem. And finally, I would say to my 20 year old self, don’t be so serious. Take time to have fun. Discover the world around you and experience life outside of work. I do that more and more these days. Stop to contemplate the universe and my place and role in it. Stop to engage with people around me and not be too busy with trying to reach an objective to forget to do that. And pacing myself to catch breath and rest between major challenges to solidify my own learning and recuperate and regenerate. I do that reflective work and resting time a lot now.

AB: If you were 20 today what industry would you go into and skills would you get?

I was fascinated when I was 20 with cognitive science which is what we would also see these days as the basis for a lot of work in artificial intelligence. I used to love hanging out at the robotics lab at MIT, and spending time on the floor of the various libraries reading about chaos theory, cellular automata and fractals.

But I also loved to explore the spiritual and mystical world and always saw connections between the hard sciences I was learning and this more esoteric knowledge I enjoyed learning about. I also loved human systems and cultures and histories and stories. With the capabilities of AI I can now easily mix and match different sources of knowledge and see all kinds of possibilities that were not reachable a few years ago.

I wanted to focus on these fields when I was in my 20’s but didn’t have the financial independence to do it as I had to specialize in something that would get me a good job and earn enough to support myself and my family. If I could do it again I would have struck it out into that field and stayed a student a little bit longer to specialize in that area as it is so critical for the future of humanity and of our planet.

AB: Is greater women representation in business/boardroom a fight that you are continuing to fight?

I am very fortunate to be in a situation where I am no longer the only woman on a board or in a business role. I feel that where I am people don’t even question whether a woman can or should do something. I never doubted that it’s possible and never allowed myself to be limited by what others thought I could or could not do. I select on the basis of merit and I find a lot of meritorious women to choose from. I have never even stopped to think whether we are taking on a woman or a man. We only take on the best. I prefer to recruit the very young, just out of college. And we then develop them and they grow. We have recruited young men at my firm who work on working capital solutions for SMEs led by women or impacting women. They are men seeking solutions to support a gap in the market of finance for issues related tp women. And likewise, we have women who we have hired to seta on investment committees that make decisions on innovative finance for sports like soccer or rugby, sport usually dominated by men. So I see women in leadership roles in areas impacting men and men in roles or making decisions is areas impacting women. For me it is always a question of what new ideas and ways of working do you bring to solve this particular problem. And I have not had to struggle to find the best talented men or women to work on challenges impact women o