Ex -LCA CEO Matela breathes fire - Lesotho Times lestimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lestimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Driven by passion and patience
Maseru-LINTLE Thamae has always had a passion for saving and investing. From her first job as an accounts clerk at the National Motor Company, Thamae would save whatever she could for the rainy day.
Then as the savings increased, she started looking for investment opportunities.
The idea, as she recalls, was to grow the money for a comfortable retirement.
Yet her first initial forays in investments didn’t always work out.
She burnt her fingers when she was hoodwinked to invest in two pyramid schemes that quickly collapsed, leaving her shattered and disappointed. Thamae chuckles when she talks of those unfortunate incidents.
Driving economic growth
Maseru-EVEN at a young age, Relebohile Sefako has always been fascinated with the concept of making money.
His father, who went on early retirement as a police officer, ran a grocery store in Ha-Thetsane in the 1980s. And so at very close range, he would see how his father would buy goods in large quantities and sell for a profit.
It was a decent family business that ensured they enjoyed an average life in the city.
But beyond maintaining the family, the venture planted a seed in young Sefako – to run his own businesses later in life.
Leading with humility
MASERU-At the helm of Sekhametsi Investment Consortium is an eight-member board entrusted with steering the ship through a business terrain made dicier by the disruptive innovations, evolving trends and unpredictable shifts in the economy.
The board members are however quick to point out that they are not bosses but mere shareholders and members of the team entrusted to help make decisions. Elected by the more than 500 members, their role is not only to protect the investments but also to grow shareholders’ values through prudent investment.
They are staunchly accountable to the shareholders who appointed and put their trust in them. This week we feature two of the directors. If Matjato Moteane represents the Sekhametsi legacy, then Naleli Maphathe is a reflection of its future. Yet together they march forward, learning from each other and growing the company.
A great leap of faith
MASERU-Bosao Kotola was only 26 when she took a great leap of faith into the unknown by investing M1 000 of her sponsorship money that was meant for books in Sekhametsi Investment Consortium.
That was no easy decision for a young woman who had no meaningful savings to talk about.
Her mother, who had also bought into her vision, topped up that amount by a princely sum of M500 to take her initial investment to M1 500.
Kotola says she had always been fascinated by the idea of shares although she had a fleeting knowledge of how the ‘whole thing’ worked.