Woiso: I was always hungry for bigger roles in my career-VIDEO

As we continue to celebrate women, we are constantly reminded that Tanzania is in short supply of women in top management level in the corporate world. However, this slanted scale has motivated those who’ve made it up to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

One such kind of a leader is Jacqueline Woiso - Managing Director of MultiChoice Tanzania.

Woiso has an extensive background in the finance sector and top management roles, she sat down with The Citizen’s ‘Rising Woman’ to share her career journey. She also hints on how other women can get a seat at the tables that seem to have very few invites for women, at least so far.

Woiso sheds light on how daring she has been regarding her career and how instead of being invited she worked hard enough and grabbed not one but several chains on the high tables of career excellence.

She landed her current role at MultiChoice two years ago, after being through a series of jobs in the banking industry.

Woiso recalls that the journey to her successful career started from a humble position as a bank clerk at Standard Chartered bank in Arusha. She was not happy with having the lowest title in the bank but she accepted it, worked hard at it, patiently waited for a role to arise until eventually a job opportunity was announced in the bank for which she applied and was fortunate enough to get it.

However, motherhood knocked on the door just as she was beginning to settle in in her new role. A precious milestone in its own right, Woiso welcomed her first child, but this also meant taking a break from work. She credits her line manager for understanding her and encouraging her to take on the new responsibilities.

Woiso resumed her career path and a few years later was informed of a sales personnel position open at Barclays Bank. By this time she had two children and was a master’s degree student.

Despite being fairly new to sales, Woiso still desired to change her role at the bank, to a position she perceived as having more incentives.

She, with so much determination, applied for the role and got the job which she describes as the turning point of her career.

Despite being new and handling the establishment of new functions, she executed her role successfully.

Woiso, again decided to challenge herself to grow and progress from being the head of a department to CEO - a feat she achieved in the financial world before later moving to Multichoice Tanzania as managing director.

“Frankly speaking, I never thought of or aspired to be an MD, but again, I did not want to do simple or junior jobs,” she says.

“I’m a very hardworking person despite all the other responsibilities in my life. So I gave my best, something even an observer could point out. I truly deserved a better position,” she adds.

Most successful people have mentors but Woiso calls hers her personal consultants. She still credits her line managers for encouraging her to apply for better positions as a junior because they saw and appreciated her efforts.

With regards to empowering women, Woiso advises that during the recruitment interview, there should be a strive for gender balance amongst the candidates and if the position is being advertised internally, female employees should be encouraged to apply.

When it comes to her leadership style, Woiso does not gravitate towards a specific style, but says that her leadership acumen comes naturally and she deals differently with every individual, calling this a situational leadership approach. She considers this as one of the best types of leadership because different individuals respond better to different approaches. She also points out that it is important even for seniors to respect their juniors.

About her experience in the world of finance and banking, Woiso states that it is a male-dominated industry but encourages women not to fear taking up available opportunities. Woiso further advises that good interpersonal skills, if adopted, will allow women to move up. She urges women to learn how to better interact with colleagues, stakeholders and their community and if this is succeeded with hard work and self-determination, one will expeditiously move up in their career.

At Multichoice, the first move Woiso made as a female leader was to discuss with the head of human resources and agree on how to improve the gender balance within the organization. Now, still at 40 percent, they are still working on different ways to empower women at Multichoice Tanzania.

They took the initiative to enrol the women in mid-role managerial positions to Women’s Future, a programme specific to women aspiring to take up leadership positions organized jointly by the Association of Tanzanian Employers (ATE) and East & Southern African Management Institute (Esami).

She insisted, however, that Multichoice has an equal recruitment policy. In the Multichoice leadership comprising of 11 people, four are women, including the Managing Director.

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