‘The excitement lives on day in-day out and the people you work with are so passionate about what they do that you immediately fall in love with the job’, Mateboho Rantofi says on her role.

‘I don’t see it as “just a day job”, it’s my life’. Praised by industry sources for her energy and results-driven approach, Rantofi played a pivotal role in Woolworths’ transatlantic purchase of David Jones, widely recognised as ‘the biggest deal in history that South Africa has seen in a retail acquisition’.

Throughout her time as the iconic brand’s South African legal head, she has made great efforts to increase the function’s involvement with the business. ‘We have built better relationships with the business through meaningful engagements and offering commercially sound legal solutions’.

Like others interviewed, Rantofi acknowledges gender, race and age can create further obstacles to contend with in the nation’s boardroom culture. ‘It has always been challenging being a young black woman in the corporate South Africa and every day remains a challenge. Sometimes this is the most exciting part of the job (on some days less so!)’.