beauty, local, glamour, south africa, business, womens, series CEO of Amazi Divya Vasant
Since its inception, AMAZI has always strived to be innovative and ahead of the curve. Today, AMAZI is a brand that has broken barriers in beauty and social impact, carrying at its core the AMAZI mission: To empower and uplift economically excluded and marginalised women in South Africa.
AMAZI achieves this through the close collaboration between the AMAZI Academy, where women are upskilled in accredited beauty skills, and the AMAZI Beauty bars (located across selected Woolworths stores) that employ women skilled by the AMAZI Academy to offer quality beauty treatments to their customers. AMAZI also produces its own range of proudly South African products that it retails and has recently begun incorporating into its beauty treatments, elevating the experience and importantly prioritising the wellbeing of the customers’ skin and nails.
AMAZI’s range of products is a commitment to harnessing the power of nutrient-rich African-sourced ingredients to rejuvenate, protect, and nourish the skin. With a focus on holistic skincare, AMAZI seamlessly integrates these benefits into every aspect of its beauty treatments, offering customers beautiful nails, brows, and more that don’t come at the cost of the health of their hands and skin.
CEO Divya Vasant shares what Women’s Month means to her and the importance of honouring and celebrating women in South Africa.
DV: Listening to the lifestories of the women that come through our AMAZI skills development program gives you a different perspective on womens’ month. Every day we confront the desperation, isolation, fear, anger and trauma that young South African women carry and we journey with them to build better futures. One month is not enough to understand the challenges women face, to celebrate the strides women make in the face of those challenges and to consciously choose to support women. Real progress requires all the discourse we host in this month to live every day of every month.
DV: I believe women hold the key to our economic prosperity. If women and men stood on identical footing in terms of participation in the economy through paid work and entrepreneurship, the world could see as much as 28 trillion dollars in global growth. For context, that would be the GDP of the USA and China put together. And so I think the call to action is to more than celebrate women, it’s to invest in them. Invest in their education, if you are a consumer, invest in women’s businesses by consciously choosing to support them, invest in helping women start businesses, invest in women wanting to grow careers, invest support for women shouldering the “unpaid” work that makes our households, communities and economies function. It’s not enough to celebrate women, at every opportunity, put your money behind them.
DV: I have been fortunate to build a community of women along my journey who I have drawn inspiration from and who have influenced the woman I am becoming. I love learning from like-minded women, there’s nothing quite like the endorphin release you experience when you have a real conversation with a woman who you find alignment with. However, the most powerful conversations I’ve had that have pushed me to be brave are those that I have with myself. I am always appreciative of the inspiration I can draw externally from other women but I’ve come to learn that when you take the time to focus on the woman within, she is the most powerful influence and everything you will ever need.
DV: Everytime we create the opportunity for an unemployed young women to earn, I’m reminded of the power of our brand. I’m most proud that AMAZI has skilled and supported over 2000 marginalized, young women across South Africa to access earning opportunities. Creating a new job in our country is hard work. Empowering a young woman who hasn’t had any opportunity to further herself beyond school to qualify with accredited skills and successfully transition her into a job that you have created is a financially and emotionally exhausting process. To see AMAZI do this over and over again for thousands of women without relenting is humbling. I’m most proud of the sheer determination this brand has had to our mission of creating earning opportunities for unemployed young women. Through a pandemic, through a recession, through all sorts of instability and uncertainty, this brand has continued to arm young women with skills, jobs and importantly better futures.
DV: It depends on the women you speak to. If you speak to the young, unemployed women who apply to enter the AMAZI skills program too many have faced and continue to face violent physical and sexual abuse. Many are navigating depression and other mental health issues. If you speak to the mothers in our tribe, many are exhausted trying to do justice to their professional jobs and their roles as mothers. If you speak to our leadership team, building a company that requires you to enter boardrooms that underestimate you and convincing people to back you when only 2% of global capital actually gets invested in women founders is frustrating. If you speak to the women who have invested in us, their own challenges trying to get more money directed to women-founded companies is demotivating. The challenges women face are layered, the common thread we have found is that women are struggling.
DV: The beauty industry is brimming with opportunities to progress women, to progress local manufacturing, local agriculture and local entrepreneurship. We’re beginning to see beauty products being made more consciously which is already starting to shape a more conscious consumer. We’re seeing more women start and successfully grow companies in the beauty industry that are creating jobs, especially for other women. I think we are awakening to the positive impact that the beauty industry can make on our environment, our communities and our economy. I think the real innovation in beauty is not the next magical elixir but the ways in which beauty can unlock solutions to some of our biggest challenges like youth unemployment, supporting local manufacturing, growing local sourcing and agriculture. The flex isn’t going to be about what makes you look good, its going to be about what makes you look good and does good for others too.
DV: Women have always been activists and our activism shapes the world. And it is not just the activism that takes global stages that is important, it is the daily activism that we don’t hear of in communities that has the most profound impact. Women naturally advocate for their families, their tribes, their communities. It is innate and it drives the positive change our world so desperately needs. There are examples of women taking investors to court to protect their ancestoral lands, examples of women standing up against child marriage, examples of women fighting against gender-based violence, examples of women fighting for the right to be literate. The list is exhaustive and much of it is not documented so much of it is not celebrated but it is the daily act of millions of women that keeps pushing us forward. I think about these women and I am reminded that there is immense work that I can do to positively affect my community and my country without needing anything more than my voice and my will.
DV: Build your social capital. The women you are currently journeying with, whether classmates, colleagues or friends are very likely to become “Heads of..” something one day. Nuture those relationships because before you know it, when you’re looking at starting your business or changing your career, you’ll be able to draw on that very same network for leads into funding or interviews and other opportunities. The power of “your network being your net worth” is something you only realise when you look around you and see women you know sitting in decision making chairs, changing up companies. Also important is to keep actively surrounding yourself with women who want to see you succeed. That may mean finding new communities to become a part of. Push yourself to seek out your tribe. They exist. There is a tribe of women who share your values, who want to see you rise and who will celebrate you.
DV: Your gut, your intuition is your compass. In many ways, we’ve been taught to silence our gut. Our intuition is such a visceral, animal instinct that serves a purpose in affirming our choices. I found that my time in corporate dulled my gut instincts and overrode that wiring with “corporate protocol”. It was only when I left that highly manicured environment and had to start making decisions with no frameworks, protocols or any other rule book guiding me that I realized how disconnected I was from my intuition. It’s taken me years to reconnect to my gut and even longer to trust it and use it to make decisions. The financial and emotional cost of not following my gut, not ending working relationships when my gut told me to, and not following a lead my gut told me to is something I look back on and hope I never forget so that when my gut twinges today, I stop and take the time to listen to it.
DV: What you put into your body counts much more than what you put on it so treat your nutrition as your beauty regime.