Women honoured at Festival of Motoring

L to R: Nunben Dixon, Head of Gumtree Auto; Linda du Preez, Sales Manager: Gumtree Auto; Emma Demmer, DP: McCarthy Volkswagen Umhlanga; Nolwazi Ntshingila, HR Clerk: McCarthy; Lisa Mallett, Marketing & Communications Director Jaguar Landrover and Jeff Osborne, Head of Key Accounts: Gumtree Auto.

"A theme from last year's event was Women honouring Women which is why we decided to let the motoring industry nominate candidates for their work across categories such as Human Resources, Admin and Finance, Marketing, Retail and Leadership. The public and their peers then voted for their favourites. We received hundreds of nominations and thousands of entries," says Claire Cobbledick, general manager of Gumtree South Africa.

The winners included:

• Janine van der Post, Wheels24 – Winner: Excellence in Journalism
  
• Marcia Mayaba, Dealer Principal: Barloworld Motor Retail – Winner: Excellence in Leadership
  
• Emma Demmer, Dealer Principal: McCarthy Volkswagen Umhlanga – Winner: Excellence in Purchasing and/or Retail
  
• Tashta Bhana, PR Manager: Audi South Africa – Winner: Excellence in Marketing & Communications
  
• Lisa Mallett, Marketing & Communications Director: Jaguar Landrover South Africa – Winner: Excellent Performance as an Executive
  
• Nolwazi Ntshingila, HR Clerk: McCarthy – Winner: Excellence in HR, Finance and/or Admin

There were also special nominations honouring race driver and road safety advocate Clare Vale, the first female to participate in the premier national Wesbank V8 Supercar series, as well as a special Career Achievement award for Gumtree's own Linda du Preez, the first female fleet sales manager in South Africa.

The awards were preceded by inspiring speeches from top women in the industry including Inspectacar CEO Pertunia Sibanyoni, Nissan Africa Head of Corporate Relations and Communications Nthabiseng Motsepe, Commercial Director of NAACAM Shivani Singh, Ford CX manager Maja Smith and Head of Volkswagen Brand Martina Biene while South Africa's first black superbike racer, Morongoa Mahope shared the stage with her 12-year old daughter and fellow racer Tsholofelo.