Leeanne Soobramoney, executive: client services, POP Warehouse, has worked through frontline operational roles, managed stock, navigated operational crises, served clients directly and built executive strategy. That breadth is the foundation of everything she does now.
Over twenty years in warehousing and logistics, she has worked in almost every part of the value chain. The result is a credibility that cannot be faked: the people she leads know she understands their realities because she has lived them. In an industry that has historically been male-dominated, she has chosen to reframe her presence entirely.
I view myself as a business leader who happens to be a woman, rather than a woman who works in a male-dominated industry.
That shift in framing is the difference between a career spent justifying your presence and one spent building something worth leading. Soobramoney has built the latter and she credits two women, POP founders Belinda Traverso and Shafiqah Andrews, as two influential women on her journey; leaders who recognised her potential, created opportunities for growth and demonstrated what strong, resilient female leadership could look like.
Outside the warehouse, she is, by her own cheerful admission, an absolute creative: painting, singing, cooking, music, dancing and the self-appointed braai master at any gathering. She encourages women not to focus on proving people wrong, but becoming exceptionally good at what they do. Confidence, she says, comes from competence and every opportunity you take to learn strengthens both.
