IAM1195- Author Teaches on Diversity and Inclusion

Jesmane is the author of a book on racial reconciliation, healing, and inclusion My Blood Divides and Unites (www.myblooddividesandunites). She has created a new diversity and inclusion course with her book as a teaching aid. (www.divinconnection.com)

Jesmane is also a founder and Principal of AIH Capital, a private equity fund. She has over 16 years of experience in private equity, investments, and as an entrepreneur. She is also the former Head of Business Engagement Africa at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. She currently serves on the boards of the following JSE-listed firms: technology firm EOH, Murray & Roberts, and food retailer Spur. She is the Chairperson of the largest African fertilizer group that is Dubai-based ETGIH. She holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s JFK School of Government and is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa). Jesmane was nominated as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2013.

• CEO Hack: iPhone notes
• CEO Nugget: Prioritizing growth
• CEO Defined: Bringing people together to accomplish a wider vision and purpose

Website: https://myblooddividesandunites.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jesmaneboggenp1?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesmaneboggenpoel/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesmane-boggenpoel-b5052111a/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyBloodDividesandUnites/

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Transcription

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00:22 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:50 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jesmane Boggenpoel of my blood divides in unite Shaz Maine. It's great to have you on the show.

01:00 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Thank you.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Jasmine so you can hear about all the other things that she's doing. Jasmine is the author of a book on racial reconciliation, healing, and inclusion, My Blood Divides and Unites. She's created a new diversity and inclusion course with her book as a teaching aid. Jasmine is also the founder and principal of AIH Capital, a private equity fund and she has over 16 years of experience in private equity investments and as an entrepreneur. She's also the former head of business engagement in Africa at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

She currently serves on the boards of the following JSC-listed firms, technology firm EoH, Murray and Roberts, and food retailer Spur. She is the chairperson of the largest African fertilized group that is Dubai based et GiH and she holds a master's degree from Harvard University's JFK School of Government and is a chartered accountant in South Africa. Jasmine was nominated as a young global leader of the World Economic Forum in 2013. Jasmine, you're doing so, so many awesome things. Super excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:10 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes.

02:12 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick it off, I wanted to hear, I guess a little before you started all these awesome things and how you got started, what I like to call your CEO story.

02:23 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Thank you. I was raised, in a poor, humble community, and marginalized community, Westbury in Johannesburg, South Africa. While I was doing well academically alongside my identical twin sister Julianne, I was fortunate to have a great mentor come alongside me in mentoring programs in the community and also an uncle who was a maths teacher and took me and my sister for extra maths lessons. And that gave us the grades we needed to get into university.

03:00 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. It's always good to have those people who a lot of times plant seeds that grow into phenomenal things that we do and sometimes forget the influence of that mentorship piece that you mentioned and how that helps us to be set up for success and hit the ground running.

03:14 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes. And it was giving me exposure beyond my immediate environment at that time. So essential.

03:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And then so many times when you get that opportunity to kind of, you know, a lot of times our reality becomes what we see and what we experience and what we feel. But a lot of times we forget that the mentors, the people that have such great influence in our lives, have that opportunity to kind of open up and broaden our horizons academically, educationally, but even to what we actually hope to accomplish and do.

03:43 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Agreed. Fully agreed.

03:46 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So you had that great influence, you know, while you were younger, and that led you to kind of start, uh, the. The, um, private equity firm as well, too, and. And write your book and all of those things.

03:59 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes, it did. So by then starting to qualify as a chartered accountant, uh, which is called the CPA in South. In south. In America.

04:07 – Gresham Harkless

America, yeah.

04:08 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

And then I did articles with an auditing firm, KPMG, which you normally are on the path towards qualifying as a CPA. And then I worked in private equity with one of the largest private equity firms at that time. And so that gave me the tools to work in private equity and now have my own private equity fund and later that down the track. Another mentor was African American Russell Hawkins. He lived in South Africa for many years and he had studied at Harvard and told me about the Harvard School of Government masters in public administration program, and really encouraged me to apply to that. Thankful to him for exposing me and nudging me along. And I did then study at Harvard and the school of government is focused on leadership and a lot of gives you a lot, allows a lot of reflection into who you are, leadership failures, where you're going. And that then equipped me to write my book.

05:12 – Gresham Harkless

Is that a little of what that course is going to deal with, being able to kind of arm people with the ability to do that?

05:18 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes. My course is about dealing with the heart of race and gender inequality in the workplace. And I'm glad that the Black Lives Matter movement, while it was formed to address tragedy and pain, has been positive in highlighting the issue of diversity and inclusion and has become a global movement and companies are now seriously thinking about how they address diversity, inclusion, and employees in companies need to navigate that. So this course, talks about the inner work that I did. And then my book is a teaching aid, so different topics are a reference to my book.

And then I've also developed a fictitious company with characters, and there are various animation scenarios to replicate sensitive cases in the workplace and how that can be navigated. So I start with that very inner work, which is aligned to my book. And then I talk about how we can bridge to other people, share our stories, build relationships in vulnerability and trust, and then talk about tools to do that. And I'm excited about the course. I think it covers diversity and inclusion from a unique perspective and can truly bring about change in hearts and minds and truly bring people together.

06:51 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I absolutely love that. And, you know, especially, like, as we were talking about, and you talked about, you know, in your book, you know, you start to look at it from an individual standpoint, and then you start to see, like you said, in the workspace workplace, how you're interacting, how you're paying attention or understand those differences, not so much to divide, but a lot of times empower and to connect people.

I love that, you provide the tools and, of course, the animations to be able to do that, because I think it's something that organizations and leaders don't really know how to tackle, don't really know how to navigate that. And I love that you created these tools and these expressions, but it started from the foundation of the individual and how you can kind of grow and see the human side of organizations, the human side of the workplace, and all of those aspects that we sometimes can kind of gloss over.

07:40 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes. And I think organizations are looking for such tools that can guide them.

07:47 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So I love that you've been able to kind of create that. And what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And you might have already touched on this. This could be for yourself individually the organization of your book and everything that you're doing, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:05 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

I really care about diversity and inclusion and guiding others on the diversity and inclusion path and uniting people. As the title of my book is my blood divides and unites. And I've used my book to do that. I'm using the course and other solutions to do that. And then with my private equity fund, we have a unique structure where our parent company is exclusively owned by a broad base of around 55 black professional women shareholders. And our vision is to build a world for women by women and enable financial freedom and opportunity. So everything that I'm involved in is about creating inclusion and making sure that groups who are formerly left behind now have a chance to participate.

08:59 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. And I absolutely love that because I think, you know, you're doing the same thing as far as, like, you know, speaking with these leaders, speaking with these organizations, and how they're able to kind of implement that. I love that that has manifested itself and your private equity firm and being able to create that change, create that inclusion, that isn't necessarily there if I'm right from a black women's standpoint, but definitely, probably even from a standpoint about getting those funds where these groups are often left behind and don't get much of anything when it comes to that private equity.

09:33 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes. Most private equity funds are structured wherever there are two or three individuals who are the key principals, and they own the fund manager. But we brought along this broad-based structure of women to widen the economic participation. And even when we invest in portfolio companies, we will, when there are job positions available. We own a recruitment firm of black talented women, so the company has access to our database on bringing diverse talent into the workplace, and we also would oversee their gender and race action plan.

10:14 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. I absolutely love that it's all in, as Ghani said, be the change that you hope to see in the world. And I think that you're showing that in so many different ways with your book, obviously being able to kind of show that through the equity firm and being able to kind of empower these organizations, these leaders, these innovators and entrepreneurs in terms of doing that themselves, too. So absolutely. Love, love, love everything that you're working on and how it kind of, for lack of a better term, unites everything that you're doing. Love that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, it could be a book, it could be a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

10:54 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

I use the iPhone notes a lot, especially when I have a creative idea. It could be just chewing a bath, and I want to capture it immediately. I write the notes on my phone, and that helps me retain creative ideas so that they're not lost and I can actually see how I can action it.

11:19 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:33 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

I prioritize growth. It keeps me relevant, it keeps me current. And I do that in various ways. Traveling to new countries I haven't been to, which I haven't been doing much of, over lockdown. I've now traveled to 70 countries around the world. I do that by getting perspectives from different people and trying to be intentional about getting perspectives from people that I'm not usually exposed to. Don't make decisions in a bubble. I do that by trying to read books on technology, some on leadership, some on investments. And right now I'm also learning German. And I'm really enjoying that from various perspectives, the cognitive stimulation of learning a new language, especially while I'm not traveling, as I've gotten more time and I'm on so many different Meditech platforms on language learning, and I've incorporated some of the language learning tools into my online course.

12:42 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I absolutely appreciate that. And so now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're open to having different quotes unquote CEO's on the show. So, Jasmine, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:57 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

It means bringing people together to accomplish a wider purpose and vision that's bigger than all of us and to produce content products or services that are relevant to the world at this point in time. And it's dynamic because the world is constantly changing. So it's about continuing to be relevant and continue to try and bring people together in creating the right solution.

13:35 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. I absolutely love that. I love that word that you use, dynamic. And I think so many times we forget the evolution of technology, but also the evolution of us individually and how that is dynamic and how we constantly have to be, you know, innovating, changing, exploring, trying things, and failing even at some degree, in order to kind of continue on. And I love the way that the work that you've done has manifested itself in so many different ways, whether it be the private equity firm, the book, the course, just all of these things and how it manifests itself. So it kind of connects to people where they are so that they're able to implement what they need to continue to kind of sharpen that saw, so to speak.

14:12 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Yes. And to continue to bring the world together with our private equity fund. It's about gender inclusion. My book and my course are about both race and gender inclusion.

14:28 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And I think a lot of times we start to realize we're a lot closer aligned and a lot more united than we are different at times. So Jasmine, truly appreciate that definition. I course appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Get a copy of the book, the course, and all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:52 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

Thank you. My book is available on Amazon either in paperback or as an ebook on Kindle. My course dealing with the heart of race and gender inequality in the workplace is available on Udemy.

15:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

15:14 – Jesmane Boggenpoel

My website for the course is devconnection.com and for my book, myblooddividesandunites.com. I'm also on Instagram, Gizmain, Buchanpoll on LinkedIn, and on Twitter tsman p one.

15:39 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you and get a copy of the book, of course, and take the course and connect with you online. But I truly appreciate you for, you know, hopping on this podcast, obviously, but doing the work that you're doing, because I think it's something that's not so necessary, you know, during times like this and, you know, with this disruption and change. And like I said, you know, be the change you hope to see in the world. So I appreciate you, you know, for doing that and helping to empower so many leaders and CEOs and entrepreneurs to be able to do that so much. So thank you so much for your time and your work and your dedication as well.

16:15 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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