Source: Government of South Africa
By Neo Semono
There is something special about life coming full circle – especially when things were not perfect at the starting line.
“When I came to the SARB, I had a CV that was just a page [with] 1.5 [line] spacing and I think it was in Arial 12. I had not even finished my undergrad at the time because I had supplementary exams in January,” said South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Deputy Governor, Dr Mampho Modise.
She recalled how receiving a call from the bank saying she provisionally got the intern position provided that she pass her supplementary examinations, jump started her career in 2004.
“I’ve never studied so much in my life. I hadthree exams. I did not see [the] December [holidays] that year. I studied so much because I knew my life just depended on this thing,” she said in an interview with SAnews.
“Poverty was not an option,” she said, as we sat in one of the boardrooms of the Reserve Bank building in central Pretoria.
“When I left home to come and do my degree, I knew I had three years, and I knew I had to work so hard [as] not to go back home and be a problem. I think I was more scared of poverty, and I knew that an undergraduate degree is not enough, I needed to be better.
“I wanted to make sure I never go home to be a failed statistic; I couldn’t be that child. I wanted everyone to know you can do it; you cannot just give up. I was an NSFAS [National Student Financial Aid Scheme] baby,” she explained.
She adds that while at home “everyone was just as poor as the next one” and “I never felt poorer until I got to university.”
She said one’s background shouldn’t dictate one’s future.
“You cannot change it. You should be proud of it because it gives you resilience. It should be something that keeps you going because if you sit and say I am poor you’re never going to grow.”
Having placed her shoulder to the wheel, Modise placed shoulder to the wheel and today holds a BCom in Economics, BCom Honours in Econometrics, an MCom in Econometrics (cum laude) and a PhD in Economics from the University of Pretoria.
She tells SAnews as she sips her black coffee, that her drive to become an economist was sparked by a couple during an episode of the television series, Yizo Yizo, in which the girl told her boyfriend she wanted to become an economist when she finished school.
“I was like ‘oh, I also want to be an ‘ist,’” she recalls, with a burst of laughter. This led to her pursuing her studies in economics, instead of nursing.
She had to further her studies so she could get a job elsewhere no matter what happened so she wouldn’t “go back and become my mother’s problem.”
The work paid off and she became an economist in the bank’s Economic Research Department, a position she held until 2009 when she moved to National Treasury in the same year and served as a senior economist.
She steadily climbed the ladder at Treasury becoming Director of Fiscal Policy, Chief Director of Strategy and Risk Management. In 2017, she was appointed as Deputy Director-General for Public Finance.
Having been appointed as Deputy Governor with effect from 1 April 2024, she described the past year as having “been full of excitement.”
“It is new work that I’m doing at the Reserve Bank. At the Treasury you do policy… at the SARB, the work is very technical. The full year has been a year of learning, understanding what the bank does, understanding the impact that the bank has in ordinary people’s lives and making sure that we communicate what the bank does.”
As Deputy Governor, Modise is also a member of the bank’s’ Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which is responsible for deciding on South Africa’s appropriate monetary policy stance.
The bank’s, whose primary object is to protect the value of the currency in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth, interaction with the public is a priority for Modise.
“A lot of people don’t know what the Reserve Bank does and they don’t know how to approach the Reserve Bank. They don’t know how to engage with the Reserve Bank. So how do we take ourselves as the Reserve Bank to the people is a big priority. The second priority for me is to have employees of the SARB hear their [people’s] voices.
Prior to becoming the Deputy Governor, Modise had applied for the Director-General position at the Treasury but did not get it, after which she recalls how her friends sent her an article that made mention of individuals in the running for the Deputy Governor position.
The article mentioned her name.
“At that time, I didn’t want to want this job because I was still grieving the other one and I didn’t want to be sad twice.”
Little did she know that while getting on with the business of work, she would receive a letter of appointment in March 2024.
“And I get this email from the Ministry [of Finance] and the letter said it was from the Minister [of Finance], and that the President has decided they want to appoint you [as Deputy Governor]. This is an offer letter, and you must tell us if you want the job or not’” she said as she laughed.
“It was a rumour for so long. I didn’t even believe it at the end. I didn’t know whether to scream or not,” she said recalling how she asked a colleague to continue with the meeting with rating agency Moody’s while she excused herself and went to the bathroom.
Once in the bathroom, she gave a quiet scream and tried to regain her composure. She could barely focus when she returned to the meeting.
“The fact that the President thought of this lady from the dusty streets of kwaNdebele [in Mpumalanga] to do this particular role, where I was just minding my business and doing my job at the Treasury, I could never describe the feeling,” she gleamed.
When she relayed the news to her mother in a phone call, her response was: “Mampho! Why are you taking a temporary job? Don’t you see that unemployment is a problem?”
“ She asked if it was a promotion and I said well it depends on how you look at it. She was not impressed,” she said, as we both laughed.
However, once the official announcement was made, the Deputy Governor’s mom changed her tune.
“That was when she recognised the magnitude of the role.”
The return to the central bank gave Modise mixed emotions.
“I was nervous; I was so scared; I was excited …and I felt that maybe I’m not good enough. That element of doubt was what I had to deal with in my first two to three months of being here. When I got to the SARB in Irene and I stopped at the door before I could get in, I was shaking.”
Helping others to rise
As the country continues to mark Women’s Month in August, she expressed gratitude to those who have helped her up in her journey.
“I was so blessed. I had people who grabbed me by the hand and pulled me even when I was exhausted and didn’t want to move. They didn’t take no for an answer. It was not women only, it was not men only, it was a combination of people. The best lesson is [that] you can never rise alone. If you do progress all by yourself, you are not successful. You haven’t made someone’s else’s life better.
“The biggest lesson for me is you have to move with others.”
The bubbly Deputy Governor usually starts her day with a session at a gym in central Pretoria where the instructors are “cute”, after which she heads to the office, attends meetings and tackles her list of things to do.
The central bank is headed by Governor Lesetja Kganyayo and has three Deputy Governors – namely Dr Rashad Cassim, Fundi Tshazibana and Dr Modise.
On what it is like to work with Governor Kganyago, Modise said that he has a consultative nature.
“He consults. That makes working with him easier because you know what his thinking is, and he brings us together through his thinking. Whether we agree or disagree, you get an opportunity to voice your opinion and then a decision is made based on everyone’s opinion being taken into consideration. That is the type of leader I want to be.”
She also stressed the importance of a work-life balance that ensures she also spends time with her daughter, Neo.
“When I get home, I spend time with Neo and around 9:30pm I push the work for the following day and plan for the [following] day.”
Modise also spends time with her friends and sister while also training for the upcoming Cape Town Marathon in October.
As the middle child in a family of three girls, she played soccer but gave it up as a result of an injury in varsity.
True to oneself
With South Africa having observed the 30th anniversary of the first official National Women’s Day on 9 August, the Deputy Governor urged women to be true to themselves.
“First of all, I’m not an imbokodo [rock]. I’m not strong, I am fragile and sensitive. I cry over movies. The saying that [states that] women must hold the knife on the sharp end, I don’t believe in strength like that.
“I don’t believe we must suffer. Girls we can do this thing, and we can do it while we remain true to ourselves. We do not have to be strong; we just need to work hard.
“There is a difference between trying to be strong because when you’re trying to be strong, it means you’re emotionless. That is not how I would do life. I embrace my feelings; I embrace being a woman. I embrace being soft, I embrace crying in watching a movie even if it’s a cartoon, I embrace all of that.”
She also spoke of the need for women to believe in themselves.
“I think the biggest hurdle we need to deal with is getting women to believe in themselves; to get them to raise their hand; to get them to a point where when they are given a Deputy Governor’s role, they don’t shake and be terrified.
“We need to get our women to be so confident that they can take on roles, make mistakes and learn from them. We need to support them. When I say ‘we’ I’m talking females, I’m talking males. We need to be deliberate in supporting them.”
On her message to young people who want to follow in her footsteps, Dr Modise urged the youth to be proud of where they come from.
“Be proud of where you come from, it defines you. It doesn’t break you; it just makes you better. Once you get an opportunity, you must make sure you move with others. We need to stop the mentality of “I was the first” and you want to remain the first. That must stop. If you were the youngest something somewhere, make sure by the time you leave, that the person that takes over, is younger than you so they become the first,” she explained.
On what she would like her legacy to be, Dr Modise said: “If I’ve made a change in someone else’s life for the better, that will let me sleep better. My legacy is not [about] people remembering my positions, but I want them to remember how I made their lives better.”
No doubt, the Deputy Governor will have widened her circle at the end of her five-year term at the central bank in March 2029 as she continues her journey while passing the baton for others to succeed as well. –SAnews.gov.za