“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.”
This quote by Rosabeth Moss Kanter encapsulates the driving force behind Buhle Goslar’s journey in the fintech world, challenging long-held notions of the financial sphere as a ‘boys club’ and offering an inspirational vision of hope for the future.
Goslar’s deep understanding of how capital allocation and technology drove economic inclusivity enabled her to rise to prominence in business and perfectly positioned her for the role as chairperson at SME services provider Lula.
Her journey began in travel tech, helping small entrepreneurs and local tourism companies join the digital economy. She then pivoted to mainstream fintech and was instrumental in early efforts to leverage digital and mobile footprints so that thin-file, previously unbanked consumers in ten different national markets could gain access to financial services.
Goslar’s career experience gave her a robust, holistic understanding of financial ecosystems, business resilience, and entrepreneurial trajectories. In recent years her portfolio has been laser-focused on the convergence of economic development and inclusion with finance and digital technology.
Speaking of her decision to join the board of Lula, Goslar says the integrity and commitment that the team brought to the table and their genuine passion for SA’s SMEs made it a natural fit.
“This was an opportunity to work on something I’m truly passionate about, and to bring the kind of quality financial services that were previously the sole preserve of major banks to smaller SME customers, who had largely been excluded from formal business banking,” she explains.
Now, as the chairperson of Lula, Goslar is at the helm of a vibrant, pioneering B2B digital credit and neobank fintech with an upward growth path, steadily maintaining its place at the forefront of profound societal and technological shifts. Lula is a dedicated SME banking platform that offers easy and convenient funding of up to R5 million within 24 hours.
Goslar sees the invitation to deal with gender equity as a diversity baseline, challenging us to expand into other forms of inclusivity. “To make it work, we need to harness all forms of diversity,” she says.
“Before COVID-19, society was on a fantastic trajectory regarding gender parity and equity. However, the pandemic saw a regression from which we’re still trying to emerge,” she explains.
“When you’re in crisis mode, it’s too easy to go back to familiar, well-worn structures. Throughout pandemic years, women were more likely to lose jobs, and to stop using financial services.”
We must first truly understand the mechanisms that result in greater vulnerability, and a loss of agency for women during times of crisis. We need to build this understanding of how crises are gendered into our crisis-preparedness, and our risk planning. The first step is to make sure we don’t regress again,” she explains.
Goslar also acknowledges the cynicism that has emerged around ESG and the backlash against DEI initiatives. Rather than brute-forcing the world onto the DEI bandwagon, she believes we should acknowledge and address the concerns behind these pushbacks, as well as articulate the true benefits and impacts of inclusion.
Goslar believes that promoting gender parity isn’t about taking men’s piece of the pie and giving it to women. “We’re actually baking a bigger pie and creating more value for everyone,” she says.
She adds that company equity and shares for employees can make the sense of belonging tangible. She suggests that if women had a real stake in businesses more often, we’d likely see a larger cohort of women in business reaching for senior management and leadership positions.
Incentive structures would need to shift to accommodate such models, but ultimately, we’d also likely see more motivated, successful, and invested employees, among both women and men.
This principle extends to SMEs and their role in the broader economy and society.
When SMEs are well supported by their country and their society, with a real stake in their communities, they are more invested in building a brighter future for everyone. Goslar highlights the significant contributions of SMEs worldwide, especially to economic growth, essential service provision, food security, and job creation.
Throughout her journey, she has seen how additional liquidity in the economy can have an enormous positive impact not only on the business operations, but also on the personal lives of entrepreneurs.
And, when we empower women, there are often unseen knock-on benefits that ripple outwards to the families and communities they nurture, support, and provide for.
Goslar also notes that women-led SMEs often fulfil important roles in society, in areas that are not as flashy or popular.
“There are a lot of women-led SMEs working in unglamorous, yet critical fields, like waste disposal, management, and recycling; medical supply chains; renewable energy; and agriculture. Agri SMEs in Africa are responsible for 80% of food production and 50% of jobs,” she notes.
Yet despite forming a significant portion of the micro, small, and medium enterprise sector, women entrepreneurs continue to face barriers in accessing essential banking services.
Goslar and the team at Lula are inspired by a collective vision to uplift and empower local SMEs, thereby igniting broad-based prosperity, and helping to catalyse a thriving SME ecosystem.
“We want to see more and more businesses in Africa move beyond subsistence entrepreneurship and start to scale and expand into new markets, especially women-led ones.”
