Adapted from Tom McKune’s LinkedIn commentary.
The role that Women in the Built Environment (WITBE) is playing to promote women into leadership in our industry is often underestimated.
I have watched the WITBE network grow into a community of hundreds of women across all disciplines of the built environment, in more than a dozen African countries and beyond — a space for social learning, collaborative mentoring and career networking that simply did not exist a few years ago. Credit goes to the founders who had the foresight to pursue their passion and create a safe space for women to share their experiences.
Why it matters to the whole industry
This is not a “women’s issue”. The built environment in South Africa cannot afford to sideline half its talent pool while it struggles with a skills shortage. Every firm that fails to retain and promote its women engineers, technologists and technicians is paying for recruitment it did not need to do — and losing leadership it desperately needs.
What actually moves the needle
From years of involvement in training and mentoring, three things make a measurable difference: visible senior women in leadership roles, structured mentoring rather than good intentions, and networks where experiences — including the hard ones — can be shared honestly. WITBE provides all three, which is why I promote its monthly sessions so consistently, and why I encourage every employer in our sector to get their women professionals involved.
The industry is changing. The organisations that help it change will be the ones that attract the talent everyone else is competing for.