Polo Leteka is the Chairperson and Founder of IDF Capital and a qualified accountant with extensive experience in both the South African Public and Private sectors.
She concluded her articles by emphasising the importance of finishing something you start, thus making her highly marketable for corporate and investment positions. While not sure what type of business she wanted to start, she knew she should aim for something that solved real problems in a sustainable way.
She identified that the gap between providers of capital and seekers of funding, mainly black entrepreneurs, can be used to find a meeting point and a common goal. An opportunity in the Department of Trade Industry arose where the department was searching for someone who understood financing to join their BEE unit. Through that experience, she gained a thorough understanding of the micro-economic challenges and what is required from a micro policy perspective that drives investment in line with government economic policy.
Polo used whatever chance she had to become the ideal entrepreneur she wanted to be. She identified gaps and windows of opportunity as more entrepreneurs entered the space and translated their needs into a language that young entrepreneurs could understand. By solving the problem of access to capital through IDF Capital, Polo opened the door to black women and SMEs to gain finance and pursue their entrepreneurial goals.
As one of ImpactSA and Vodacom’s Women in Leadership, Polo Leteka talks about the challenges facing women in entrepreneurship…….
