CEO Today Business Women of the Year Awards

75 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Business Women of the Year Awards 2018 SOUTH AFRICA DONNA RACHELSON CEO of Seed Engine ABOUT DONNA RACHELSON Entrepreneur I Speaker I Author Donna is a driven entrepreneur with a passion for helping women and entrepreneurs to make their mark. She is an active advocate for diversity and firmly believes in the power of inclusion. She drives her agenda through the books she has written, talks and lobbying the ecosystem for change. Her superpower lies in her ability to inspire lasting mindset shifts and impart tangible, practical advice. She is involved in a spectrum of businesses and initiatives that reflect her talent and passion. Having held a number of marketing director positions in organisations including Nando’s and the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants as well as marketing management positions at Standard Bank and AECI, she believes she can brand & market anything from chicken to explosives and chartered accountants. She has a fascination for personal and team branding and its impact on business growth. Donna founded Branding & Marketing YOU – a business focused on helping organisations build their brands from their most important assets – their ‘people’. She has spoken to and trained many people across more than 20 blue chip clients, including Microsoft, McKinsey, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Deloitte and SAB. Donna is the author three books: 1. Branding & Marketing YOU - the first South African based personal branding and marketing book. 2. Branding & Marketing YOU through Teams -mobilises organizational teams to effectively position themselves as adding value and enhancing their visibility and credibility. 3. Play to Win: What women can learn from men in business - gives women practical ways of ‘levelling the playing field’ and getting ahead in male dominated environments.. In her current role as CEO and shareholder of Seed Engine which includes Seed Academy and the WDB Growth Fund, Donna’s focus is on social impact and creating economic inclusion for all through entrepreneurship. Seed Engine builds the skills and capacity of youth and women entrepreneurs and supports them to grow & scale their businesses through high impact business development support, access to markets and funding. She is in her element helping women unlock their innate potential by sharing insights around the themes she sees as most critical to their ‘strategic self’. Donna readily shares learnings and insights through keynote presentations and contributing to media for comment and opinion. She has a solid business education, including an MBA and is a guest lecturer at GIBS and has lectured at Yale on the YALI programme. FIRM PROFILE Seed Engine Build I Grow I Scale Seed Engine is a social enterprise fo- cused on creating economic inclusion for all through entrepreneurship. This is done through building the skills and capacity of entrepreneurs; by funding and supporting them to grow their busi- nesses and by working with corporates and organisations to take these busi- nesses to scale. Seed Engine has two entities that work interchangeably with each other….. Seed Academy which provides high- impact business development support and access to markets to entrepreneurs at all stages, helping them to build successful, sustainable businesses., Seed Academy’s systematic method- ology moves entrepreneurs from build to grow and ultimately to scale. Seed Academy partners with clients to deliver real ROI based on measured outcomes combined with high levels of transpar- ency and accountability. WDB Growth Fund is a Section 12J Impact Investment Fund, focused on increasing the participation of youth and women entrepreneurs in South Africa’s economy. The Fund addresses the needs of growth-stage businesses while providing investors with Enter- prise & Supplier Development points recognition and tax benefits. CONTACT W: www.seedengine.co.za W: www.donnarachelson.com