Every September, South Africans celebrate the languages, food and traditions passed from one generation to the next. Heritage is also shaped by the choices we make today: what we build, who can participate in it, and what the next generation will inherit. For WDB Investment Holdings, Heritage Day brings that responsibility into focus. Our work rests on a conviction that has guided WDB for 35 years: women must have the means to shape their own economic futures.

WDB began in 1991, when Mrs Zanele Mbeki and a group of determined women set out to expand opportunity for women in rural communities. Their vision recognised women’s central role in sustaining households and communities, and the barriers that kept many from accessing finance and economic opportunity. In late 1996, WDB Investment Holdings (WDBIH) was formed to help sustain the Trust’s work through investment returns. That decision gave the mission a lasting financial foundation. WDBIH could invest, grow its portfolio and channel profits back to the Trust’s development programmes. Thirty years on, the link between commercial success and social purpose remains at the heart of who we are.

WDBIH has grown into a strategic investment partner with representation across listed and unlisted companies, building total assets under management in excess of R3,5 billion and returning meaningful distributions to the Trust as a funding mechanism; funds that have gone on to reach hundred of thousands of more than 200,000 rural women entrepreneurs across the continent. Its returns have helped fund the WDB Trust’s work with rural women.

These numbers matter because of what they make possible. Access to finance, practical support and opportunity can change the choices available to a woman and her family. Representation in business leadership can change whose experience informs decisions. Each is a contribution to a more inclusive economy.

South Africa’s history makes this work especially significant. Generations of women sustained families and communities while facing exclusion from formal economic opportunity. WDB and WDBIH were created in response to that reality. Their continuing task is to help women participate fully in the economy and hold a meaningful stake in its future.

There is much still to do. Poverty, unemployment and unequal access to capital continue to limit what too many women can achieve. An anniversary is a moment to recognise progress, but also to ask what the next thirty years require of us.

Our founders built an organisation with the capacity to endure. We honour their vision by using that capacity with purpose: investing well, strengthening the Trust’s work and opening more pathways for women to build, lead and own.

This Heritage Day, we celebrate what has been created together and renew our commitment to what comes next. That is a heritage worth passing on.

Happy Heritage Day!