“The journey has been an inward one. It has been a journey of self-awareness. I am profoundly thankful for the opportunity to serve.”
Profile: Dr Luz Helena Hanauer
September 2020
A firm belief in feminist leadership
The Executive Director of WDB Trust and a WDB Investment Holdings board member, Dr Luz Helena Hanauer believes that the WDB group is an example of what a world that runs on feminist values could look like.
“A world where there is transparency and communication. A world where there are difficult conversations but no-one is leaving the room,” she says. “WDB is almost the pilot of a world where no patriarchy and no toxic dynamics of power are at play. And that’s easy to say but not easy to do, especially where there is a lot of money and different interests at stake.”
She joined the WDBIH board in February this year. A valuable asset on an already powerful all-women board, Luz Helena brings with her a wealth of international experience and a strong passion for the upliftment and empowerment of women.
She says she is grateful to WDB and the capable group of women who run it, who are constantly aware of the underlying goals – besides the obvious ones of building value and giving service.
“We are all here for two goals: One, to achieve poverty-eradication, and this is as disruptive as it comes because poverty keeps society being as unequal as it is. And two, for becoming an example of how a feminist leadership model of cooperation can work.”
“We are all here for two goals: One, to achieve poverty-eradication, and this is as disruptive as it comes because poverty keeps society being as unequal as it is. And two, for becoming an example of how a feminist leadership model of cooperation can work.”
A formidable track record
Luz Helena was born in Colombia in South America, and after some time “gap learning” in the US, she returned to Colombia, where she studied law at the university in Bogota (Universidad Externado de Colombia).
She is very clear about her choices. “I was always interested in a broader perspective of law,” she says. “I did not study law because I could not do maths, I studied law because I believed in justice.”
After graduating with her LLB (with awards for top academic achievement), she went on to the University of Liverpool in 2007 to take advantage of the Hodgson Law Scholarship that had been offered to her. She was the first recipient of the scholarship, through which she studied her LLM in International Business Law.
She began her career working in trade and exports in the United Kingdom, learning about international business, trade, purchases, and exports, but it was also in her early career that she learnt a lot about labour processes and practice – “A view into the human side of business,” she says.
Love and redirection
One has to take a few steps backward to view the following chapter in Luz Helena’s life. When she started the first year of her LLB in Colombia, she went on holiday in the USA and “met a lovely South African boy from Durban”.
To cut a long story short, in 2010 she found herself in South Africa working for the UNHCR (the UN refugee agency) in Pretoria.
“That was eye-opening, heart-wrenching,” she says. “I had only worked in the corporate world and now I was seeing what it is to be on the worst side of society, to be in the space where refugees find themselves – it is infinitely complex.”
In 2011, Luz-Helena decided to continue her studies and started lecturing on Roman Dutch Law at Wits University. Her decision to study her PhD in International Economic Law (also at Wits) came shortly thereafter. What followed was six years of immensely hard work, juggling her studies as well as working full time, first at an international solar company, and then as International Trade Manager at Mohlaleng Health. “It was at Mohlaleng Health that I acquired project management skills, consolidated my experience in international trade and developed projects with positive social impact in the sector of public health,” she says.
“With Mohlaleng Health, I had the great privilege and benefit of learning South Africa face to face,” she says. “I learnt a lot about the social dynamics and the needs of South Africa and I really fell in love. I realised there has to be a more comprehensive approach if we want to take this country forward, if we want to empower the people. I had many, many experiences that marked me, that left me very aware.”
Divine intervention
After leaving Mohlaleng and having a brief stint with a local NGO, Luz Helena was looking for something more. It was then she found out that the Zanele Mbeki Development Trust was looking for a Head of Research.
“It was literally divine intervention. I started working there and it was such a good feeling because I participated in the final module of the Zanele Mbeki Fellowship (aimed at empowering young women in leadership positions) and I also participated in the creation of the African Women in Dialogue forum in 2019 that brought women from 55 African countries together.”
She says working with Mrs Mbeki was very humbling, and she knew that she wanted to play a bigger role. At the end of 2019, she took on the position of Executive Director of the WDB Trust, and hasn’t looked back.
“The journey has been an inward one. It has been a journey of self-awareness. I am profoundly thankful for the opportunity to serve. It’s what I wanted to do when I travelled to the small towns in South Africa and saw poverty everywhere. I think that’s where the centre of my heart lies, in poverty-eradication. This is why the WDB Trust resonates so loudly with me, because it is looking for a new ecosystem we inhabit in harmony with other sentient beings and where there is equality for women who are bearing the brunt of the way we conceptualised how life is. I see it as a deeply revolutionary statement but I see how you can also arrive at it step by step. I may not live to see it but I know that I am working towards it and that is incredibly fulfilling.”
This is why the WDB Trust resonates so loudly with me, because it is looking for a new ecosystem we inhabit in harmony with other sentient beings and where there is equality for women who are bearing the brunt of the way we conceptualised how life is. I see it as a deeply revolutionary statement but I see how you can also arrive at it step by step. I may not live to see it but I know that I am working towards it and that is incredibly fulfilling.”
Luz Helena continues to steer the WDB Trust in new directions, adding her wealth of experience to the three programmes making a difference in the lives of South Africa’s rural women, namely Zenzele (psycho-social); Siyakhula (microfinance) and the WDB Training Academy. She also adds her passion and know-how to the WDBIH board, holding up the vision of feminist leadership with the other board members committed to a women-led future.