–ANSA McAL’s Beverley Harper on the making of a successful businesswoman

“FOR this world to continue, it’s important that we have a place at the head table. We need to be there at the head table,” says Beverley Harper, who is certainly leading by example when it comes to knowing where her place is.
“Women have an all-encompassing view,” she says. “If you only believe that men should be in control, then you’ll never be fully in control, because you will never fully understand the whole.”

Harper is the inaugural Country Manager of the ANSA McAL Group of Companies here in Guyana.
She firmly believes that women understanding their worth is key to surviving in what is still essentially “a man’s world”, especially in Guyana’s world of business.
In Guyana, women make a strikingly low number of management positions, and are even less represented when it comes to being on the Board of many high-level companies. Some companies have as few as one to three women, or none at all.

“I’m nearly always the only woman on the Board,” Harper said. “I don’t think they do it deliberately; I think they don’t even realise and recognise the groups they choose directorship from, they are all ‘Old- Boys Clubs’.”

BUCKING TRENDS
Harper stands as a beacon; one of those women who managed to break the proverbial “glass ceiling”, and make a longstanding career in an executive position in Guyana.
She was recently promoted to the Country Manager position. This came after nine years as the company’s Managing Director.
It is because of her worth that the company decided to create the position, and appoint her to it. The company simply felt that she was “too valuable an asset to go off into the sunset.” So, when she handed over the Managing Director reins to Troy Cadogan a few months back, she took on an even bigger role in the conglomerate.

The German-born businesswoman, who has Guyanese roots on her father’s side of the family, is a woman who is never afraid to assert her authority and demand the kind of respect that she deserves.
“I like to state that I have three Es in my name, but that doesn’t mean that I’m that easy,” Harper joked as she reflected on what it means to be one of the few women in Guyana to make it as far as she has.
As a woman, she recalls having to “put people in their place” once when she felt she was being disregarded.

“I had to assert myself once,” she said, adding:
“Funny enough, I read shortly thereafter that it frequently happens to women; where you talk but you’re invisible.
“Didn’t realise how much it was until it happened to me one time in a meeting. I ventured an opinion with an idea, and we moved on.
“Then, 15 to 20 minutes later, a man reiterated what I said, and it was almost as though I hadn’t spoken.

“So I said, ‘Excuse me, if you are going to quote me, you will do me the courtesy of stating: As Beverley said 20 minutes ago, this would be a good idea.
‘And to the gentleman who had just said that this is a good idea from the other person, you will do me the courtesy of listening to me when I speak, as should the rest of the Board.
‘Because, if you believe it’s a good idea now, then you all need to recognise that you are not listening to me. And you need to listen to me; not vicariously.’”

A PLEASANT SURPRISE
Harper’s earlier appointment as ANSA McAL’s Managing Director was one that came as a surprise to her; she was of the belief that she was being interviewed for a marketing executive position, as that was her main area at the time. It wasn’t until she was asked what difference she could make as managing director that it fully hit home.
“I didn’t expect it, but here we are nine years later,” she expressed. Now, she wants nothing better than to see other women aspire to and achieve being in more executive positions.
Given all the developments that have been made for women over the years, Harper is glad that many obstacles that were once there have been overcome, notwithstanding changes that still need to be made.

“I do believe the new generation is way, way ahead of the game than we are. The fact that there are more women in university than men, worldwide; the fact that we’re obviously in jobs, we’re getting higher and higher,” she said, adding that it’s now the role of those women who have made it to not only be shining examples to those upcoming ones, but to lend a helping hand whenever and wherever they can.
“I think it’s incumbent upon women in higher positions to ensure that they mentor as many young women as possible, to know that they have to be a shining example of what women should aspire to become. We have to understand that we have roles to play; to let women know that sometimes, we can’t do it all. Leave time for yourself; friends and family are very important!”