A YEAR INTO THE JOB

Gabz FM boss-lady shares her experiences of being the first woman to captain a commercial private radio station...
By MOSES MARUPING

It’s an open secret that pregnant women sometimes change moods without warning.
So you can imagine the hesitation and trepidation in me when I go to meet and interview Gabz FM Chief Executive Officer and former Miss Botswana, Joyce Manase-Ntau who is pregnant with her third child.
Being the fearless scribe who has in the past rubbed the country’s top brass the wrong way, I psyched myself up and stepped into the 35-year-old Manase-Ntau’s territory at the Gabz FM studios situated along the Old-Lobatse road.
Although our appointment is scheduled for 10 am I make sure I rock up 30 minutes early so as to etch a long-lasting impression on the vivacious face of Botswana’s first woman to manage a private commercial radio station.
But as fate will have it, it’s month end and the boss of the airwaves is busy preparing staff salaries, something I learnt after her personal assistant made a quick phone call to her office.
However, the wait seems short courtesy of the vibrant and the colourful atmosphere that engulfs the station that prides itself with “playing today’s hits and yesterday’s classics.”
At one point I could feel my toes wriggling inside my shoes to the soothing sound of the background music blasting through the overhead monitors erasing the monotony which is synonymous with most local receptions.
A few minutes pass and in no time I’m ushered into Manase-Ntau’s spacious office who welcomes me with a warm smile that puts me at ease.
She has already carved herself a golden niche despite the fact that she only took over the leadership of Gabz FM last year December from the incumbent Programmes Manager, Kenneth ‘Cutrite’ Moeng.
She takes a quick look at her laptop to see if there’s any email which needs an urgent reply before she could let me in on her journey through the years to become Gabz FM boss.
As we were about to settle into the mission at hand, Manase-Ntau quickly calls the adult contemporary radio station accountant into her office and I excuse myself as the two discuss this month’s staff salaries. It doesn’t take long before I’m called right back into her office where upon she reaches for a cup of coffee and starts pouring in the ingredients to make herself a cup of tea.
“Excuse me, Mr. Maruping for keeping you this long. It’s a hectic day for me as you can see. Let me just grab this cup of tea and we shall be on,” she says with a sassy laugh as I settle comfortably into the leather chair.
There’s no single grain of doubt that hers is a demanding job which requires the strength of an African elephant and the fervor of a honey-making bumble bee.
She considers herself somebody who stumbled upon the media most particularly the airwaves.
Despite this, she says she enjoys the job to the core courtesy of her supportive Gabz FM team, and her aim is to take the radio station to even greater heights.
“This is where I want to be. I’m home. I consider myself more of a business person than a media person. My formula is quite simple. I always tell my team that all we need to offer listeners is intelligent talk balanced with entertainment and excitement hence why at the beginning of the year we reshuffled our line-up,” she says adding that in as much as they are a Botswana-based radio station they are also targeting the global market courtesy of their web-streaming.
“I would have loved to retain the old presenters. However as you may be aware, anything which metamorphoses into something new has to shed the old skin. Right now I can confidently reveal we have the most listened to breakfast show in the country thanks to the calm and smart Jazzelle Kebakile and the unstoppable Thebe Mogapi who on a daily basis enthrall our listenership.
A job like hers obviously comes with challenges and for Manase-Ntau; the greatest of all was the economic melt-down which affected almost every business globally.
“I think as a nation we celebrated the recovery of the economy from the global recession too soon and pinned our hopes on the 2010 soccer world cup where we saw sales picking up and then suddenly taking a slump. This affected a lot of businesses including us,” she says with over-flowing confidence before explaining to me that she is an economist by training.
This affirms her statement and I can tell hers is not a guessing game.
In most instances, women in leadership positions are usually looked down by their male subordinates, something that might as well characterize the environs of Gabz FM whose staff members are predominantly male. However, for Manase-Ntau, the latter is utter nonsense.
“I’m still to experience that really. I relate to them as colleagues and although some call me boss lady I don’t act and behave like one (boss lady) unnecessarily. I have created an environment where any member of staff can approach me with ease. However, I’m fully aware of the fact that women in leadership positions have to speak double more than their male colleagues.”
She’s happy that at Gabz FM, the management team is balanced with two men and two ladies.

Although all is well with Manase-Ntau being the captain of the Gabz FM ship and envisaging to steer it in the right direction, she would one day love to represent Botswana in a bigger global continuum.

“I always dream of taking up a job with organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations in Geneva or simply becoming an ambassador for the country.”
Being a married mother of two and now expecting a third sometime early next year, Manase-Ntau juggles all these vocations with ease.
She explains, “Although this is demanding I have the wonderful support from my husband whom I believe is Heaven sent.”
The couple has been married for nine years now.
Her day usually starts around 0530 with a 30 minute exercise and a bit of reading.
“I will read a few verses from the Bible to get me up and going as well as motivational books. I’m currently reading two books, one called ‘Young Mandela’ and the other one dubbed ‘I gota move my car’.”
She says after all the reading is out of the way she usually prepares both breakfast and lunch packs for the kids and husband. Manase-Ntau is crazy about her Blackberry phone which she says makes her whole life easy.
“On my way to work I’m able to check and play around with my diary for the day. Each and every time an idea springs to my head whilst on the road I record it,” she says before explaining that all her life she only buys phones with a recorder mode.
Quizzed about her favourite dish, Manase-Ntau says she loves prawns although some people call them cockroaches of the sea. We both laugh and get back to the subject of her favourite dishes.
She talks of dikgobe and madombi adding that although she is not much of a kitchen favourite, her two young boys love her cooking.
“I grew up being told I was a bad cook, ha-ha!” she says with a cheeky laugh before adding that she is just an average Motswana who has a farm and at times when she needs to unwind she packs up her bags and goes for a retreat there, a haven that affords her peace and serenity.
She wants to see Gabz FM being the radio of choice especially amongst the 25-year-olds (25+) age group, a group she says has a larger buying power.
The conversation that was supposed to last less than 30-minutes has stretched to over an hour by the time we call it a day. Manase-Ntau is an extraordinary woman-not the unpredictable drama queen I was expecting before the interview. She’s just a loveable lady who loves life.
Her message during the 16 days of activism on violence against women is simple, “this is something which happens to all whether rich, poor, smart, educated etc,” she says adding that this form of violence can either be physical, financial and emotional.
Her advice is for people to do away with the way they were raised where a victim of gender violence is usually classified as being the ‘naughty one’ in the relationship.
“All I can say is that people should break the silence and speak up against this form of violence. There’s more to life than that particular individual.”