Lilian’s journey to impacting society through hard work

Dar es Salaam. A famous quote by Colin Powell goes: a dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. This is probably the case with Lilian Mramba, who serves as the Africa regional director for Grassroots Business Fund (GBF). Her career journey reflects how women leadership is perceived across the globe.

GBF is a global impact investment organisation that provides structured finance, senior debt and business advisory services to growth stage companies with a strong track record. The financing ranges from $500,000 to $1.5 million.

Lilian has worked with GBF since 2011 during where she rose through the ranks through hard work and commitment. During her time with GBF, she has worked directly with entrepreneurs, sourcing investment opportunities, conducting due diligence as well as directing GBF’s strategy in Africa.

In a 2016 interview with Startup Wave, Lilian revealed that she became interested in the investment space from the time she was around 13 years old.

“I spent part of my school holidays travelling with my father to rural areas of Tanzania. When I saw the level of poverty that people lived in, it made me reflect on how lucky I was to lead my life the way I did, but it also made think of what I could do to help make this world a better place for others. I think that is where the drive came from,” Lilian recalls.

Today, she is one of the impactful leaders who is also known as the champion of investing in women-led enterprises in Africa. Reliving her career journey, Lilian says what it took her to get to where she currently is, including featuring in the 2021 annual report titled ‘Leading Tanzanian Women in Financial Services’ prepared by International Finance Corporation (IFC).

She says she started her leadership journey while working for an audit firm in Seattle in the United States where she was awed how business advisory services were employed along with finance.

When she started working with GBF, Lilian decided to apply the strategies from the Seattle firm by introducing a business stream which provides business advisory services to other aligned organisation including foundations and donor governments.

Her idea developed from the belief that with GBF expertise, it could help organisations that wanted to create social impacts.

“We have come a long way from piloting these services with our clients and getting approval from GBF’s board. Our approach is now a central part of GBF’s strategy, she says.

Approximately a quarter of the African firms with GBF investment are led by women and over 13 years of its work, the fund has impacted about 8.6 million people in Africa, half of whom are women.

Lilian is also passionate about African-led companies supporting other Africa, for she believes that if organisations in Africa continue to seek for capital support outside the continent, development will take longer to be achieved.

Despite having worked in the male dominated sector, financial services Lilian reveals that there were times in her career when she felt disadvantaged because of her gender.

“When I worked at the auditing firm in Seattle, I was the only black woman on the professional services side. There was an occasion when I received feedback that I was too direct and that I came off as aggressive. I was told to tone down my language when I wrote my emails,” she recalls.

Lilian decided to take the advice in stride and did not let it hold her back from achieving her goals. From that one experience, she learned to be aware of herself and her surroundings as well as the biases of the people she interacts with.

She details that she enjoys the strong relationship she continues to form with the organisation and how it has in turn awarded her considerable working flexibility, something that many women in work places do not have.

“It is important to provide women with supportive structures to enable them to thrive at work since the lack of such flexibility impacts women’s performance in work places,” Lilian emphasizes.

She is looking forward to a world where African women do support and uplift each as they ascend through career ranks and towards their goals.

“I want women to read my story and think that there is nothing special about me, and that my success is just the result of hard work and being intentional about certain things,” Lilian says.

She advices women to build social capital and alliances with people in diverse careers and those who hold different perspectives so that it can enhance them to see and understand the whole picture from other people’s thinking boxes.

She envisions a future where the need for special programmes to support women’s advancement is a thing of the past, and society has moved on to solving challenges such as poverty, ill health and poor nutrition so that the society advances in its totality.

“With the unconditional help and support of my family including my husband, my parents, my in-laws and my house help (housemaid), I am where I am today. All of them have enabled me to pursue my career wholeheartedly,” concludes Lilian Mramba.