Get to know our Women in Agriculture Webinar speakers!

Nicola Weimar:

Nicky Weimar, Nedbank’s Chief Economist, was a Senior Economist for the Nedbank group from 2000 to 2019. Soon after receiving her Masters in Economics from the University of Stellenbosch, she advised government on economic procedures and policies in her capacity as an economist in the Central Economic Advisory Service, and has since integrated into the President’s Office. Her experiences in the banking-, securities- and brokering industries ensured her a broader knowledge of a wide range of fields within economics, including sector analysis, fixed investment trends and the relationship between real economic trends and developments within the financial markets. At Nedbank, Nicky has focused most of her energies on trends in the overall economy, looking at cycles in the economic growth, inflation and interest rates.

Dipuo Ntuli:

Dipuo Ntuli is the first black Vice-Chairman of the SA Canegrowers Association, and leader in the Umfolozi Sugar Mill area. Dipuo, a mother of six, has been a sugarcane grower for 17 years and was a councillor in the Hlabisani Municipality and Mtubatuba Municipality, going on to the executive committee and assuming office as chairperson of the Community Portfolio. Dipuo is passionate about empowering and developing small-scale growers, and concentrating on the challenges the industry faces outside of politics.

Denene Erasmus:

Denene Erasmus is the editor of Farmer’s Weekly South Africa, the largest English-language agricultural publication in Southern Africa. She grew up on a family-run sugarcane farm and has won numerous international and national awards for her reporting in Africa. Her writing covers a broad range of topics related to agriculture, agribusiness, African development, rural development, climate change and conservation. She has a special interest in stories that examine how global and regional developments within the agriculture sector affects the sustainability of family-owned farms and farming businesses.

Mandisa Dlamini:

Mandisa is a dealmaker in the agro-processing sector; evaluating deals through conducting due diligence investigations to determine the bankability of transactions in the agro-processing sector, and primary agriculture (with a focus on high value, long term crops). She is an agricultural economist by profession and has predominantly worked in the agricultural finance space, mainly in commercial banks. In the very first bank she joined; she was the only black female working in team of agricultural specialists in the country.