Melanie Botha, Microsoft SA
Name: Melanie Botha
Designation: Consumer channels group director
Company: Microsoft SA
What do you do every day? I live my passion. I manage an incredibly talented team who are responsible for very disparate and unique business units. From retail, distributors, channel partners, consumer audiences, sales to a very complex product mix. It is my job, along with my team, to introduce and bring to market very exciting products like Xbox and tablets, to strike interesting partnerships to drive alternative channel deals, to category management and setting local relevance strategy. Every hour in my day is different, and every day has a new challenge to resolve. In between work every day I interject my personal life, learning to see the joy of life through my 7-month old miracle baby’s eyes and living life with my soul mate.
How did you get into the tech space? I lectured Zulu and worked at publishers in the UK, oblivious to IT, not even knowing what IBM stood for when they approached me to work for them…. Since then I never looked back, having had the most incredible opportunities in various countries in a very vast industry.
What was the best advice anyone ever gave you? THINK. THINK AGAIN. ASK five times WHY to get to the root of an issue and NEVER assume.
What advice would you give someone wanting to get into the tech sector? Don’t ever think you’re not good enough or do not have enough experience. GO for opportunities and stand on the shoulders of giants to learn from them, mentors can help you see through different lenses.
What motivates you to get out of bed every day? The opportunity to change lives through what we do at Microsoft.
Who do you want to be when you grow up? My ultimate self, living and fulfilling my purpose to impact more lives.
Find me on:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/melanie-botha/0/323/12a
About The Author: Samantha
Samantha Perry is the owner and founder of SJ Perry PR, a small, independent agency that specialises in providing public relations and media relations services to small to medium-sized businesses. She recently served as the JHB Agency Lead for Irvine Partners, an integrated public relations and marketing agency. She has over 20 years' of experience writing for a range of media - print and online - mainly in the ICT sector including Computing SA (editor), ComputerWeek, and Brainstorm magazine (editor). In her capacity as a PR professional and consultant, she has and does work with a variety of companies including Google (South Africa & Nigeria), Salesforce, CLEVVA, Euphoria Telecom, Paymenow and Tiger Content (UK). She also has a Masters degree in ICT Policy & Regulation. She served on the IAB SA Marketing Council as the PR rep, has worked as an independent telecoms researcher for some of the analyst houses in that field and was regularly called upon to comment on telecoms issues in the press. Nowadays she can be found commenting on women in tech issues in the press and speaking at conferences on the subject and the issues women in the sector face.
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