- Michelle Botha, who at just 42 years of age
is the Checkers Hyper Deputy Divisional Manager for Gauteng
Ambitious and eager to succeed, there were very few women in senior positions when Michelle started as a trainee admin manager 18 years ago.
Michelle hails from KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast and after spending time in the retail sector when she finished matric, she decided to move to Johannesburg. However, coming from a strict Indian family meant she had to convince her father to trust her to move away from home.
Michelle thought she would be happy moving from one managerial admin position to the next, until the previous divisional manager for Checkers Gauteng, Hennie van Rooyen, suggested that she goes for training to learn about the different aspects of the business and how to be a branch manager.
Michelle was then given the opportunity to run Checkers Little Falls before coming back to run Checkers Hyper Roodepoort for three-and-a-half years. Despite the inherent stress of the job, Michelle says those were some of the best years of her life and during this time, the store went from being 6th in revenue in the Gauteng division to number one!
Michelle says her success is a combination of always being eager to learn and senior managers at Checkers encouraging her to go on various training courses to learn about all aspects of the retail business.
She admits that making her way up the ladder of success hasn’t been easy and she’s had to make sacrifices along the way. The long hours and weekend work resulted in her 14-year-old daughter growing up with Michelle’s parents in Durban.
Michelle, who is married, starts every day at 4.30am with gym and she lives an active lifestyle with her husband. She says that when she started at Checkers, she didn’t think she would spend a long time in retail, or even at one company.