Heels On Wheels

The freight and logistics sector is changing face. More women are at the helm – and speeding ahead.

- Motlabana Monnakgotla

FOR MANY YEARS, THE logistics and trucking industry in South Africa was dominated by men until a young woman from Durban saw a gap in the market and took the opportunity to overtake them. They didn’t see her in their rear-view mirrors, speeding ahead.

Nicci Scott is today the founder of Commercial Transport Academy (CTA), a program designed to help students enter the trucking industry. In an industry where there are few women even now, she is a formidable force.

In 1995, at the age of 21, Scott started Siyaduma Auto Ferriers, which she says was the first female-owned logistics company in South Africa. This was soon after the country had gained democracy and women were unheard of in the industry. But she had been an entrepreneur long before that. At the age of 18, Scott started a business and sold it for just enough to go to work in the United States where she spent two years.

“While I was there, during the sanctions that South Africa was exposed to, I got to experience services that I had never seen before, like delivery services. These were services we never saw in the country, especially where I grew up,” says Scott. She returned home, worked for a car rental company for three months, and during that time, saw a gap in the market. The company she worked for moved cars based on bookings, so she saw that as an opportunity to provide these companies with drivers.

That epiphany marked her entry into the industry.

These rental companies would either use labor brokers, who would just drop-off-the cars, or use big car carriers which would load the cars on to trailers restricted to 80kmph, and there was nothing in between, she says.

She started her own car delivery service and her list of clients kept increasing.