CHARMAINE MANIKAM: Senior Manager: Manufacturing at Hesto Harnesses

#AutomotiveAllies: Charmaine Manikam, nominated Mahesh Iyavoo, Rajen Naiddo and Sinqobile Khuluse, is Senior Manager for Manufacturing at Hesto Harnesses.

Having just completed matric, Charmaine had no put a lot of thought to her future aspirations and career goals. At that time, all she wanted was to find a job and earn her own income. Little did she know that this was her first step towards her self-independence.

Charmaine started her working journey at Hesto Harnesses way back in 1995, employed as an operator in the production department. She grew to have a passion for the production world, and this paved the way to her development in the production department from Operator to Team Leader to Group Leader and eventually being the first female Production Manager.

2020 marks Charmaine’s 25th year of service at Hesto. She is now Senior Manager in the Production Department and is also a member of the Executive Team – an achievement Charmaine never thought she’d be able to achieve in her life.

Reflecting on her younger self and #ThingsIWishIKnew, “The transition from school-life into work-life and our family-life involves a wide range of challenges and opportunities and this is where the teaching begins in terms of balancing your natural abilities as a woman.

In school, we are taught a lesson and then we are given a test, but as women, we have to go through the various tests of life, that eventually become our lessons in life.”

Charmaine’s advice to aspiring women:

Find your purpose, understand your strengths and use them to your advantage.

We all have brushes with self-doubt, but hey, we are human, and we can learn to build on our self-confidence.

Never stop learning as life never stops teaching.