Photo Gallery: 29 July 2026, CHRO Pitch Parade, The Venue Green Park, Sandton

Women’s empowerment in the workplace is often discussed in the language of representation, targets and transformation. Those measures matter. But they are not the destination; they are evidence of whether we are changing the conditions in which women enter, grow, lead and succeed. The question is no longer whether organisations can afford to invest in women. It is whether they can afford not to.

A recent webinar, hosted in partnership with Factorial, brought together Neridha Moodley, people and culture lead at SNG Grant Thornton; Zameer Ahmed, head of HR digital transformation at Netcare; and Paolo Urzi, partnership development manager at Factorial, to unpack what responsible AI adoption looks like in practice, and how HR leaders can harness technology without losing sight of the people at the heart of the function.

What does the workplace women deserve look like? This Women’s Day, we put that question to HR leaders Elanie Kruger, CHRO at Tsebo Solutions Group; Shehnaaz Kajee, head of HR at HBZ Bank; and Sinqobile Khuluse, CPO at Sandock Austral Shipyards, who have a front-row seat to shaping the employee experience.

The term neurodiversity is becoming ubiquitous in a world where the diversity in peoples’ cognitive abilities is being highlighted in the mainstream. Current estimates show that as many as 15 percent to 20 percent of the global population is neurodivergent, meaning that one in five employees falls into this category.

Before CHROs ask the enterprise to lead humans and AI together, HR must become the demonstration project.

CHROs have moved past the era where saying this is the way we’ve always done things is the only rule of thumb. Today, the workplace has become a place where someone who remembers the first fax machine collaborates in real-time with an intern who uses AI to automate their morning emails.