Franchise director: Discovery

Tradition says deputy head prefects work long and hard without getting any applause at final assembly. Kate Moodley will know this well, having once been second in command at St Conrad’s in Klerksdorp. But her dedication has seen no shortage of recognition in recent years.

Moodley’s academic career earned her a BA, an LLB and a master of laws in income tax and international tax, all at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has since earned various professional qualifications, including a certified financial planning diploma.

Moodley qualified as an attorney in 2003. She then worked as a corporate legal adviser before taking on a management role at Momentum in 2006. In 2010, aged 32, she made the white-knuckle decision to go it alone, and started a franchise under the Discovery umbrella.

While building a sound model for linking clients to the right Discovery product, Moodley has the ideal foundation to pursue several of her passions.

She is an energetic campaigner for women’s empowerment. Through an initiative of Discovery and Chabad House, she offers her skills as a mentor to young women entering business, and closer to home she provides a range of study bursaries to her female admin team.

A keen writer, she has also published her features and columns in publications ranging from CEO Magazine to Personal Finance.

Some of the accolades for Moodley’s business acumen and leadership include appointment to the Momentum junior board in 2007, inclusion in Cosmo’s “Women on the Move” that same year, and the Top Woman Executive prize at last year’s Top Women Awards.

Earlier this year Moodley published her first book, I Inc. Be the CEO of your Brand, in which she draws on her experience at the pinnacle of business to advise on the precarious art of building a personal image in the concrete jungle.

— Ian Macleod

Twitter: @moodleykk