True evidence of consistency

Michelline Nawatises

Hildegardt Martin is the last born of two children of her dearly beloved mother who brought them up in a Christian home. She started kindergarten at nine months and went through her academics without missing a school day except when very ill, as missing school in their house was forbidden.

“By God’s grace, I hold two degrees: A Bachelor of Economics and Business Sciences from the University of Fort Hare (South Africa) and a Master of Science in Specialised Economic Analysis in International Trade, Finance and Development from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Spain,” she says.

Martin is currently a PhD student studying towards a Doctorate in Business Administration: Management Strategy at the University of Namibia’s Namibia Business School (NBS). “Having matriculated in Botswana, my doctorate will be my first qualification attained in Namibia and that in itself is quite exciting for me,” she adds.

She is the DStv business sales manager at MultiChoice Namibia. Previously, Martin has worked at Old Mutual Finance Namibia as the corporate sales manager and at ‘The Southern Times’ as the editor of ‘Inside Southern Africa – The Business Magazine for SADC’.

“Before then, I was privileged to have been part of the Prospect team at the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) in Botswana and an Economist Trainee at the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Secretariat in Botswana,” she says.

Business sales manager

As the DStv business sales manager, her job is largely business development as well as relationship management with DStv Business customers and other key stakeholders. “I am responsible for strategy formulation in the business-to-business space as well as overseeing implementation to ensure the desired results are achieved,” Martin adds.

Challenges and accomplishments

The biggest challenge in her career so far has been some people’s failure to realise that age has absolutely nothing to do with performance. “I believe women generally have to work twice as hard to gain credibility but as a young woman, twice then becomes fourfold,” she says.

As for her accomplishments being part of the team that worked on the institutionalisation of the SADC Aviation Safety Organisation (SASO). “I prepared SASO’s five-year budget and business plan, presented them to the SADC ministers of transport and both were are approved,” SASO is now a full-fledged organisation headquartered in eSwatini (former Swaziland).

Since Martin joined MultiChoice Namibia last year October, working from home as a result of the Covid pandemic was in full swing. “I have to say that MultiChoice has a very commendable organisational culture because walking in under the ‘work from home’ regime; never did I feel isolated from the team,” she says.

Currently, MCN is migrating all business customers to the new DStv Business packages. Throughout this process, her day is engrossed in ensuring this process works as it should and that all the moving pieces come together suitably. Furthermore, as a business development professional; daily monitoring of sales and subscriber base figures is the norm. She is awarded the requisite agility and support to strategize and re-strategise as need be.

Plans in the pipeline

Martin will be completing her doctoral degree in 2024, this is bound to be her main focus for the next three years. “I do, however, have my eye on a particular business venture. Having also been interested in corporate communications and public relations for some time now; I might pick up a course or two within the next two years,” she says.

Her long-term goal is to serve Namibia and Africa. “I will continue honing my capabilities in anticipation of this,” she says.