The 2026 Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award has honoured two South African entrepreneurs whose businesses are creating impact far beyond their industries.
Lindiwe Nkuna-Kgopa, founder of Lindiwe Sanitary Pads, was named the recipient of the Bold Woman Award, while Pretty Kubyane, Co-founder and Tech Lead of eFama App, received the Bold Future Award during a ceremony held at the Four Seasons Hotel The Westcliff in Johannesburg on 15 July.
Now in its fifth year in South Africa and 54th year globally, the awards celebrate women who embody the entrepreneurial spirit of Madame Clicquot through innovation, leadership and resilience.
Building an empire from a home kitchen
When Lindiwe Nkuna-Kgopa first pitched her sanitary pad manufacturing business, she was told she lacked the experience to succeed.
A decade later, she leads Africa’s first large-scale sanitary pad manufacturing facility owned and operated entirely by women.
What began in a home kitchen has grown into a 4,000-square-metre factory in Centurion capable of producing 800 SABS-compliant sanitary pads every minute.
Today, the company employs more than 120 people during peak production periods, the majority of whom are women from previously disadvantaged communities.
Beyond manufacturing, Lindiwe Sanitary Pads has expanded into 11 African countries through its partnership with Young Women of Africa (YWoA), helping women establish their own sanitary pad businesses while creating greater access to menstrual products. In 2026 alone, the company supplied more than 100,000 schoolgirls with free sanitary products.
Using technology to reshape agriculture
For Pretty Kubyane, entrepreneurship has meant challenging assumptions about who gets to lead in technology.
As Co-founder and Tech Lead of eFama App, she has helped build a digital platform connecting more than 40,000 farmers with buyers across South Africa through data-driven agricultural technology.
Since launching in 2023 alongside her husband, Shadrack Kubyane, eFama has attracted support from organisations including Google, Meta and Amazon, while helping farmers make more informed production decisions through digital tools and AI.
Despite facing scepticism from investors because she lacked a formal engineering qualification, Kubyane invested hundreds of hours into studying software engineering, cybersecurity, cloud architecture and artificial intelligence, earning more than 40 global certifications along the way.
Celebrating bold leadership
Established in 1972 to commemorate Veuve Clicquot’s bicentenary, the Bold Woman Award has become one of the world’s longest-running awards dedicated to women entrepreneurs.
Today, the programme spans 27 countries, recognising women who are redefining business while creating opportunities for others.
As part of the global Bold Woman community, both Nkuna-Kgopa and Kubyane now join an international network of entrepreneurs whose work continues to shape industries, create employment and inspire the next generation of business leaders.
