Accenture has a talented and highly productive team of people from a wide range of cultural, educational and geographic backgrounds. Meet some of our high performers who are changing the way the world works and lives. Bashi Gaetsaloe
Country Manager, Accenture Botswana Genovefa Selotlegeng
Consultant, Financial Services Operating Group Bashi Gaetsaloe—Country Manager, Accenture Botswana  His camping equipment lies dormant, his tennis racquets stand idle. The only ball that Bashi Gaetsaloe, a former player on the Botswana national tennis team, has his eye on right now is the newly opened Accenture business in Gaborone, Botswana.
"It's a challenge coming in and creating brand awareness in a market dominated by long-established players, mainly the consulting divisions of audit firms," he says. "We're not a soft-drink company that can go out there with big, bold advertising. In our business, high-value consulting, the only way to build a reputation is through hard work, quality service and strong one-on-one relationships." With this in mind, Gaetsaloe has spent much of his first 10 months as country manager going out and talking to people. "I think it's starting to pay off; people are starting to pay attention to the fact that Accenture is a big global player with 126,000 people and a track record in helping clients become high-performance businesses and governments." To back him in proving that point, Accenture recently showed its commitment to Botswana by bringing out a high-level international delegation to meet the country's finance minister and director general. "I think that made a powerful impression." Gaetsaloe himself is no stranger to Botswana's business and government circles. Before joining Accenture in March 2005, he was chief executive officer of KPMG Consulting for four years and prior to that ran his own consulting firm specialising in human resources development, leadership and transformation. An economist by training, Gaetsaloe has a master's in economics from Yale University and started his career as an economist with the Botswana National Productivity Centre, researching productivity measurement and bottlenecks in various sectors. "Actually, I fell into consulting by accident while at the National Productivity Centre, when we were doing a turnaround project for Telecom Botswana," he recalls. "I loved it so much, especially interacting with the client and exploring solutions together, that when my mentor suggested I consider consulting as a career, I decided to go for it." What especially appeals to Gaetsaloe about consulting is that it combines hard technical skills with "softer skills such as the ability to read and understand clients, negotiate and convince, be a change agent and grow trust. A consultant plays various roles. Sometimes you're a coach, a mirror, a teacher... The key is to grasp what is required of you in every situation." To Top Genovefa Selotlegeng—Consultant, Financial Services Operating Group  Career opportunities may beckon in the world's major cities, but Genovefa Selotlegeng is staying put in Botswana. "My country has one of the best-performing economies in Africa and as a Motswana, it's up to me to ensure this is sustained."
Selotlegeng, a consultant at Accenture's new business in the capital city of Gaborone, believes Botswana is poised for accelerated growth as the economy diversifies and efficiencies are improved. "There are many areas of inefficiency that still need to be addressed and it's great to be part of an organisation known for finding solutions that work."
Her main focus area is financial services, based on her previous experience at a management consulting firm. She also worked for Standard Chartered Bank, which in 1997 awarded her one of only four scholarships offered for African students to study in Singapore.
After completing a two-year programme in marketing and business at a Singapore polytechnic, Selotlegeng moved to the United States to complete her degree, a Bachelor of Science: business administration in international business. She then returned to Botswana to plough back the skills she had gained. "Home is home and I want to be part of the generation that makes a difference by helping to develop my country." As a relative newcomer to Accenture, which opened in Botswana in March 2005, Selotlegeng admits to being "still in awe" of the company's global reach and resources. "Previous employers did not have the same interconnectivity that Accenture excels at." Not that she's intimidated. "I love adventures and every day is exciting in consulting. You enter a client organisation and in a very short time, by looking at it with a new pair of eyes and by interacting with people at every level, from the people doing the job to Senior Executives, you learn such a lot about it. You use this to analyse their strengths and inefficiencies, and then find solutions that will help them deliver high performance in the short and long term. When they are successful, you can look back and know that you had a hand in that success." To Top |