Lesley Waterkeyn, a 2015 Africa’s Most Influential Women finalist and a 2015 Fair Lady Woman of the Future entrant has travelled well through the Entrepreneur’s Spectrum and found her pot of gold in her business, Colourworks. Over a 17-year period, with Lesley as originator, leader and innovator, Colourworks transformed from a small print agency to a major integrated marketing business with a footprint across Cape Town and Johannesburg, attracting an impressive client list of South Africa’s blue-chip majors. Along the way, she has learnt first-hand, at the coal-face, about what entrepreneurs need to be successful.

For the past five years, Lesley has been a member of the global peer-to-peer network, Entrepreneurship Organisation (EO). She is currently active on EO’s Cape Town and plays a role on the regional task team charged with growing peer-to-peer networking in Africa. Lesley credits much of her recent success in business to the learning opportunities offered by EO. However, with an entry level requirement of a R10 million turnover, EO is out of reach for most new entrepreneurs. This represents a significant gap in the country’s entrepreneurship ecosystem that has inspired Lesley to co-found over the rainbow.