When people picture South Africa’s automotive industry, they still picture a factory floor filled with men in overalls. That image is out of date. Motor Industry Bargaining Council workforce data show that women now account for almost 95,000 employees across the organised automotive retail aftermarket, about 30% of a workforce of nearly 317,000. We are on assembly lines and in engineering bays, boardrooms, and increasingly in the offices where the industry’s biggest risks are weighed.
I sit in one of those offices. My role is not to build tyres or export vehicles. It is to help ensure that when we do, we do so legally, ethically and in a way that is built to last. From that vantage point, one lesson is clear: good governance is often mistaken for caution. It is not. Done well, governance gives a business the confidence to act because it understands the risk it is taking, why it is taking it and what it will do if circumstances change. That distinction matters in an industry with much to gain and much to lose.
In 2025, South Africa’s vehicle and component exports reached a record R291 billion, accounting for 15.6% of the country’s total exports, according to NAAMSA’s Automotive Trade Manual 2026. The sector supports jobs, industrial capability and investor confidence. Its performance matters well beyond the factory gate. Yet manufacturers are operating amid fragile supply chains, shifting regulation, pressure to decarbonise and growing expectations of corporate accountability.
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) promises access to a larger, more integrated market, while requiring businesses to navigate rules of origin, tariffs and varying regulatory regimes. South Africa’s Industrial Development Strategy 2026 adds further urgency to decarbonisation, diversification and digitalisation. These may sound like separate commercial, policy and sustainability concerns.
In practice, each is also a governance question. Can a manufacturer verify the origin of its inputs? Can it substantiate its environmental claims with operational evidence? Can it enter a new market without exposing itself to competitive, anti-bribery or contractual risk? Can its supply arrangements withstand a currency shock, a logistics disruption or a sudden regulatory change?
Businesses that can answer those questions are not being cautious. They are building the confidence to move forward. For too long, legal and compliance functions have been treated as a brake pedal: consulted at the end of a transaction to approve a decision already made or called in after something has gone wrong. This approach reduces legal leadership to saying “no”, when its more valuable contribution is helping the business determine “how”.
Timing shapes the quality of that contribution. When legal expertise is included in the first strategic conversation rather than at the final sign-off, risks can be identified while they remain manageable. A supply contract can be structured to withstand disruption. A market-entry plan can be tested before capital is committed. A sustainability claim can be checked against what the business can prove, rather than what it hopes to communicate.
The result is not a risk-free organisation. No manufacturer that invests, innovates or expands can avoid risk. The result is an organisation that takes risk deliberately rather than by accident. At Bridgestone, this thinking is reflected in a compliance approach built on visible leadership, risk assessment, clear standards, continuous learning, and trusted channels for raising concerns. In 2025, more than 2,000 concerns were reported and investigated through the company’s confidential reporting system worldwide.
A high number of reports may seem troubling. I see something more useful: an early-warning system. Silence does not necessarily mean an organisation has no problems. It may mean people do not trust the process or believe it is safe to speak. Good governance therefore depends on culture as much as on controls. A code of conduct cannot protect a business if results are rewarded regardless of how they are achieved. A risk register has little value if difficult information is softened before it reaches decision-makers. Operational integrity begins when people are expected to raise concerns early and leaders are prepared to hear them.
This is also why greater diversity in industrial leadership matters. Women’s growing presence in the automotive sector should not be measured solely by participation numbers. It should be measured by influence: whether women are shaping investment decisions, market-entry strategies, climate plans and responses to risk.
Let me state the obvious: legal, compliance, risk and sustainability are not peripheral functions. They are integral to the strategic control room of a modern industrial business. When women lead in these areas, they are not merely entering the automotive industry. They are helping to shape how responsibly and competitively it grows.
South Africa does not need manufacturers afraid of risk. It needs manufacturers capable of taking informed risks, disciplined, clear about what they know, honest about what they do not, and prepared for what may change. That is the purpose of modern legal leadership: not to hold the business back, but to make its ambition more resilient. Good governance is not the brake. It is what gives the organisation the confidence to accelerate without driving blind.
By Scarlate Masiye, Director: Legal and Compliance, Africa and Middle East at Bridgestone