Smart Women Behind Smart Courier
For many people, courier services are simply what happens between collection and delivery. Behind that movement, however, are diverse teams making decisions, solving problems, building relationships and responding when plans change.
At BEX, we are fortunate to employ 76 women across the business. Three of those female leaders, Jo-ann Grace, Marla Munien and Sonia Smit have each built varied careers in our organisation. Between them, they represent sales, finance and branch operations. Their stories reflect different personalities and leadership styles, but they share a willingness to keep learning, take responsibility and create opportunities for the people around them.
This Women’s Day, they share what has kept them in courier, what they have learnt along the way and why women no longer need to prove that they belong in the industry.
Jo-ann Grace: Challenging the Status Quo
After more than three decades in logistics and two years leading the national sales team at BEX Express, Jo-ann still has no interest in a predictable working day. It is the pace, complexity and constant movement of the industry that keep her here.
“I’m very grateful that logistics is my chosen field because it gives me absolute food for my soul.”
Building a successful sales team, she believes, takes more than setting targets. It takes energy, drive and people willing to take accountability, all focused on the same goal: the client, who she sees as central to everything the business does.
That focus on people is also what Jo-ann believes distinguishes BEX in an established and competitive industry, with honesty, trustworthiness and family values at its core.
Her leadership style is firm but fair. She is comfortable asking difficult questions and challenging what others may simply accept.
“If you accept and just keep accepting what is, you’ll never know what could be.”
When she entered courier, women often felt they had to prove themselves before their contribution was taken seriously. She believes that has changed.
“The future of the courier industry isn’t about creating opportunities for women because they’re women. It’s about finding the right talent and the right people, regardless of gender, to drive the industry forward.”
As National Sales Manager, Jo-ann leads the team responsible for growing BEX’s business and strengthening client relationships across the country. The position brings together what she loves most: sales, logistics and building a successful team. Her focus is on creating the energy and accountability to encourage her team to keep pursuing bigger and better opportunities, while ensuring the client’s needs remain central to every decision.
Marla Munien: Choosing to Keep Growing
BEX Express Financial Manager
Marla’s career at BEX began at night, capturing information from handwritten courier manifests. From there, she moved into creditors and continued progressing through finance until she reached her current role as Financial Manager.
Her career reads as a steady journey upwards, but Marla is open about the doubt that came with it.
“At one point, I was scared to take this position because I didn’t think I was good enough for it,” she says.
“But here I am.”
Reaching that point meant deciding she wanted more for herself and being willing to keep learning to get there. It is that same appetite for growth, she says, that has kept her at BEX for 26 years, as the company, our systems and the industry have changed around her.
For Marla, this journey has shaped how she thinks about women in leadership. Emotional intelligence, she believes, is one of women’s most underestimated professional strengths. It is not a weakness, but a source of sound judgement.
“Empathy is sometimes seen as a weakness, and it isn’t. I think it’s a superpower of ours.”
Her message to other women is rooted in her own experience of moving past fear.
“Don’t be afraid to go out there and achieve what you want. Believe in yourself. There’s no mountain too high that you cannot climb.”
As Financial Manager, Marla sees integrity as non-negotiable. The role requires sound judgement, accountability and the confidence to make decisions in the best interests of the business. After 26 years at BEX, she brings both institutional knowledge and a strong sense of responsibility to the position, qualities that have guided her growth from night-time data capturer to Financial Manager.
Sonia Smit: Breaking out of the Mould
BEX Express Pretoria Branch Manager
From the outside, Sonia’s role as Pretoria Branch Manager might look lively and exciting. The reality of the role begins at 5 am, and often runs late into the evening: managing a team with parcels to collect, process and deliver as part of BEX’s domestic courier network; office and operational teams to coordinate; and drivers navigating conditions the rest of the branch does not always see.
For Sonia, the work ultimately comes down to being there when people need help. Her branch runs on a simple mindset:
“We don’t want to know the problem. We want to know the solution, and that’s what we offer.”
Over more than a decade at BEX, she has watched client relationships grow into something closer than ordinary business, and she extends that same care to her team.
She recalls a new employee who shadowed a driver for the day and returned surprised by what the role demands. For Sonia, it was a reminder that those working inside the branch do not always see what drivers experience on the road.
The confidence it takes to lead the team is a long way from the person Sonia was in her formative years. Asked what her younger self would say if she could see her today, Sonia did not hesitate.
“She would be so proud. How did this happen? She’d be in awe.”
As a child, Sonia was shy and uncomfortable with attention, someone who would fiddle with her ear just to get through a moment of nerves. She calls that girl “the invisible child”.
Anyone who meets Sonia today encounters something very different: a warmth and positivity that fills the room. Night and day from the young girl she describes.
Her journey has shaped how she thinks about women and leadership. She believes that when women are trusted with responsibility and given the authority to make decisions, it brings out the best in them. Not so they can overpower others, but so they can develop the confidence to make decisions that matter, both for themselves and for the people around them.
The Women Behind the Movement
Jo-ann, Marla and Sonia did not build their careers in the same way.
Jo-ann found an industry energetic enough to match her ambition and became a leader willing to challenge what is. Marla progressed through the business by continually choosing learning over fear. Sonia grew from someone who wanted to remain invisible into a leader whose decisions influence an entire branch.
Their stories show that there is no single way for a woman to lead, contribute or progress in courier.
What matters is the opportunity to develop talent, the courage to keep growing and the confidence to make decisions that move both people and business forward.
This is what smart courier looks like from the inside.
