Fortune favours young freight forwarder

Fortunate Mboweni, South Africa’s Young Freight Forwarder of the Year 2014, will represent the Africa/Middle East region in October this year as one of the Final Four regional contestants competing for the title of the International Young Freight Forwarder of the Year Award for 2014. The winner will be announced at the Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (Fiata) annual congress in Istanbul, Turkey from October 13-18 this year. The award comprises two weeks of practical and academic training, one week of academic training in London, one week of practical training based in one of the TT Club’s regional centres (London, Hong Kong or New Jersey) plus one year’s free subscription to the International Transport Journal (ITZ), Switzerland and International Freighting Weekly (UK). Mboweni, an imports controller for airfreight at Bidvest Panalpina Logistics (BPL) completed her dissertation on the challenges of transporting abnormal loads and the complexities associated with the handling of highly sensitive radioactive cargo. She included case studies based on BPL’s own experiences. She told FTW she has been with BPL for seven years, having started at the company through a learnership and has been studying throughout her career, having recently achieved a Level 5 qualification. “I am now looking at doing a national degree or diploma as I’ve seen how it can change one’s life. All it takes to get ahead is to work hard, be determined to succeed and be dedicated to your dream,” she said. INSERT & CAPTION All it takes to get ahead is to work hard, be determined to succeed and be dedicated to your dream. – Fortunate Mboweni