Congratulations to our Founder and CEO superwoman, Prema Lalji, for winning the Women in Africa Management Award (WIMA) 2022.

Prema Lalji is a veteran in the travel industry in East Africa but particularly Tanzania. She was the first female entrepreneur in the travel industry to found her own business. 

She founded The @rickshawtravels Travels in 1988 and had already learnt her trade in working for a leading agency. Prema Lalji is a veteran in the travel industry in East Africa but particularly Tanzania. 

For anyone who knows her, she is known as the iron lady in the industry till the present day and is still going strong. She began from very humble beginnings and is what we would say is a self-made woman in travel. Prema has overcome various challenges over the last 4 decades in being in a predominantly male-driven industry. 

She is the Chairperson for the Rickshaw Travels at Group level with offices in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam/ Arusha), Kenya, Rwanda and the UK (London) along with franchises in Denmark. She has been part of various organizations through the last 4 decades with TASOTA (Tanzania Association of Travel Agents) – currently a trustee. She has won awards and accolades for her work and empowering various women and individuals within the organization to empower them to become their own entrepreneurs also which has led to several successful business start-ups. 

Her leadership is unique as she has a passionate stance for integrity, principle and humility. She has initiated policy within the industry and driven change with her wisdom and experience. She inspires and shares knowledge with people around her. Empowering people is what drives her to keep going strong. Her humility leads her to quietly assist various organisations / NGOs/ charities from the elderly to children’s education. 

Prema is the face of the Rickshaw brand and is the force that drives the sales which have driven us through the pandemic successfully. She drove her team to be the only agent in Tanzania to successfully arrange repatriation flights with 2 leading airlines to reunite families when the world was in lockdown. 

She is a true force and her name, respect and integrity keep her Brand successful not only in numbers but with the respect of the industry and its stakeholders today.

This article was originally published on Women in Management Africa.