Local maverick aims for Mrs SA title

Where the interview is set to take place in a coffee shop at Village @ Horizon, the possible future Mrs South Africa, Louise Niemann, sits looking ready to convince a mountain to move.

Confidence and drive emanates from her. The first thing she says when asked why she would enter a pageant, is, “My whole purpose in life is to help people, it is also the nature of my business and I find the pageant a platform to show progress is possible for anyone.”

Louise, 35, told the Record a pageant shouldn’t only be for the beautiful and brainless, as the stereotype goes, but is a great way for her to show her progress, as someone who has a history of self-doubt and lack of self-esteem. She started telling her life story by saying she’s never regarded herself as something of a beauty. Growing up, she was a tomboy in Zimbabwe, where she was born, playing with toy trucks and having a tractor as a jungle gym. She moved to Florida with her mother as a teenager having completed her O Levels, and went on to complete a Pitman Training course in Financial Accounting.

“I didn’t really even enjoy applying make-up until about five years ago, when I started to gain confidence.”

The Mrs South Africa semi-finalist, a religious person, recalls the minute she realised her life has become “colourless, meaningless and bland”. She went hiking in the Kloofendal Nature Reserve when she came across a log on the side of a walking trail.

“God told me, you are that log right now — you’re still, you’re going nowhere and you’re colourless.”

Having led sales teams and started up a successful accounting firm in Durban, where she stayed for five years, Louise’s life wasn’t without success, but she didn’t feel empowered in the least. Her first marriage had crumbled, which she blames on not being able to make personal connections with people. The one fed the other. No personal relationships meant more time for work, but she’d become a machine and not a person, she said.

“When I was told I was like that rotting log in the reserve, I decided to develop my inner being as opposed to developing a career.”

Louise had in the interim remarried and had her first child Jordan (14) and challenged herself, firstly, to lose the weight gained from pregnancy.

“My intense drive, something I’ve always had, drove me to get certified in fitness and nutrition with the International Sports Sciences Association.”

She later became a spinning instructor, having slimmed down tremendously, she said, and realised she’s good at motivating people. That’s when she started a consultancy in Roodepoort of which the slogan is, “Educate, motivate, develop”. She enjoys working with small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to whom she provides individual or group training and motivational workshops. The business is successful and she’s currently completing studies towards a degree in psychology at Unisa.

Her success and a new sense of self inspired her to partake in the Mrs South Africa 2016 pageant, for which she was chosen as a semi-finalist recently.

“I’m a bit of a maverick, when something interests me, I go do it — this platform interests me, and I will do my level best.”

Louise lives in Florida with her second husband and two sons, Jordan and Neal, 12, as well as her stepchild Tarryn, 10.

As one of 100 semi-finalists in the competition, she’s challenged to support and raise money for Cansa, as well as find personal sponsors before 29 April, when 25 finalists will be chosen. In September, a new Mrs South Africa will be chosen. Follow Louise Niemann’s journey on facebook at ‘Louise Niemann Swarzkopf Professional Mrs South Africa Semi Finalist 2016’, on twitter @LouiseNiemann and on instagram @louise.niemann.

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