'All women can have it all'

In a world where success too often comes at the cost of personal sacrifice, Chantal Sombonos-Van Tonder stands as a formidable outlier — a woman who’s not just balancing but redefining what it means to be a mother, entrepreneur and business leader in today’s South Africa.

- CHANTAL SOMBONOS-VAN TONDER

Chantal has been at the helm of Chicken Licken for nearly two decades, a business that her father George Sombonos started in 1981. “Chicken Licken is my life, and I am as passionate about it as my father. He once told me that if you believe in something you should be willing to die for it.”

She is at the same time unapologetically ambitious and emotionally grounded. A mother of two boys, an entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry, and a role model for women who refuse to choose between family and career.

Growing up in a household where money was a scarcity rather than a certainty, Chantal learned the value of resilience. “Money didn’t define my family or my upbringing,” she recalls. “It was something that was not readily available when I was young, but I learnt to appreciate it when we had it, and to work harder when we didn’t.”