A chapter of the Mail & Guardian‘s 200 Young South Africans You Must Take to Lunch
Gcinasonke Dandala
After obtaining a degree in sports management, Gcinasonke completed his honours and used his academic marketing experience to carve a career. He went on to work for Volkswagen South Africa and spent the first year in different areas of the business. He was most inspired by the month spent working on the production line building cars. Gcinasonke joined the Volkswagen Brand Team’s marketing department.
Still at VW, he believes that one way to ensure transformation in the workplace is by perseverance. Currently he is brand manager of SEAT of South Africa (SEAT is a car manufacturer under the VWSA stable of brands). Gcinasonke is responsible for developing and implementing marketing, communication and promotional strategies to increase awareness of the SEAT brand in South Africa.
Lunch spot: Cappuccinos, Carlswald Centre
Wilmer Muller
Wilmer is a political science and journalism graduate who also has qualifications in brand management and advertising. In 2001 he joined Die Burger as a journalist and was appointed deputy editor of Wheels24 in July that year. In April 2006, Media24 appointed him editor of Wheels24, making him one of the youngest editors of South Africa’s biggest online motoring publication. Readers can interact with car manufacturers through a controversial Q&A session and also enjoy the Alternative Car of the Year Awards, where they get to vote for “gay”, “straight” and “corrupt politicians'” cars.
With Wilmer at the helm, Wheels24 this year achieved a record readership figure of 205 000 users, almost 75 000 ahead of its closest competitor. Wheels24 is the only online motoring publication not aligned to a printed title and is therefore the only fully-fledged motoring title in its own right.
Lunch spot: Mugged on Roeland, Cape Town
Setlogane Manchidi
Setlogane’s experience in the development sector began when he joined the George Soros’s Open Foundation as a postgraduate student. After graduating in social sciences and attaining an honours degree in social policy and management, he worked for Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) as an organisation and human performance business analyst and consultant. Setlogane has been exposed to numerous leadership development programmes, including Heatid’s Integrated Business Leadership Programme with Nisped in Israel, Nexus with GIBS and Investec’s Leadership Institute. He is the current head of corporate and social investments at Investec and is known in the environment for his passion and desire to see meaningful change in people’s lives.
Setlogane also sits on numerous education boards and can often be heard speaking at conferences and public events. He is also currently on the Desmond Tutu Leadership Programme offered by the African Leadership Institute.
Lunch spot: Bukhara Indian Curry Restaurant, Sandton
Lindiwe Montshiwagae
Lindiwe has a BCompt Honours degree from Unisa and is currently completing a masters of finance. Prior to joining Merafe, she spent five years at Nedbank Capital in the sponsor unit, which forms part of corporate finance. Two years were spent with BoE Merchant Bank. She is now corporate finance and investor relations manager at Merafe Resources Limited, a mining company listed on the JSE. She is also a member of the transformation committee, which reports to Merafe’s board of directors. Lindiwe says what is most rewarding is being part of a team that creates value for its investors. Merafe’s market capitalisation was at R750-million and has grown to more than R9-billion.
Lunch spot: Turtle Creek, Sandton
Sibongile Sambo
Sibongile is the founder and managing director of SRS Aviation, the first 100% black women-owned company of its kind. She has postgraduate qualifications in change management and marketing and has completed the MQA Mining Executive Programme. In 2006 she cleaned up the awards table, taking home the Regional Business Woman of the Year award, the Black Women in Business award in London, the SRS Aviation Fidentia Award and the Top Emerging Gender Empowered Company award.
Sibongile was also part of a delegation that recently signed bilateral agreements with Gabon, and accompanied the minister of trade and industry to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Her goal is to establish SRS Aviation offices in other African countries. She has been recognised by Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe for her pioneering entry of black women into the South African aviation sector.
Hannes Oosthuizen
At the age of five Hannes was reading Car, South Africa’s largest circulating car magazine. After dismissing ideas of being a racing car driver and car designer, he pursued a career in journalism and was appointed sports editor for Paarl Post before moving on to his dream job. At 24 he was staff writer for Car and is now deputy editor. Integral to the content and design of the magazine as well as sub-editing, planning and writing features, Hannes has also test-driven every car on the market, including a snow mobile on a frozen lake in Sweden and Formula One cars in France.
As the only South African juror on the World Car of the Year panel it is clear that Hannes will continue to strive to retain his credible rep for being a motoring journalist who you can trust to call it as he sees it.
Lunch spot: Kauai
Janet Jobson
Janet is an academic and award recipient of note. She graduated with distinctions in politics and history. A Mandela Rhodes Scholarship recipient, she is a debating and public speaker winner at national level. In 2005 she was selected as a “Brightest Young Mind”, one of the “brightest” 100 South African final year students. She attended the Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington and New York and was part of a delegation to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in New York.
In Beijing she was the chairperson of the Girls Speak Out panel, and a panelist on human rights and the girl-child in South Africa. In 2007 she attended the Civicus Youth and World Assemblies in Glasgow and presented on issues of corporate accountability. With her footprint firmly embedded in South Africa she is currently studying at Oxford University in for her M.Phil degree.
Lunch spot: The Red Café and the Nosebag in Oxford
Judith Mtsewu
Since completing English and development studies, Judith’s core interest has been in human rights, with a broad focus on bringing those at the margins of society to the centre of issues and enhancing their voices. She believes that much work remains to be done in achieving gender equality and addressing HIV/Aids. She was the coordinator of the Empowering Children and the Media Strategy with the Media Monitoring Project and has been a lecturer at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She is currently working in the Gender and Governance Programme at Gender Links.
Judith is fascinated with civil society because of the possibilities it allows us to create more responsible, people-centred communities and is due to complete a master’s in public policy with the Wits School of Governance in 2008. She continues to participate and attend research seminars.
Lunch spot: FSH in Rosebank
Gugulethu Zulu
Gugulethu is a professional rally driver for the Works BP/VW Rally Team. His ambition to be a racing driver started with studies in sports marketing. He later worked for a leading motorsport sponsorship company, Pole Position Promotions, where, as brand manager, he was head of marketing and sponsorship and TV and radio advertising. With this experience and knowledge of the industry under his belt, he joined Mortimer Harvey to work on the A1GP and Absa’s vehicle and asset finance accounts.
Following that success, he became commercial manager for A1 Team South Africa and was a key player in getting the A1GP Durban Street Race off the ground. Gugulethu also finds time to host Car Torque and is a guest presenter for the A1GP series. And he has his hands firmly on the wheel for his next move: the international racing circuit.
Lunch spot: Anywhere that serves chicken pizza
Thembeka Ngcukaitobi
Thembeka has been a partner at Bowman Gilfillan since 2004. He has a BProc, LLB and LLM degree. Specialising in constitutional and administrative law, he first worked for the Legal Resource Centre and was a law clerk of former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson. In his current position he deals with litigation and advisory work, mainly to public sector clients in the areas of discrimination and constitutional, labour and administrative law.
He has also acted as an attorney of record in high matters that have been argued before the High Court, Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal. Thembeka has published articles on human rights and labour law in accredited journals. Appointed by the president for a five-year period, he currently serves on the South African Law Reform Commission and is a trustee of the Constitutional Court Trust.
Lunch spot: Wandie’s, Soweto