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1. The Khartoum Sudan Pyramid in Sudan 2. Morning tea and Fatcakes in khartoum, Sudan 3. With the Massai in Kamanga Tanxania, Kenya Border with Tanzania been to 10% of the continent.” Further, I saw former president Thabo Mbeki’s speech at the Tourism Indaba in 2003 where he spoke longingly about the beauty of the continent. But what really made the journey urgent was a meeting I had with the former CEO of Samsung for Africa and the emerging markets, KK Park. I had gone to interview him for a 2013 review on brands in the continent for the 50 th anniversary of the African Union (AU) special issue of New African magazine. I learnt in our meeting that he had been to every single African country, except Swaziland, and as business, such intimate knowledge of the continent inspired their business growth. I felt awkward to be claiming to be an African and yet at that stage I had only been to no more than 15 fellow African countries. The seed was planted to see and experience the continent in my own terms and not just through the eyes and words of others, many of whom were not African. A lot shifted – my thoughts, my work, my vision. I single-mindedly re-channelled all my energies into the continent. Every country affirmed our ties as African people; and mostly, unlike travelling anywhere in the rest of the world, I experienced that in Africa you don’t go to see things, but to experience people – our humanity and generosity is our distinguishing factor,” he said. Ikalafeng said it was important for him as an African champion, to experience the people and places of Africa by immersing himself in the cultures; not as a tourist, but as a fellow African. “In the countries I visited, I made sure that I ate what the people from there ate, I dressed like them, worshipped and shopped where they did; because I wanted to see and experience the countries authentically through their lenses and lived experiences, so I can tell their stories with authority – not as a ghost-writer,” he said. He holds a BSc (Marketing) cum laude and a Master of Business Administration (Strategy and Marketing) degree
from Marquette University in the US. Additionally, he holds an LLM (Intellectual Property Law) degree from the University of Turin, Italy, in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Switzerland. He is the founder of the award-winning pan-African brand and reputation advisory firm, Brand Leadership Group, and has worked on hundreds of diverse brands across political campaigns, consumer brands and non-profit initiatives across Africa, gaining an incomparable perspective and experience on building brands in Africa, including the transformation of the continent’s largest public freight group, Transnet to a modern post-apartheid era brand in 2007; re-branding multiple universities in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, including the branding of the merger of Technikon SA, Vista and University of South Africa to create the 10th largest mega university in the world in 2004; several successful political branding and campaigns for, amongst others, the late President Atta Mills and President John Mahama of Ghana in 2008 and 2012 respectively; positioning South Africa at the World Economic Forum in 2023 in a campaign highlighted as the best campaign ever by a country; branding of Mauritius and Kenyan based Minet to create the largest pan-African insurance group; and numerous projects and campaigns across more than 25 countries in every region in the continent. “Mostly, while I was trained in the private sector and started off there when I set up Brand Leadership, I deliberately refocused most of our work on public service brands, mostly, because I believed that fundamentally they were created for a greater good, for citizens who live in a branded world – and I wanted to bring the private sector branding excellence experience to them,” he said. But arguably his lifework that has cemented his reputation across the continent and globally, is the establishment of the non-profit Brand Africa in 2010; through which he launched in 2011 the first barometer of African brands which is published every year in May during Africa month. Through
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