Sine Shabangu leads an exhilarating international life, navigating between a dynamic career in London and her social enterprise in Africa. “We have been very fortunate to have a number of organisations that have supported our efforts over the years, including our preferred partners: KUNOA consulting (founded by Nhlanhla Mayisela) and our key sponsor, the Department of Education at the University of Johannesburg.” Sine, who is a qualified chartered accountant – CA(SA) – completed her chartered accountancy articles at the EY Johannesburg office and subsequently joined CrossCountry Consulting where she was seconded to a big 4 audit firm during a month secondment in Chicago, Illinois. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, she and other South Africans were repatriated back to South Africa. Upon her return, she decided on a leap of faith to focus primarily on HNN and The Great African Read but, missing working with global teams, she was soon doing both, joining the EY Capital Markets group in London as a senior.
was a successful moment, that was a successful engagement. My aim is always to add value and leave a room in a better state after an engagement, whether it be a meeting with friends or a corporate encounter. That is my starting point with everything I do.” Her life means something not only for herself, but for those around her, she says. “I’m fortunate that I have young people who look at my life and are inspired by the strides I have made over the years. This means I can add or create value within the communities I come from. They see it is indeed possible to be a CA that works in London. The reading rooms we build; creating and publishing books by allowing people to get to a space where they can call themselves published authors because of the work that we do. Nobody can ever take that achievement away from them.” The words she read in a tweet once turned out to become a guiding light over the years: The world has so many problems, just choose one and fix it. “Sometimes you just don’t know where to start, maybe you feel out of touch with what is going on in the world. My message would be to just find a problem, it doesn’t have to be the most popular one or the one that everybody’s talking about. It just has to be the one that you can make the most of.”
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” she admits. HNN has had a positive impact in over 100 schools so far and is growing fast. The Great African Read recently featured as one of the six nominees across the world that were considered for the Systematic Joy of Reading Award in Denmark. Sine also appeared on SABC’s Morning Live, Northern Natal News and many other media platforms to promote the literacy agenda in Africa. Her decision to follow a career in accounting and moving abroad straight after completing her articles were defining moments as they pushed her out of her comfort zone. Growing and developing herself were always priorities. “HNN represents the social entrepreneurship leg of my experience, and when we made the decision to launch nationally, it was another defining moment, because it forced me to trust that I could do more, that the reach could be more than what I thought it would be,” she says. Sine, coming from a rural community, never thought she would live the life she has today. Residing in London as a global professional almost feels surreal to her at times. Still, she didn’t see herself touching the number of lives in the manner the literacy programmes do. Communities are changed because of the impact The Great African Read has. “That is when I see what success really means. To set a target and to excel at it. That is when I can look back and say that
Sine Shabangu obtained a BCom and BCom Accounting
Honours (specialising in chartered accountancy) from the University of Johannesburg.
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