Five years without my mom... Five years of longing, disbelief, and yearning to hear her voice again. Five years of needing my Mama. The void remains. Empty still feels empty. In this world and the next, in all dimensions and forms of existence, I will always love her. To have known her is to know God. MaNdaba, you’ll forever reside in my heart.
CEO APPOINTMENT – MICROSOFT SOUTH AFRICA
Former Chief Executive Officer & Board Chairman of @AccentureSA , Vukani Mngxati, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of @MicrosoftSA , effective 1 October 2025.
In his new role, Mngxati will lead Microsoft’s South African operations, driving initiatives that support the country’s digital and AI transformation journey. Leveraging the foundation built, he will focus on expanding cloud infrastructure, growing AI skills in local communities, and building partnerships that align with South Africa’s national development goals.
His career includes serving as Chief Executive Officer of Accenture South Africa Pty Ltd, Managing Director: Health & Public Service at Accenture PLC, and Managing Director: Country at Accenture South Africa Pty Ltd.
Mngxati holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Business Management from the University of South Africa (UNISA).
Congratulations are in order!
#AskAsanteOnBoards
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT APPOINTMENT – SASOL
Sasol has announced the appointment of Thabile Makgala as Executive Vice President: People, Safety, Health, Environment (SHE), Risk and Corporate Affairs, effective 1 October 2025.
An inspirational leader and Harvard Business School alumna, Makgala joins Sasol from Rio Tinto, where she served as Vice President for Health, Safety, Environment, Security, Communities and Risk for the company’s global minerals product group operations.
Makgala brings over 20 years of global experience across the gold, coal, diamond, iron ore, mineral sands, and platinum sectors, spanning both operations and technical services. She is also widely recognised as a champion for equity and transformation in the mining sector, having served as Chairperson of Women in Mining South Africa, where she advanced diversity and the empowerment of women in mining.
She holds a BSc Mining Engineering Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, an MBA in Business Strategy from the Stellenbosch Business School, and completed the Senior Executive Program – Africa at Harvard Business School.
Her appointment further strengthens Sasol’s leadership capacity as the company continues to drive sustainable growth, transformation, and inclusive impact across its operations and communities.
Congratulations are in order!
#AskAsanteOnBoards
There’s something called “paralysis by analysis” it happens when you spend so much time weighing your options, searching for the “perfect” way or overthinking every detail that you end up doing nothing at all. The fear of making the wrong move replaces the courage to simply start
When Tyla said she is not Black but Coloured, she was not speaking into the American conversation about race at all. She was speaking in the language of her own country, shaped by its own history. Yet her words detonated in America as though they had been aimed there. This is what happens when a nation has spent a century convincing the world that its definitions are the only ones that matter.
America’s greatest export has never been war. It has never been democracy. It has never been freedom. America’s greatest export is the dream of itself.
It is not that the films are inherently better. It is not that the music contains some mystical note absent elsewhere. What America has, and what it has always had, is money, reach, and a machinery built to make its image the centre of the world.
This was not accidental. It was policy. It was the soft arm of empire. To project yourself outward until your face is the first one people recognise in the mirror.
And so the American way of life became the default. Other cultures were filed into two neat drawers: savage if they challenged the story, exotic if they could be sold back to you.
If you are Black, your first cinematic self was likely African American, the rapper, the sitcom character, the hero of a Spike Lee joint. If you are white in Europe or Australia, it was the white faces of American sitcoms and stadium tours. Whoever you were, your first image of yourself came with an American accent.
Over time, Americans began to believe the story they had written. When you grow up in the country that built itself into the cultural Mecca, it is easy to think you are the best simply because you are on top. You forget, or never know, that the game was fixed long before you played it.
But the monopoly is breaking. Nigeria’s Nollywood now speaks across oceans. South Korean dramas leap borders. India’s Bollywood never needed permission to fill theatres. Spanish thrillers keep strangers awake at night. Slumdog Millionaire, Squid Game, Money Heist, Shōgun — all aimed partly at the American market because that is where the money is, but no longer about America.
And here is the thing. Black Americans, who fought to be seen in their own country, became the global face of Blackness. That is a remarkable achievement. It was also made possible by the same system that excluded everyone else. Now Africans, Caribbeans, and Afro-Latins tell their own stories without making room for American centrality, and the absence is noticed.
We grew up watching you. You did not grow up watching us. And now the internet has levelled the ground just enough for others to speak without hesitation. Tyla’s words land differently because the world no longer accepts America as the only arbiter of meaning.
America’s greatest export was never its art. It was the power to decide which art, and which identities, the world would see. That power is no longer yours alone. There is both justice and loss in that.
South Africa has won 1 Silver medal and 4 Bronze medals at the 2025 International Mathematics Olympiad in Australia.
South Africa finished 38th out of 110 countries.