YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA

Born in South Africa.
Raised by Africa.
Shaped by the world.

@AfCFTA advocate| African Prosperity architect
@fund_prosperity | @pabwa_afcfta | @Im_SouthAfrican

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

🤍 "I AM many"

I gave a keynote recently & was asked by a young woman, what my 'war cry' is.

I have so many that could be considered a 'war cry', from "All of me, for all of us", to "Africa. First. Always.", to "change the world, by changing the room you're in first", etc...
🧵

[FeelGoodThoughts @feelgoodtale]

She didn't survive the story. She wrote it

In August 1979, Nora Ephron was seven months pregnant when she found the letter.
It wasn’t hidden well.

Tucked inside a children’s book in her Georgetown home — a gift meant for her husband. From another woman.
The inscription wasn’t vague.
It wasn’t harmless.
It was intimate.

The kind of note you don’t misinterpret.

The kind that splits your life clean in two — before and after.
Her husband was Carl Bernstein, the journalist who helped break Watergate. Their marriage was glamorous, powerful, politically connected.

The other woman wasn’t some anonymous stranger.

She was Margaret Jay — daughter of a former British Prime Minister. A guest in their home. Someone who had sat at their table.

Washington had been whispering for months. It always does. But Nora was pregnant. Raising their young son. Trying to hold her family together.
Now the proof was in her hands.

She flew to New York and sat in her therapist’s office.

“My heart is broken,” she said. “I will never be the same.”
The therapist replied, almost casually: “You were going to leave him eventually.”
Days later, she went into early labour.
On August 15, 1979, she gave birth to their second son.

By December, the gossip columns made the affair public.

So Nora packed up her two small boys and left Washington for New York — the city she had never wanted to leave in the first place.
Most people would’ve disappeared.
Nora did something else.

She wrote.

In 1983, she published *Heartburn*.
It was technically a novel.
Technically.

A pregnant woman discovers her political journalist husband is having an affair.

The names were changed.
The humiliation wasn’t.
She even included recipes she had once cooked for him. Wrote the pain with humour so sharp it almost felt polite.

“If I tell the story, I control it,” the narrator says. “If I tell it, I can make you laugh.”

And that was the trick.
She didn’t deny the betrayal.
She didn’t bury it.
She reframed it.

Carl Bernstein was furious. Friends whispered. Lawyers circled when Hollywood stepped in.
It didn’t matter.

In 1986, *Heartburn* became a film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

The story was no longer scandal.
It was cinema.

And Nora wasn’t finished.
She went on to write *When Harry Met Sally…*

Then *Sleepless in Seattle.*
Then *You’ve Got Mail.*
She became one of the defining voices of modern romance — not because she believed love was perfect, but because she understood exactly how messy it could be.
She knew heartbreak firsthand.
She knew what it meant to be blindsided.

To rebuild.

To laugh when it would be easier to rage.

In 1987, she married screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. They stayed together for the rest of her life.
She never needed to publicly fight over the divorce.

She’d already written it.
When Nora Ephron died in 2012, her memorial was filled with actors, filmmakers, writers — and yes, Carl Bernstein.

Her son later made a documentary about her called *Everything Is Copy.*
That was her rule.
The affair.
The pain.
The public embarrassment.
All of it was material.

Carl Bernstein helped bring down a president.

Nora Ephron did something quieter — and in its own way, just as lasting.
She proved that when you tell your own story, no one else gets to own it.
She couldn’t stop the betrayal.
But she could turn it into art.

And art lasts longer than gossip ever will.

In the end, she didn’t just survive the story.

She wrote it.

And she kept the final word.

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@AlexaBliz_ 10

[United Nations Geneva @UNGeneva]

Navi Pillay, a former @UNHumanRights Chief, has just won the 2026 #NobelPeacePrize.

"She has been a staunch defender and advocate of human rights. It is important in this day and age to see that acolade being awarded to those who are speaking out on violations of human rights."

[Agnes Callamard @AgnesCallamard]

Amazing moment.

Navi Pillay has received the Nobel Peace Prize ! https://t.co/HL3r1PJzLO

We are at the Nuremberg Court; I cannot think of a stronger symbol for her Nobel prize.

We are all so thrilled!

This is her first reactions upon hearing the news:

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

What a moment!!!

[Agnes Callamard @AgnesCallamard]

Amazing moment.

Navi Pillay has received the Nobel Peace Prize ! https://t.co/HL3r1PJzLO

We are at the Nuremberg Court; I cannot think of a stronger symbol for her Nobel prize.

We are all so thrilled!

This is her first reactions upon hearing the news:

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@ojessie__ Storm

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@Anamta_ali_ August

[Grok @grok]

According to 2026 Henley Passport Index reports, South African passport holders lost visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kosovo and Somalia (or Palestine in some updates), dropping total easy-access destinations from 106 to around 101.

The changes were largely administrative, with those countries shifting to eVisa systems or tighter rules, sometimes citing reciprocity. Rankings and exact lists vary by index.

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@Prof_Mish so damn proud of you my dear brother 🙌🏽

I'm so privileged to have witnessed this journey from the beginning: a labour of love for you, a game changer for Africa 🌍!

ASANTE SANA🙏🏽

@_AfricanUnion to launch continent's first credit rating agency https://t.co/NthaLFlimD

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@Maryx_650 401? But also 119

[Africa Today Media Group @africatodayMG]

The competition between South Africa and Rwanda to host Formula 1 in Africa comes to an end.

After more than 30 years, Formula 1 is returning to Africa, and this time Rwanda has won the spot.

Rwanda and South Africa have been in a long, quiet competition to see which country will host Formula 1 on the continent.

Rwanda is expected to host a race in 2030, after building a new circuit.

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@ali_naka I'm on 38! 🫶🏽🌍

[ADAM @adamemedia]

This is internet clown Michael Tracey who attempted to doxx the Cornell 7 Jane Doe.

He is also X’s top rape and pedophilia defender.

He doesn’t think Epstein was a pedo.
He doesn’t believe girls were trafficked.
He doesn’t believe in age of consent.
He pushed the “40 beheaded babies” genocide propaganda.

He’s a low IQ huckster and potential pedo so desperate for clout he will say anything. Filth.

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@WydRomanX The letter "S"

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@HeidiGiokos Apathy and total lack of desire to do their one job!!!

The mayor @DadaMorero and his ilk @CityofJoburgZA @joburg_city think that Joburgers are a joke... they don't believe we need to be heard or understood!

There's no consequence, so why should they take us seriously!🤬🤬🤬

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@DadaMorero @cllrfoleyward94 @HeidiGiokos totally unacceptable that we have to beg for basics. Even when the President says - still nothing!!

This is Fourways which has an attentive ward councillor, and it's still pitch dark in parts, I can't imagine what areas are like with inefficient ward councillors 😔

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

Dear @DadaMorero
The President said that street lights, AT THE VERY LEAST, were to be switched on, towards making SA safer for women & children.

Pls switch on the street lights in Fourways (eg. White hills blvd & Winnie Mandela) & ensure traffic lights work!
@cllrfoleyward94

[LPC @landpalestine]

This guy is going through this because he stood up for Jane Doo who was raped by 7 Cornell

Oh my gosh, I feared this would happen. We stand with you. Especially the moms, we stand with you and appreciate you

[Gen Just Law @genjustlaw]

What goes around, comes around!

Michael Tracey asked X to name Cornell Jane Doe. Then published a name.

Now, X is returning the favor.
He is now complaining that his own privacy, and his family’s, is being posted.

[YAVI🌍Africa's 50 most influential women🌍MsAfCFTA @YaviMadurai]

@dfw_ama 78