Mr. Sandile Tshabalala
Co-FOUNDER
Mr. Sandile Tshabalala (he/him/his) boasts many years' experience in both the public and private sectors, specialising in Corporate Governance, Corporate Philanthropy, Children’s Rights and Entrepreneurship.
Mr Tshabalala holds qualifications in African Philanthropy, Corporate Governance, Board Leadership, Systems Change, Fundraising Management and Law from some of South Africa’s most prestigious universities, including the University of Cape Town, the University of Johannesburg, the Gordon Institute of Business Science and Stellenbosch University and most recently completed a post-graduate qualification in African Philanthropy at the University of Witwatersrand. He is a Masters candidate at the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment.
He further holds a Certificate in Children’s Rights from the University of Geneva in Switzerland and a Certificate in Fundraising Management from the Lily Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University. His international experience includes research internship positions with Human Rights Watch and the Permanent Mission of South Africa to the United Nations and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute.
He has held governance positions with multinationals Mazars and TMF Group, and served as a Board of Directors’ Secretary for the Public Investment Corporation, where his focus was on the Board of Directors‘ Affairs, Investment Committee and the Asset Allocation Committee with oversight of over R2.7 trillion assets globally.
Through Huruma Bantfu, he has provided governance services to the National Youth Development Agency, Agricultural Research Council, Business and Arts South Africa, Gauteng Enterprise Propeller, Cape Agency for Sustainable Integrated Development in Rural Areas and the Public Servants Association amongst others. He launched the ‘State-Owned Enterprises Report in South Africa 2023’ in partnership with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in South Africa.
Furthermore, he has ideated, curated and executed entrepreneurship development programmes in township economies for the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs with support from the Walmart Foundation.
Mr Tshabalala is a recipient of the Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans 2023 under the Business category supported by the African Bank and a recipient of the News24 100 Young Mandelas of the Future 2023 under the Humanitarianism category. He is a winner of the 40 under Forty Young South Africans 2024 under the Social Enterprise category. He is a Fellow of the 2024 cohort of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, Leading For Humanity Fellowship. In 2023, Mr Tshabalala was appointed as a Non-Executive Director of Scouts South Africa, the biggest youth organisation in South Africa.
Mr Tshabalala has presented academic papers at the inaugural International Children’s Rights Conference, the Southern African Resilience Academy Conference, and the African Philanthropy Conference.
Mr Tshabalala has travelled to Luxembourg, India, Egypt, Nepal, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, France, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, Nederlands, Austria, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, Germany, United Kingdom, and most of Southern Africa.
Ms. Mbali Khumalo
Co-founder
Ms. Mbali Khumalo (she/her) boasts many years' experience in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors, specialising in Corporate Anthropology, Inter-Cultural Management, Grant-Making and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning globally.
She holds a Masters in Inter-Cultural Management from Université de Bourgogne, France. As a Corporate Anthropologist for IBM and Google Inc, she has co-lead user experience research about the corporate and social landscape of various countries in the African continent. This involved immersion trips to Nigeria, co-facilitating design thinking workshops, liaising with the global research team, coordinating research reports, and providing key cultural insights about people and culture, specifically in Kenya and South Africa.
Ms Khumalo has held strategic impact positions at the FRIDA - The Young Feminist Fund overseeing grants in Sub-Saharan Africa. A focal point for all sixty [60] young, feminist organisations that the fund provided grants to in the region. The cohort included organisations from twenty-four [24] countries in Africa. The bulk of her task was centred on providing strategic and organisational accompaniment to the groups, donor report writing, and analysing data about regional capacity strengthening needs, as well as managing external donor-funded grantee partner projects.
At Huruma Bantfu, Ms Khumalo is focused on business development strategies, developing tools for establishing and maintaining relationships with potential and new clientele; evaluating organisational cultures in both the client’s firm as well as the working spaces of the target market; she ideates and executes a market strategy for long-term value-creation.