WeeklySA_AdminNUGGETS: Brand guru winds up wiser from sojourns to the ends of Africa to identify with pan-Africanism…
By Jacob Mawela
Thebe Ikalafeng’s book, The Traveller: Crossing Borders and Connecting Africa, is literally about an adventurer traversing African countries for curiosity’s sake, and in a journey of self-discovery.
Also, Ikalafeng claims to be on a brand-led journey, in part, to contribute to a better Africa, inspired by African thinkers such as Thabo Mbeki and Kwame Nkrumah. In his mind, the author is boldly committed to Africa, and knowing it in its entirety, arguing that if you “do not know Africa”, you cannot claim to be an African.
He suggested it would be wrong to claim to be an African if you have not set foot in every part of the continent.
He is greatly inspired by former president Thabo Mbeki’s commitment to, in the words of Kwame Nkrumah, uniting all of Africa into a continent that should develop capacity to pull itself by its own bootstrap, and become economically self-sustaining.
The author’s visit to most African countries was to concretise the ideal of Mbeki’s “African Renaissance” outlook, not by slogans but by opening economic opportunities and prospects for all Africa to build a continent whose economy should sustain all Africans living in it.
To achieve this, in part, he has spearheaded what he describes “as a brand-led African revolution” towards the realisation of the African Renaissance” ideal in keeping with Mbeki’s clarion call for a united and prosperous Africa.
The agenda Mbeki propagated during his presidency is an ideal that must challenge every African to knuckle-down to hard work and make “Mother Africa” a successful continent less dependent on foreign aid.
Galeshewe-born Ikalafeng wishes to “do things his own way” so as to spearhead a brand-led African revolution towards the realisation of the Mbeki’s African renaissance dream.
The eldest child of a nurse raised by his maternal grandmother, he grew up a self-proclaimed “de facto leader” who excelled in his studies at the Catholic’s Saint Boniface High School, Kimberely, progressing to the University of Witwatersrand for a degree he did complete – after which venturing into the wider world, travelling to study in the US, and earning a degree in marketing and a postgraduate MBA. He started his working life in New York City only to return to his native country at the promptings of the country’s first democratic president, Nelson Mandela, “to return to build the new South Africa.
With a mind of his own, the author adopts “a maverick marketing posture” in the corporate world, abandoning the convention, but rather resorting to “doing things my own way” – a method that he claims is earning him great dividends as a marketing guru.
He is self-driven, and has been inspired to establish Brand Leadership, the pan-African brand agency he brought into existence to reach out to diverse African consumers by driving an Africa-focused branding, propelled by the African renaissance ideal. The agency’s task is to assist governments, state-owned enterprises, and the African continent, to build relevant and sustainable brands, a strategy he believes will bolster brands in the financial services, public sector, higher education, telecoms, among others.
Besides his love for Africa, he is well-travelled having been “to every continent in the world”.
* A trade paperback, The Traveller is published by Tafelberg, and is available at leading bookstores countrywide at R360
