WeeklySA_AdminSHAPE: Free State businesswoman Thandiwe Mogonwe says tackling unemployment requires more than symbolic inclusion – it demands women in the rooms where decisions about training and employability are made…
By Priscilla Malinga
When Thandiwe Mogonwe co-founded KTMO Business Solutions in Welkom in 2014, she was a young woman entering an industry in which executive decisions and leadership remained overwhelmingly male-dominated.
Twelve years later, she is not merely sitting at the table; she is helping to redraw the blueprint for who gets to shape South Africa’s workforce.
As chief executive of KTMO, Mogonwe has overseen the company’s growth from its Free State roots into a multi-provincial skills-development enterprise, with offices in Welkom, Cape Town and Roodepoort.
KTMO is accredited by five major Sector Education and Training Authorities: MICT, Local Government, Banking, Education, Training and Development Practices, and Wholesale and Retail.
“The way to reduce unemployment is to focus on skills that can create employment, and that is what KTMO focuses on,” managing director Khomotso Mogonwe said.
For the company, growth is secondary to a wider mission: changing who holds the power to define employability in South Africa and ensuring that training responds to the skills the economy needs.
“Skills development isn’t neutral,” Thandiwe Mogonwe said. “The people who decide which learnerships to pursue, which sectors to prioritise and how a training programme is structured are making decisions about whose employability matters most.”
Strategy and expertise
Mogonwe holds qualifications in marketing, economics and commercial law, combining commercial insight with regulatory knowledge. This has helped KTMO become a strategic partner to public- and private-sector organisations navigating the country’s complex training and accreditation environment.
The company’s expansion is underpinned by her operational partnership with co-founder and managing director Khomotso Mogonwe. A Microsoft Certified Professional with more than 18 years’ experience in the training industry and six international certifications, he leads the technical framework and IT infrastructure needed to scale KTMO’s programmes across provincial borders.
“Thandiwe sets the direction and makes the calls on where this business needs to go,” Khomotso said. “My job is to make sure the infrastructure can carry that ambition.”
Together, they have built a diverse training portfolio spanning high-demand fields such as cybersecurity, IT systems development, municipal finance, early childhood development and agricultural production.
Beyond gestures
As South Africa marks Women’s Month, Mogonwe believes the conversation about female empowerment must move beyond celebrating individual success. The country should instead ask why more women are absent from the boardrooms where decisions about economic access are made.
“I don’t think the industry needs fewer men in it,” she said. “I think it needs more women in the rooms where the decisions get made – not as a symbolic gesture, but because those decisions are better when more perspectives are in them.”
Her advice to women seeking to lead or build businesses in competitive industries is direct: master the rules and create value where it is most needed.
“Don’t wait to be invited into the conversation. Study the framework. Know the policy better than anyone else in the room. And build something in the place that needs it most, not the place that already has everything.”
KTMO’s journey from a regional Welkom business to a 100% black African-owned national enterprise shows how inclusive leadership, technical expertise and targeted skills development can combine to expand economic opportunity.
