My three passions in life are Women, Africa, and the arts.
My activism career started over 15 years ago when I did my training through POWA, http://www.powa.co.za. I have used my personal brand to create awareness on abuse and issues pertaining to women. I not only share my knowledge that I learned through the training but I share my personal experiences on how the abuse affected me. My aim has and always will be to create awareness, let others know that they are not alone and that the abuse is not their fault, all of this connected to the fact that it has been patriarchal ideologies that have supported and protected perpetrators. We have to redefine our rights and enforce gender equality.
Building my personal brand.
When I started my career we do not have direct access to PR gurus or marketing specialists who could guide us and those that did, paid top dollar for their services. I built my brand on knowing and understanding my craft, faith, discipline, dedication and passion. I made a tremendous amount of mistakes, partnered with wrong people, diluted my brand as I did not value myself enough and often second guessed my personal talent and ability. I value and treasure all those lessons. I have learned that building a brand and becoming an entrepreneur comes with a lot of challenges and frustrations but there are also many rewards. It has taught me to push through those boundaries, even when met with resistance. I remember when I was still acting on the soapie, Generations, I wanted to seek a car sponsorship and I naively approached BMW South Africa. My application was denied immediately and I was told that they do not sponsor non-sports people. So I then decided to visit a BMW car dealership in Bryanston, with my then partner. He suggested that I just buy one and forget about the sponsorship. I partly took his advice. As I entered the dealership I noticed that there were very few Black people walking in and out as buyers, I engaged with my friends who lived in that area and who drove BMW’s and asked where they had purchased their vehicles. Almost all of them directed me to the Black owned dealership downtown. As much as I wanted to support that dealership, I also wanted to prove a point. So I boldly revisited the dealership in Bryanston, sought out my vehicle and applied for finance and bought a vehicle off the showroom floor. I felt I needed to prove that as a young black woman, I had the ability and power to purchase the vehicle and perhaps the dealership needed to relook their strategy.
A year later I formed a partnership with a woman who could assist with a concrete proposal and we approached the dealership that I bought my car from and we proposed a sponsorship deal, based on my facts and experience. This was in 2004 and we originally proposed the deal for six months, my contract was continuously extended till 2007. Every six months I upgraded my car to the new 3- series and had the opportunity of test-driving all the new series when they were launched.
The WAKA flame:
My love for the continent began when I started exploring Africa as a TV presenter and producer. I founded my Pan African talent agency, WAKA TALENT AGENCY in 2011. WAKA means to shine in Ki-Swahili. I discovered that there was a gap for representation across the continent, I also saw it as an opportunity to create projects and synergies with other media practitioners in South Africa and globally. At present Waka Talent agency have a footprint in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, DRC, Uganda. Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria. We represent TV and radio personalities, speakers, emcees, and brand ambassador and influencers. A few of my clients are musicians and models in their own right but we do not handle those contracts nor do we search for that type of work. I often asked if that will be my next move and my answer is no. No, I do not wish to tackle that side of the industry as firstly, I respect that craft and with that aspect comes my second reason, I have no first-hand knowledge of it. As a manager, I, need to understand and know the craft, discipline, and experience that comes with it.
These are a few of our Pan-African clients
Nurturing the talent
Being an award-winningg actress, TV and radio personality award winning film producer, and a revered TV producer, I have the ability to provide concrete advice and knowledge in that sector of the industry. As much as I respect the model and music industry, I have never worked down the ramp (professionally) nor have I recorded a song. So why would I have the authority of managing that career?
The moral of this story is that you need to know your brand, work and be passionate about it. When creating collaborations, always look at what value the two partiess bring to the table. There always needs to be a value added beefits to all parties involved.
Time to PASTE.
As we are still focusing on TV and radio personalities and building brands and connecting them with global brands, we also plan to work with other entrepreneurs and artisans who have the Pan African vision and believe in the artistic spirit.
Brand value is not just about designing a logo, it is about a philosophy and a vision. I see the two concepts as one. As my vision and passion is led and dominated by my Pan African dream, I have looked to work with entrepreneurs who seek and live by that. Moving forward, we will be working closely with Paste Studios.
Paste Studios is a Creative Agency: Specialising in Design, branding and Brand Identity. I do understand that there are many agencies who specialise in these concepts but very few are innovative and keen to understand the Pan African market.
I met the CEO and founder of PASTE STUDIOS Manqoba Nhlapo, at a regular entrepreneurial spot in Johannesburg. We first engaged in conversation last year but as I strongly believe in Gods timing, we only engaged in business discussions this year. His entrepreneurial vision is raw and real.
Many people have this romantic idea that entrepreneurial lifestyle is sexy and cool, with your Mac laptop, you sit at a coffee shop and the work rolls in. Yes, you need the laptop as that is our life, we often sit at coffee shops as we need the free wifi. Let us be honest data in SA is ridiculously expensive. We may seem content and cute with our cafee lattes or Americano’s or whatever it is that we are drinking, but often we are sitting with that one cup the whole day long.
So whilst randomly entering our regular space, Manqoba and I started chatting about these exact entrepreneurial challenges. We spoke about how we would see the same faces in the public workplace but we do to know what we all do. The conversation led to the fact the biggest challenges that small companies and agencies have is that they lack the finance and therefore the resources. We agreed that small entities need assistance from big corporates but we should also look at our smaller entrepreneurial partners for synergies and assistance. We began to understand what our respective agencies do and what our visions are and saw the scope for partnership.
WAKA TALENT will work in conjunction wit PASTE STUDIO on creating platforms and projects that can project to our Pan African audience and climate. They have the design, brand value and knowledge, we have the talent, expertise, and clientele, we both are passionate about the PAN-AFRICANN dream.
Manqoba’s passion to to create and design as well as connecting people from our continent. His vision is for PASTE to become the frontier of innovative design in Africa. Collaborating with the best designers and talent too bring South African products to a world class standard. Their leading factor is that they have the ability to create and design spaces that will to enrich people and optimise human interactivity.
Our first collaboration will ve revealed soon but should you require any additional information on with agthe ency, feel free to contact us:
WAKA Talent agency:
http://www.wakaagency.biz
rosie@wakaagency.biz
+27 0102861935
PASTE studios:
manqoba@pastestudios.co.za
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