As a finance industry juggernaut, Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa says it’s exciting to be in the technology sector, especially as its impact is felt across industries.
Mahanyele-Dabengwa is CEO of JSE-listed internet giant Naspers SA, while Fabricio Bloisi is group CEO of Naspers and its subsidiary Prosus.
In an ITWeb TV interview, Mahanyele-Dabengwa discussed the burgeoning digital landscape, the cross-functional impact of the technology industry and SA’s G20 Presidency amid geopolitical tensions.
The conversation also touched on the need for early-stage start-up funding in SA, the role of venture capitalists, the potential of e-commerce, and the importance of supporting women-owned businesses and township entrepreneurs to foster a thriving tech ecosystem.
Mahanyele-Dabengwa revealed that 73% of the leadership of the Naspers team in SA is made up of women. Further, over 65% of the employees in the corporate part of the business in SA are women.
“Women leadership is key; not only in what we say, but in what we do. If you look at our board, the last six directors that have been brought on to the board are all women.
“From the chairman, our group CEO and all of us as executive leaders, we are focused on ensuring women are able to play a role in tech and play leadership roles in tech.
“It’s wonderful to be in an organisation that is pushing for that, but it’s also good to see how other organisations within the tech industry have been focused on that area.”
Mahanyele-Dabengwa has been at the helm of the local operations of Naspers since 2019, having established her career within the finance industry as co-founder and executive chairperson of Sigma Capital and CEO of the Shanduka Group.
She has also recently assumed a role on the Naspers board and has been nominated to join the Prosus board as an executive director at its next annual general meeting later this month.
The CEO is an independent director of Vodacom Group, serves on the advisory board of Stellenbosch University’s business school and serves on the board of the United Nation’s Global Compact Network SA. She is also a council member of the BRICS Business Council in SA.
“To be actively involved in this industry is something that I have found to be empowering and hugely enlightening, particularly when I have conversations with people who are concerned about issues of how AI [artificial intelligence] could potentially impact jobs, etc,” she said.
“The reality is that with the presence of AI and with us being able to learn more and grow more, it actually creates the ability for us to focus on different types of jobs that are a lot more in line with the way that we should be thinking, as opposed to rudimentary day-to-day type of tasks that can be done by machines.”
AI in action
As AI-led technologies spread across the globe, Bloisi also positioned AI deployment at the core of his strategy. Reflecting on his first 100 days as CEO, he said Naspers and Prosus will continue to integrate AI across the business.
Similarly, Mahanyele-Dabengwa said AI is a big part of the local operations and driving the business forward, revealing the company is deriving growth, value and profitability of “significant scale” from AI insights.
Last year, it was reported that Naspers’s e-commerce business was profitable for the first time.
According to Mahanyele-Dabengwa, Naspers SA’s media and Takealot businesses are all focused on AI. “It’s really helped us in terms of being able to streamline our businesses, focus on areas that are of importance, but also to be able to get consumer insights that are valuable, to ensure we can provide the information and products our consumers require.
“It’s been good to see how, from a delivery perspective, we’ve been able to have efficiencies with the use of AI as well – so route optimisation – looking at a number of different aspects of our business.”
AI is very active within Naspers operations, she noted, adding that the business has a team of around 1 000 focused on AI.
She explained that the team goes into different parts of the group’s businesses, looking at the solutions that can be used to provide the best products and services to consumers. “With the use of AI, we can get a sense of what our consumers would most prefer on a Wednesday afternoon, for example.
“Ethical AI is something that’s of importance to us, so with everything that we do, we’re ensuring ethics is a big part of it as well…that is what we are really focused on.”
Lifeline pipeline
Mahanyele-Dabengwa said the early-stage and start-up ecosystem is of critical importance for a developing nation like SA and the rest of the continent.
This, as start-ups and early-stage enterprises continue to encounter hindrances in accessing equity investment.
The world is not short of capital, but the issue is private equity funds and a need for venture capitalist investors, she pointed out. People with start-up businesses struggle to raise capital, because the type of capital needed is not debt capital but real equity, or even grants for some businesses.
“In SA and the African continent, we don’t have enough early-stage and start-up capital, and that is a big stumbling block, not only for the continent, but also just for us as the future.
“I think what we need are a lot more venture capital funders, a lot more risk-taking type of funders within our realms, to really look at South Africa.
“There was a period where we lost several key international funders in the private equity / venture capital area, so we need to attract a lot more of them. As financiers, they are looking to have access to different markets – they don’t want to have markets only in one geography.
“If we are in a market that is growing and have environments that will create value for them, we can then become more attractive to sources of capital…there’s no reason why any entrepreneur should not have access to capital. The reality is that South Africa has not been able to attract a lot of those venture-type of financiers, but we need to do that.”
Support of local women-owned business plans is on the horizon, she revealed. This follows an initiative the company kicked-off in India last year, to assist women-led start-up and early-stage businesses.
“When we put out the ad in India, we thought it would garner just a little bit of attention, and we were astounded by the numbers of applicants. We have continued with that, and we’ll be bringing that here to South Africa,” said Mahanyele-Dabengwa.
“We’ll be making an announcement soon as well with respect to that…really focusing on women entrepreneurs. This will be a competitive process where we want to select three or four organisations that will then receive some capital, which hopefully they'll be able to use in their businesses.”
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