36-year-old South
African media mogul, unconventional visionary, and a builder of big dreams. Khanyi
Dhlomo is anything but ordinary. In 1995, when she was just 20 and a journalism
student at the University of Witwatersrand, she made history as the first black
newscaster for SABC1, South Africa’s national broadcaster.
To
an extent, her appointment at SABC1 was a stroke of good fortune. South Africa
was at the earliest stages of its national rebirth and the country was
undergoing its post-apartheid liberation.
Corporations were being mandated to
become more representative of the new ‘rainbow nation,’ and so for the first
time, black South Africans were getting jobs that were previously the exclusive
preserve of whites. SABC1 was under pressure to adhere to the directive, and so
Dhlomo, who formerly did low-paid freelance reporting jobs for the station, was
given the position of a news anchor.
During
the short time she spent as a newscaster for the station’s evening news
bulletin, she quickly became the country’s media sweetheart. “Everyone just
loved watching her,” said Justus Sikinya, a 40 year-old investment banker based
in Pretoria. “I remember back then, most of us men didn’t watch the 8 O’clock
news because we cared about current events. We watched news because we just
wanted to see Khanyi Dhlomo on TV. Seeing her on TV made us sleep well at
night.”
Sources
say during Khanyi’s time at the station, the ratings of the 8 o’clock news hit
record highs. And it was all because of the young girl with the cute, innocent
face and the natural tan. But
she was not content. She particularly loved the print media and the
prospects of editing held a special attraction for her. Even while she was
still an anchor at the TV station, she was “still more interested in the
editorial side,” as she once said during an interview with the South African
newspaper BusinessDay.
She was looking for an opportunity to work as an editor, and the opportunity
came. An editor at Drum
Magazine (one of South Africa’s oldest lifestyle magazines)
informed her of an opening for a fashion and beauty assistant at True Love magazine,
one of Africa’s most enduring women magazines.
She
took the job. It wasn’t as glamorous as she imagined it’d be. She was the
errand girl, serving snacks at photo shoots, selecting clothes for models and
taping the soles of models’ shoes. But Khanyi had the bigger picture in mind,
and while she was playing the errand girl, she was learning the ropes of the
magazine business.
Dhlomo
has always had good fortune on her side. In 1995, her boss got married and
moved to Paris. During that period, the publishers set out to reposition the
magazine to the needs of a younger, emerging generation of women. Who better to
head the magazine’s operations than a young, sophisticated, upwardly mobile
South African lady?
At
age 22, Khanyi was appointed editor of the magazine. She set to embarked on
intensive research into the reading habits and needs of her new target
audience. It worked. Within a year of her leadership, True Love’s
circulation had doubled from 70,000 to 140,000 and the magazine became the most
widely read women’s magazine in the country.
The
next 8 years were very eventful years. Khanyi grew the magazine phenomenally.
She also completed her bachelors degree in communication from Wits University;
got married; settled into family life and had two sons. She experienced
difficulties in her marriage and she filed for divorce.
In
2003 following her divorce, she stepped down from the magazine and went to
recover in Paris. While in Europe, she took a job as manager of South Africa’s
Tourism Board in Paris. She enjoyed the job thoroughly. As she said during an
interview with a South African newspaper: “I was in my favorite city outside SA
and promoting my country to the French market — accentuating its tourism assets
in the era after sanctions.” But
her love for the media was too strong. She wanted to start up her own magazine
and set up her own company, and she felt the need for a sound business
education, so she headed to the Harvard Business School for an MBA. It was one
of the smartest decisions of her life. While at school, she met Jonathan
Newhouse, Chairman of Conde Nast International (publisher of Vogue magazine),
who became her mentor. Newhouse gave her insights into the workings of the
magazine business, from where she was able to form the blueprint for her own
magazines.
She
returned home to South Africa and founded Ndalo Media — a joint venture with
Media 24, the publishing arm of Naspers, Africa’s largest media company.
Through Ndalo, Khanyi publishes Destiny Magazine and Destiny Man, two thriving
high-end magazines that combine business and lifestyle content to cater to
successful, professional, stylish and intellectually curious men and women.
But
the future of media lies online, and Dhlomo knows that. In 2008, Ndalo Media
founded DestinyConnect.com, a website that serves as the online extension of
Destiny’s publications. The website integrates an interactive social
media platform with original and exclusive content, video footage, blogs,
forums and business and personal profile listings.
Apart
from steering the affairs at Ndalo Media, Dhlomo serves as a director of the
Foschini retail group and on the advisory board of the University Of
Stellenbosch Business School. In 2010, she was selected as a World Economic
Forum Young Global Leader.
If
you’re a young man shopping for your future ‘Mrs.,’ don’t set your hopes on
Ndlomo. Last year she married Chinezi Chijioke, a Nigerian management
consultant she met during her days at Harvard.
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.forbes.com
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