Founder and CEO – Brand
Leadership Group
Founder and Chairman – Brand Africa
Founder and Principal – Africa Brand Leadership
Academy
BSc. MBA. LLM (Intellectual Property Law)
Chartered Marketer (SA)
Thebe Ikalafeng is the pre-eminent global African authority in branding and leading advocate for a
brand-led African
renaissance. Described as the “the foremost branding and reputation authority in Africa” and recognized
as one of the
‘100 Most Influential Africans’ by respected UK based New African Magazine, and one of the ‘100 Most
Influential
Creative People of African Descent’ during the United Nations ‘International Year of the Creative
Economy for
Sustainable Development’ in 2021, he has had a profound, sustained and distinguished contribution to
branding in Africa
and shaping a positive narrative for the continent in a career that spans over 30 years building brands
across Africa.
Building on a distinguished corporate career that started at Colgate Palmolive in New York, USA and
concluded with a
lauded tenure as chief marketing officer for NIKE for Africa in 2002 where he won over 75 industry
awards globally, and
having been to every African country, he has purposefully committed his life’s work to inspiring
Africans to create and
consume African brands, and building competitive brand-led industries that will transform the
continent’s reputation and
economy, create jobs and ultimately alleviate poverty and inequality.
He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Brand Leadership, the award-winning Africa-focused
pan-African branding
advisory firm which was inducted into the New York based REBRAND “Hall of Fame” for excellence in
branding in 2015. In
2010 he founded the Brand Africa initiative to re-imagine Africa’s image and competitiveness, and “Brand
Africa 100 |
Africa’s Best Brands,” the widely cited survey and ranking of brands in Africa, to champion a brand-led
African
transformation agenda. In 2020 he founded the Africa Brand Leadership Academy [ABLA] to build the
capacity and talent
for Africa-focused brand leadership.
Inspired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s speech at the United Nations University on 9
April 1998 that
“out of Africa reborn must come modern products of human economic activity, significant contributions to
the world of
knowledge, in the arts, science and technology, new images of an Africa of peace and prosperity,” and
Ghana’s founding
president Kwame Nkrumah’s speech on 24 May 1963, the eve of the founding of the Organisation of African
Union (OAU) (the
forerunner to the African Union), that “we must unite now or perish,” he has inspired and mobilized the
continent around
a brand-led agenda to inspire an African renaissance and realize this vision for a united and
competitive continent.
His seminal Brand Africa initiative and pan-African research over the past 12 years across over 30
countries which
collectively account for over 85% of Africa’s GDP and population, which is published annually on or
round Africa Day, 25
May, has been reported and quoted widely globally by inter-alia, African Business, CNN, BBC, FT, New
African Magazine
and media in all major metropolitan Africa. Every year he tirelessly travels the continent to highlight,
celebrate and
champion excellent local and multi-national African brands, and inspire and empower local brand builders
and
entrepreneurs to build great African brands.
He was awarded a Marquette University American Marketing Association for marketing excellence upon
graduation cum laude
in 1992. A trailblazing and recognized doyen of branding in Africa, he was recognized with an Institute
of Marketing
Management (IMM) Roll of Honour in 2001, named one of the ‘100 Most Influential Africans’ by New African
Magazine in
2013 and 2015 and one of the 100 Most Influential Creative People of African Descent in support of the
United Nations
‘International Year of the Creative Economy for Sustainable Development’ in 2021. He has been recognized
with the
Financial Mail AdFocus Lifetime Achievement award in 2021 and the Public Relations Institute of Southern
Africa Lifetime
Achievement award in 2022 for his contributions to marketing, branding, communications and the industry.
He was
recognized as one of the African Titans in 2022 by the UAE Africa Networking Group. His work has earned
over 75 awards
in marketing communications and branding globally, including Loeries, D&AD, Cannes Lions, Institute of
Marketing
Management, FinWeek AdReview and the REBRAND Hall of Fame.
He has served in all significant industry bodies and adjudicated most of the significant industry awards
in Africa and
beyond, including as the first African to judge the prestigious Red Dot (www.red-dot.org) design awards
in Germany (2014
– 2020); as the first indigenous African chairman of the Loeries, the premier advertising awards in
Africa and the
Middle East (1998 – 2002) and AdFocus, the landmark South African marketing and communications awards
(2003 – 2004),
through which he championed the creative industry’s Africa-focused transformation agenda; as the
inaugural vice-chairman
of the Brand Council of Southern Africa (2012 – 2015), and as a non-executive director at the Marketing
Federation of
Southern Africa (2002 – 2005), among others.
He has been invited to speak at most consequential Africa-focused forums across Africa and globally and
written
prolifically on leadership, branding and intellectual property, and has co-hosted the inaugural ‘CNBC
Africa |
Marketing, Media and Money’ show that navigates the billion dollar advertising industry in Africa.
A fellow of the Institute of Directors, he is a non-executive director on the Population Services
International (PSI)
board and a Trustee of the WWF Nedbank Green Trust. He has held extensive diverse public and private
sector
directorships, including a 15 years tenure at Mercantile Bank, 10 years at WWF South Africa, 10 years at
South African
Tourism, including one term as deputy Chairman of the board, 7 years at the New York Stock Exchange
listed Cartrack
Group, and served on the boards of Brand South Africa, Foodcorp Group and Nike South Africa, and as a
member of the
Durban University of Technology (DUT) council, among others.
A Chartered Marketer (SA), Ikalafeng holds BSc and MBA degrees specializing in marketing from Marquette
University in
the USA and a Master of Laws (LLM) in Intellectual Property from the University of Turin in Italy in
collaboration with
the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and completed executive
education at Wits
Business School and Harvard Business School.
Born in Kimberley, South Africa and based in Johannesburg, South Africa, he has been to over 110
countries worldwide,
every country in Africa and every continent in the world; summitted Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and
Mount Elbrus in
Russia, the highest mountains in Africa and Europe, and Mount Sinai in Egypt where God is purported to
have given Moses
the Ten Commandments; sky-dived in Swakopmund Namibia, where the stark beauty of one of the world's
oldest deserts meets
the Atlantic ocean; walked the 116 km Moshoeshoe walk, that retraces the path the great Basotho King
Moshoeshoe I walked
as he led his people to the safety of the top of Thaba Bosiu natural fortress in the 19th century;
jumped the tallest
bunjee in the world at Bloukrans Bridge, and took a plunge into the coldest waters on planet in
Antarctica.
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