Championing Youth Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development with Dr. Steven Zwane

Young Entrepreneur Manufacturing Candles

Overview:Makatu Tshivhula, founder of The Light Candle, shares how a Soweto-based candle business grew into a trusted supplier for leading corporate brands. Recorded at the TEA Summit & Awards 2025, this episode covers:• Building a premium product brand• Securing and servicing corporate clients• Scaling creative businesses from township markets In partnership with Nedbank Small Business Services, this conversation reinforces the role of strong banking and advisory support in helping SMEs grow sustainably. Join Nedbank, South Africa’s best SME bank and take your business to the next level.Subscribe for more Small Business Legend stories. Also available on Apple Podcasts. #SmallBusinessLegend [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/smallbusinesslegend] #AfricanWellness [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/africanwellness] #NedbankSmallBusiness [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/nedbanksmallbusiness] #TEA [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/tea] Guest Bio: Makatu Tshivhula is a young South African entrepreneur and the founder and owner of The Light Candles, a successful candle manufacturing company based in Soweto. He started his business using manual molds and later scaled up production with funding from a silent partner. His business has grown stronger over the years, becoming known as "Africa's First Black Youth-Owned Candle Manufacturing Factory" by some sources. The business operates from a shop in Pimville, Soweto.The company produces a range of candles, including household, scented, and pillar candles, known for their quality and long burn time (11-12 hours). His candles are popular among churches, traditional healers, event organizers and the general community, especially during periods of load shedding in South Africa. A key part of Tshivhula's mission is to tackle youth unemployment in South Africa by equipping young people with skills and creating job opportunities as he expands his business. Through the Small Business Legend Campaign, TEA and Nedbank Small Business Services continue to champion entrepreneurs who are ready to scale. Join Nedbank, South Africa’s best SME bank.

Growing a Multi-Billion Retirement Fund with Zamani Letjane

Zamani Letjane's journey began in 1980 as an HR Practitioner at a private construction company. He later joined the Local Authority’s HR department, where he served for 10 years and became a Trustee of the Local Government Pension Fund, responsible for identifying sites for shopping centres. His 20+ years of experience as a Trustee inspired the launch of Akani Properties in 2005, a 100% black-owned property development and management company. In 1999, he founded Akani Retirement Fund Administrators which has grown the Municipal Employees Pension Fund (MEPF) from R1.4 billion to over R27 billion in assets. Notable projects include the R950 million Radisson Hotel and Convention Centre in Kempton Park, launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2020, and a new hotel and convention centre in Middleburg, Mpumalanga. Zamani is a true pioneer in property and retirement fund management. About the podcast: Kasi Business Podcast is powered by TEA. A weekly business podcast that seeks to unlocking opportunities and practical resource tools to start and grow your business. We also profile corporate leaders, legendary black business leaders, industry practitioners and entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Bulelani Balabala who is an awarded entrepreneur, business speaker and author. This podcast is aimed at unlocking opportunities and practical skills for micro-enterprises, start up, small businesses while sharing insight with professionals and policy makers. For guest enquiries and partnerships, get in touch with us: E: info@JoinUsForTEA.co.za T: 011 572 1033

The Growth Blueprint for Kasi Entrepreneurs with Zibusiso Mkhwanazi

Zibusiso Mkhwanazi is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and Executive Chairman of M+N, CEO of Avatar X and widely recognised as the co-founder of Avatar, one of Africa’s leading black-owned integrated marketing and advertising agencies. His journey from humble beginnings to industry trailblazer is a testament to vision, resilience, and a deep commitment to unlocking African creativity for the world.Mkhwanazi began his entrepreneurial path by investing R2,000 from his mother into the stock market, growing it into R14,000, seed capital that funded his first business, Csonke, a web development company. After merging with a competitor to form Krazyboyz, he helped build one of South Africa’s top five digital agencies. He later partnered with Veli Ngubane to launch Avatar, a through-the-line agency that has redefined the marketing landscape through innovation and inclusive leadership.Under his leadership, Avatar has achieved numerous industry firsts:• Selected by Absa as the first black-owned lead agency for a top 10 brand in Africa• Appointed by the South African Presidency to lead national communications during the COVID-19 pandemic• Expanded to service nine African markets through Absa and Isuzu• Became the first African global agency for a global brand through its partnership with TECNO MobileIn 2024, Avatar won the Small Biz, Big Impact Ministerial Award at the Presidential MSME & Cooperatives Awards. That same year, Mkhwanazi was nominated by MarkLives for Agency Business Leader 2025 and celebrated as an Africa Rising Star. His leadership continues to position Avatar among the top five independent agencies in Africa, with over 200 employees and a turnover exceeding half a billion rand annually.Mkhwanazi is also the author of Business by Grace, a hybrid memoir and entrepreneurial manual. The book achieved #1 and #2 bestseller status at selected Exclusive Books stores, offering insight into his philosophy of faith-driven leadership and sustainable business growth.His accolades include being named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, a finalist for the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Awards, and receiving an entrepreneurial excellence award presented by Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams.Beyond business, Zibusiso is a dedicated philanthropist and mentor. He founded the Mkhwanazi Foundation, which empowers emerging entrepreneurs through skills development and mentorship, and established David’s League, a Christian-based mentorship programme cultivating values-driven leadership. He also served as a trustee of NEET, a non-profit that has funded over 4,200 scholarships for underprivileged ICT students.Mkhwanazi’s impact lies not only in the brands he’s built, but in the lives he continues to uplift, championing inclusion, creativity, and African excellence on a global stage.About the podcast: Kasi Business Podcast is powered by TEA. A weekly business podcast that seeks to unlocking opportunities and practical resource tools to start and grow your business. We also profile corporate leaders, legendary black business leaders, industry practitioners and entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Bulelani Balabala who is an awarded entrepreneur, business speaker and author. This podcast is aimed at unlocking opportunities and practical skills for micro-enterprises, start up, small businesses while sharing insight with professionals and policy makers. For guest enquiries and partnerships, get in touch with us: E: info@JoinUsForTEA.co.za T: 011 572 1033

Championing Youth Leadership and Entrepreneurship Development with Dr. Steven Zwane

Dr. Steven Zwane is a distinguished academic, executive, and social entrepreneur with over two decades of cross-sector leadership experience spanning financial services, education, non-profit, and consulting. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). Steven is the 2025 Social Impact Leader of the Year, recognised by the Future Leaders Forum for his unwavering commitment to community upliftment, entrepreneurship education, and inclusive leadership. A Nelson Mandela Scholar (2006), he holds a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) and MBA from Durham University (UK), and a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Zululand.A passionate advocate for entrepreneurship, strategy, and operations management, Dr. Zwane is the co-author: of Rising from the Township – Inspiring Stories of South African Entrepreneurs (2024)—a powerful book informed by his doctoral research, written to close the entrepreneurial role model gap and celebrate the resilience of township-born innovators; and Business By Grace, Zibusiso Mkhwanazi’s Entrepreneurial memoir on how he built a world changing advertising business with R2000 (2025). He is also the Founder and former Chairperson of the Youth Leadership & Entrepreneurship Development (YLED) NPO, which since 2004 has impacted over 20,000 Grade 11 learners through a flagship Saturday school model focused on life skills, mentorship, and entrepreneurial development.About the podcast: Kasi Business Podcast is powered by TEA. A weekly business podcast that seeks to unlocking opportunities and practical resource tools to start and grow your business. We also profile corporate leaders, legendary black business leaders, industry practitioners and entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Bulelani Balabala who is an awarded entrepreneur, business speaker and author. This podcast is aimed at unlocking opportunities and practical skills for micro-enterprises, start up, small businesses while sharing insight with professionals and policy makers. For guest enquiries and partnerships, get in touch with us: E: info@JoinUsForTEA.co.za T: 011 572 1033

A Titan of the Township Economy

Dr Thami Mazwai is the founder of Mtiya Dynamics(MD), an enterprise and supplier development company. MD specialises in the design of small business development solutions. He is research associate at the Nelson Mandela University (NMU). He conceptualised, edited and in 2024 produced the book “The Journey of the Soweto Entrepreneurs since 1905”. This was an overview on the evolution of entrepreneurship in Soweto. The activist and former journalist expanded his craft of journalism to more than keeping society abreast of the happenings of the Apartheid era but furthered his craft and molded it into becoming a formidable instrument for the liberation struggle and the empowerment of Black people to participate in the post-Apartheid economy of South Africa.He is currently involved in efforts to stimulate the economies of townships, villages and informal settlements to assist in the eradication of poverty, unemployment and inequality. His interest in township economies started when he was still with the Sowetan newspaper where he started the business pages, the first newspaper aimed at the black community to do so. Morphing from journalist to researcher, he is driven by his passion for transformation that lessens poverty, unemployment and inequality (PUI).About the podcast: Kasi Business Podcast is powered by TEA. A weekly business podcast that seeks to unlocking opportunities and practical resource tools to start and grow your business. We also profile corporate leaders, legendary black business leaders, industry practitioners and entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Bulelani Balabala who is an awarded entrepreneur, business speaker and author. This podcast is aimed at unlocking opportunities and practical skills for micro-enterprises, start up, small businesses while sharing insight with professionals and policy makers. For guest enquiries and partnerships, get in touch with us: E: info@JoinUsForTEA.co.za T: 011 572 1033