The only way a society can continue to grow and prosper is through proper education at all levels.

Zoleka Lisa is SAB’s corporate affairs vice-president for South Africa, where she leads teams centred around two of her passions: job creation and empowering entrepreneurs in South Africa. Through this position, she’s enacting real, transformative change throughout the nation: SAB has recently made a commitment to creating 10 000 jobs in South Africa by 2022, achieving this through various entrepreneurship-focused programmes — SAB KickStart, SAB Foundation, SAB Thrive Fund and SAB Accelerator.

Lisa joined the company in 2014 as regional strategic programmes manager for Africa, and has worked her way up in the organisation. She has also, along with her colleagues, created a platform for SAB’s female leaders to engage on, called The Future is Female. These initiatives make SAB a vehicle for change, focused on developing black-owned and black women-owned businesses. Hoping to break down barriers to entry for women across the nation, regardless of their industry, her work carves a path forward towards a more equal future.

Lisa’s belief in education lies at the very core of her being and she strives to “enable all children in South Africa to have access to a good education, a fundamental human right ... It is only through education that people are able to improve themselves. Education is one of the most important factors for escaping poverty. ?

Before joining SAB, Lisa was a senior manager at Accenture for nine years. She has a BSc in environmental science & economics from the University of Cape Town and an honours from the University of the Witwatersrand, and has attended a range of executive development courses at Wits Business School and the London School of Economics. Lisa is an inspirational figure for women across South Africa. Having gone from growing up in a small town in the Eastern Cape, to being deputy head girl of her Johannesburg high school, to forging a path through her industry to becoming a vice-president of a major multinational company before the age of 40, she is a living testament to willpower and tenacity. Her record of excellence has led her career to lofty heights and she aims to ensure that other women follow her there.

— Cayleigh Bright

LinkedIn: @zoleka-lisa