VUMILE MSWELI - EXECUTIVE HEAD: CLIENT SERVICES PARTNER FOR AFRICA, VODACOM

TOP 200 Mail and Guardian young South AfricansExecutive head: client services partner for Africa, VodacomInspired by the projects she completed as part of a Junior Achievement South Africa programme which saw her participate in a global entrepreneurship conference at the age of just 14, Vumile Msweli has collected an enviable number of qualifications in commerce, financial planning, life coaching and leadership. These have paved the way to her current role as executive head: client services partner for Africa at Vodacom, where she deals with service Strategy for Africa for Vodafone for top tier corporate clients.Refusing to rest on her laurels, she also holds various postgraduate diplomas from Gibs, Gimpa in Ghana, as well as New York and Harvard universities. She is currently working on her doctorate in applied leadership and coaching through Switzerland’s University for Graduate Studies in Management.Despite having accumulated so many qualifications, some of her greatest learnings came from outside her coursework. “I think the greatest challenge for me having failed my honours in accounting was to accept failure and know that things don’t always go according to plan,” she says. “Overcoming that ego-crushing failure and dusting myself off, learning to gracefully let go of a dream that was clearly not meant for me was not an easy feat. I am grateful for it in retrospect, but at the time it was quite a challenge.”