With an outlook formed by a transformative period in South Africa’s history, Swazi Tshabalala is now helping lead Africa into a new era – and women are central to her vision
It’s commonplace in business to describe our current period of global upheaval as unprecedented. From the incipient AI revolution, to climate change, to the challenges of equity and social justice – we are undoubtedly living in an era of polycrisis.
But speak to anyone from a generation of South Africans who came of age in the early 1990s, and they will be able to tell you what unprecedented change really looks like.
One such leader is Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala. A former financial services executive, she has served since 2018 at the African Development Bank, including as deputy president – and in late 2024, she was announced as South Africa’s candidate for the position of Bank president. (The outcome was scheduled to be announced a few weeks after Dialogue went to press.) She has been a true agent of change – a pioneer for greater equity in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, and a champion for increasing women’s representation in leadership posts across both business and government.
“My leadership journey actually began before I was a leader in a professional capacity,” Tshabalala tells Dialogue. She spent seven years studying in the US, completing an economics degree before taking an MBA at Wake Forest University School of Business. But while she studied, profound change was gathering pace at home. Nelson Mandela was released in 1990, and in March 1992 the white-only electorate voted in a landmark referendum to end minority rule. For Tshabalala, the urge to help shape the nation’s future was irresistible.
“People asked me, ‘Why did you come back? Why didn’t you stay in the United States and make stacks of money?’” she recalls. “But it was really important for me to come back and honor the contributions of so many of our people who fought for our freedom. People were starting to talk about the future – and I wanted to be part of that discussion.”
The boundary between political and professional worlds quickly blurred. “I was working for a financial institution, trading interest rate derivatives – and we started talking about the dearth of diverse professionals in the financial services sector. I’m talking specifically about black professionals, never mind women!”, Tshabalala explains. “We started talking about how we could change that.”
The result was the founding in 1995 of the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (Absip), one of a host of professional associations created to help shape solutions for South Africa’s brave new era. Tshabalala became Absip’s first deputy president.
“I’ve very proud of what they’ve been able to do,” she says. The proof is in the pudding, she points out. “We now have a number of chairmen and CEOs of large banks in South Africa who are either women or black.” She points to Mary Vilakazi, who made history when she became the first female – and second black – chief executive of FirstRand in 2024, and to Sim Tshabalala, the black male CEO of Standard Bank since 2017.
It is a reminder that leadership is not exclusive to those who hold leadership roles – and it speaks to Tshabalala’s deep sense of purpose. “My interest in leadership has always been about, how do we make our communities better? How do we improve our environment? I think my entire career reflects this interest – not only in South Africa, but in the development of the whole continent.”
It must be an astonishing period to look back on today. “The amazing thing is we did this in partnership,” says Tshabalala. “The leadership of these financial institutions did not reflect the whole country, but they showed willingness to sit down and say, ‘How can we co-create a different future together?’ That was surprising, to be honest. You expect some pushback in an environment like that – but in fact, they were very constructive about working together.”
For outsiders, the familiar narrative for the end of apartheid focuses on Nelson Mandela and the politics of protest. Yet the story of how South Africa’s economy was reshaped is equally vital. The cooperation of big institutions was critical, Tshabalala points out. “We needed their support, because they were the employers – plus, we needed their resources to make sure that the training and development was in place to accelerate this evolution in the financial services sector.
“This is something that people often overlook about South Africa,” argues Tshabalala. “When you go beyond the headlines, there’s actually real commitment to working together to evolve our country and achieve the transformation that we need.”
Early lessons in leadership
Tshabalala recognizes that her experiences in those tumultuous years gave her access to extraordinary conversations that have had a lasting effect on her leadership outlook. “I did a lot of listening,” she confirms. “All of a sudden, I could see that a different future was possible.”
In that moment of change, Tshabalala’s leadership philosophy began to take shape. “My leadership style is shaped by my cultural context,” she reflects. “In South Africa, words like ubuntu – being able to congregate together and talk as a community about the issues that you need to address – are very important.” Her time in the US, where more individualistic norms prevailed, gave her a fresh perspective on the strength of the South African approach. “It’s like the old saying – ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together,’” she notes.
Building consensus on how to move forward together requires deft leadership. “The importance of building trust through communication over time has really been embedded in me,” she says. “Working together, co-creating solutions – that’s a far more sustainable way of leading.” It’s a vision of leadership that holds true for leaders at all levels, not just those in the C-suite, she points out. “It’s allowing people to be the center of the organization – rather than the organization driving everything,” she says. “That’s the way I lead.”
Women in leadership
We turn back to the question of women’s representation in leadership. How does she assess progress to date?
“It’s improving. Some countries are making much better progress than others – but women still face a lot of challenges,” offers Tshabalala. The financing gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa is in the region of $40 billion every year, she explains. “Entrepreneurship among women in Africa is not new – but what they have found difficult is scaling up, and that requires access to finance.”
She believes that women also need more opportunities. Mentors are key. “I was very lucky to have fantastic mentors when I was coming up in my career,” says Tshabalala. “They were wonderful women, who’d done amazing things – and they were willing to support me and guide me, giving me the courage to take risks.” Critically, they gave Tshabalala something else, too. “They gave me opportunities – and the opportunity to fail or succeed.”
“We don’t think about this enough,” she argues. “For men, it’s almost a given: you’re given an opportunity, and whether you fail or you succeed, life goes on. But for women: first of all, they’re not getting the opportunities – and when they do, well, they’d better not fail!”
Tshabalala questions the implicit assumptions that still underpin many organizations’ work on women’s representation. “I’ve always argued that a lot of organizations work from the basis that women cannot lead,” she argues. Even those that have invested in programs for female leaders often don’t provide enough opportunities for women to apply their abilities. “Women need someone betting on them – saying, ‘Go out there and do your best.’ You might succeed, you might not succeed – but if you don’t, life goes on,” she adds.
Arguing for equal opportunities is not to argue that gender differences are irrelevant. “Organizations need to evolve to a point where all of us make particular contributions,” says Tshabalala. “The fact that I’m a woman is important. It means that I have a particular point of view. I bring a particular experience, and that has value in organizations – and in countries as well.”
An apocryphal example from the world of development makes the point. Give a group of men an infrastructure budget and they might build a fast road connecting two cities. But involve women in decision-making, and some of the money will likely be spent on water and sanitation projects in communities adjacent to the road. Not only does that directly benefit those communities – it enables new businesses to be started, serving travelers on that road, and creating economic opportunity.
“When we talk about the development of the continent of Africa, we’re talking about development for all,” says Tshabalala. “But if those discussions are taking place among men without the involvement of women, opportunities for increasing the impacts of every single project are potentially lost – because women will bring different considerations to the table.”
Some of the world’s largest corporations have disbanded their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) teams, particularly in the US. Are there any signs of such a trend in South Africa? No, says Tshabalala. “We’re only 30 years on from democracy being established, so the focus is still on how we transform the country on racial grounds, and also on empowering women. We still want a society that sees itself reflected in all its institutions and organizations.”
Society can ill-afford to exclude any group from fair representation in leadership positions – not least women. “Women make up 50% of the world’s population. It’s inconceivable to me that any discussion about the future of our planet would exclude women, or any part of the diversity that is humanity.”
Africa’s opportunity
Having started our conversation by recalling one period of seismic upheaval, we turn back to the present. The shockwaves of the Gen AI revolution are being felt around the world. How might Africa’s development be impacted?
“You could argue that it’s a fantastic opportunity because of the crucial natural resources that we have as a continent – but you also have to look at the gaps that we face,” argues Tshabalala. “We don’t even have electricity for half the population of the continent.” Work being done by the World Bank and African Development Bank to provide electricity for 600 million Africans is crucial, but it needs to be scaled up, she argues.
Africa needs trillions of dollars of investment – money that its governments simply don’t have. Yet there is money out there. “We need to think about how we mobilize the tens of trillions of dollars of institutions’ money that’s available globally,” she says. At the African Development Bank, Tshabalala drew on her financial services experience to develop an innovative new form of hybrid finance – a type of mezzanine finance, combining aspects of equity and debt. National governments have much to do to attract greater investment. “Our governments need to create an environment that facilitates that kind of massive mobilization,” says Tshabalala. Policy reforms and better governance will be important to build investor confidence.
Perhaps the biggest opportunity flows from Africa’s youth: by 2050, most of the world’s young people will be in Africa. “We need to equip them with these new skills – and work on their health and their nutrition too,” she points out. This fundamental truth risks being overlooked amid the hype about new technology: the first priority is always securing people’s wellbeing. “Overall, I’m very positive about AI,” she says. “But the risk is that we start talking about AI and forget that we still need to get many of the basics right.”
With that caveat in mind, Tshabalala is optimistic about the decades ahead. “The way the world is changing represents an opportunity for Africa,” she says. “I am optimistic that with the right focus, the future is bright for the continent – but we will have to work hard, because the challenges are also significant.”
Just as in the South Africa of the 1990s, partnership and cooperation are key. “Countries are not able to deal with this on their own. But working in partnership with the rest of the world, Africa’s future is indeed bright.”
Patrick Woodman is editor of Dialogue
Photography: Moustafa Cheaiteli
