Cape Town’s Gia Whitehead, winner of the prestigious Europcar Women in Leadership Award for 2023 – announced at the recent Absa Jewish Achiever Awards – co-founded a purpose- driven tertiary institution, TSIBA, when she was just 21. The vision of the founders of TSIBA Business School was to lift young South Africans out of endemic poverty and into a life of opportunity, leadership and influence. Twenty years later it is changing lives of many young people and paving the way towards a better South Africa. Gia is still passionately involved, currently serving as CEO of TSIBA.
Gia explains, “TSIBA is a social enterprise organisation comprising a Business School, Ignition Academy and Education Trust that work together to educate and prepare competent business executives and successful small business enterprises. TSIBA has since 2005 offered fully-funded high quality tertiary level business education to young people who, as a consequence of academic and/or financial barriers, were struggling to get ahead post-matric.”
It’s important to note that, while South Africa has a staggering rate of 60% youth unemployment, the figure falls to less than 10% among young people with tertiary degrees. “This reflects how important it is for our country to provide more opportunities for young people to access education. Through TSIBA, we are able to transition talented young people from unemployability into active economic citizenship,” Gia says. “In fact, since our first cohort’s graduation, over 90% TSIBA Business Bachelor of Business Administration degree graduates are either employed or pursuing postgraduate studies.” The impact is significant: TSIBA’s 1 500 graduates have returned over R250 million to the South African economy.
TSIBA is an accredited not-for-profit higher education institution offering undergraduate and postgraduate business qualifications. In addition to the core subjects crucial to business education, the TSIBA curriculum includes a focus on ‘soft skills’ such as attitude and leadership, as well as entrepreneurship, which is so important in our country where job creation does not happen at the rate needed.
Gia has been a core figure in TSIBA’s history, having been there from 2004, when she worked with some colleagues on creating the framework for what a free-to-student university could look like, soon attracting seed funding from The Shuttleworth Foundation. In 2005 the university took in its first students. Gia explains that she designed the Entrepreneurship curriculum and set up structures for building long-term sustainability through the BBBEE codes. “My main role has been to raise funds and build strategic partnerships – and we have raised over R500 million over the last 20 years.”
The fruits of Gia’s efforts are being seen in the recent acquisition of a new campus known as ‘TSIBA Ndabeni’. Gia explains that, “This fully-owned campus significantly strengthens the TSIBA balance sheet and enhances our financial sustainability. It came at significant cost, though, and so we aim to raise more capital to replenish our reserves.”
On hearing about having been selected as the winner of the Women in Leadership Award, Gia commented, “I am thrilled to accept this award on behalf of the entire TSIBA community who have worked incredibly hard to make this possible, and for TSIBA to be recognised for the work we do to shift the future trajectory of our students and ultimately change the country and its leaders.”
• Published in the December 2023/January 2024 issue – Click here to start reading.
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