When I asked Faith Mangope how she would like to be introduced to Nounouche’s readers, her response set the tone for what would be an inspirational, moving and empowering conversation between me and the Metro FM Talk host. 

“My name is Faith Mangope. I am a broadcaster on the radio as well as on television. I am a businesswoman with an interest in property and the tech space. I’m also the founder of the Faith Mangope Technology and Leadership Institute, which is a technology and leadership institute designed to equip both girls and boys with tech skills that allow them to be competent in the working environment…I’m somebody that really just tries to do the best that I can and add value to the world wherever it is that I can. I do believe that the personal brand that I aspire to have and that I am cultivating for myself with intentionality is one of leadership. 

I think that leadership has still got a very open gap within the market but I’ve also taken the understanding that in order for you to be an effective leader, You have to be able to serve first and you have to be able to be a contributor to society first. So mine is to contribute in any way that I can, whether it’s through a technology and leadership institute, whether it’s through job creation, whether it’s through community engagement and involvement, whether it’s through politics. So that we can have better leaders not only within our country but also within our continent. So, I would love it when people look at me to see not just a person who’s an entrepreneur, not just a person who runs a technology institute, but a person who is a leader, a leader of today, and a leader of tomorrow.”

The founder of FTA Media Communications and FMTALI Tech’s passion for uplifting those around her was evident in the way she spoke about contributing to society and leading through giving back. A sentiment I felt should be echoed by our current political leaders — but I digress. Faith’s resolve to truly create a better world in any way wasn’t just evident in her words but also in the way she talked about why she founded two organisations in the Technology industry. 

“My heartbeat is being able to create sustainable employment opportunities. Mine is to make sure that people are able to feed their families and people are able to provide for their families. I come from a background where there was a time in my life when both of my parents could not provide. And I come from a space where I know what it’s like to be in a space of lack. I know what it’s like to be in a space where you don’t have anything in the fridge — and to have that dignity removed. I truly believe that there’s something undignified about somebody not being able to put food on the table. It strips away at a man, it strips away a woman’s dignity. So mine is to be able to establish dignity or to really encourage dignity and find a way of creating dignity amongst our people by giving them employment opportunities, but by making them employable themselves. Because employment opportunities just don’t fall from the sky. You have to be employable as an individual. 

So, how do we make people more employable so that we can instil dignity within families, particularly black families? Because those are the most vulnerable in society. Society has identified black African women as the most vulnerable. Those black African women are raising two to three children at a time. And a lot of them are single parents. A lot of them don’t know where the next meal is going to come from, and that’s by heartbeat. How do we create autonomy within our people? How do we create an economic drive within our people that allows us to make people employable as well? The goal is self-determination but self-determination only comes through dignity. If I know I’ve got the power to determine my tomorrow and my future, I’m then working with dignity and confidence. In fact, it speaks to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, once I’ve got my basic needs met, of food, water and shelter, I can now start the process of self-actualizing and becoming a better person. But I can’t self-actualize if I’m still dealing with bread-and-butter issues. So my contribution is to really, how do we start being practical in getting rid of the bread and butter issues so that people can start realising their fullest potential and subsequently gain full autonomy?”

It was at this point that I commented that it would do South Africa well for Faith to become our first female president — hence the title of this article — and she shared that despite being a powerful figure in the media and technology space, she has a degree in International Relations and Industrial Psychology so politics has always been on the radar. Although she once had aspirations of becoming a Diplomat or an HR Specialist, Media found Faith. Faith disliked media studies and once received 33% for the subject but she was led to a career in broadcasting. A gentle reminder that academic results are not the be-all and end-all of our futures. 

“I think that Destiny finds you and Faith finds you. That [broadcasting] potential in me was unlocked by Primedia Broadcasting when I was in my second year of university. They spotted me and they really groomed me until I could then elevate to different spaces. So, I started with broadcasting on quite a practical level where I was fully immersed in the media space. I’m a lover of tech – I do believe tech is the future. I had the opportunity to visit Georgia Tech in Atlanta and see how tech changes the world and changes the way that we are doing things. I also got an opportunity to study entrepreneurship at the University of Texas in Austin in 2014 and that was through the Mandela Washington Fellowship program. So, when you go through these kinds of levels of exposure, you don’t become the same again. 

What you do is you start asking yourself pertinent questions like, how am I going to change the world? What am I gonna do to be an effective change-maker? What am I gonna do to be an effective leader? So I’m just utilising the platforms that I see there are opportunities for growth and opportunities for wealth creation and opportunities for employment creation and taking advantage of those spaces. So, my background was politics, you know, I love politics, but maybe politics will find me once again.”

I for one, would find great comfort in South Africa being led by someone with this overwhelming sense of goodness and desire to empower people and consequently, empower communities. I was also touched by Faith’s vulnerability in sharing that she has experienced extreme poverty and understands what it means to have nothing. I think this is something that has allowed Faith to become such an incredible human being – no, I’m not romanticising poverty – I just think it’s important that Faith has not forgotten where she comes from. She has an awareness of the inner work that needs to be done for true liberation amongst marginalised groups, she wants everyone to have the opportunity to become the best versions of themselves but realises that the dire economic realities of the majority are a barrier to that. 

“If you had to ask me “What do you want?” “What’s the end goal?” I would say that it’s to be the first female president of the Republic. But I know that for me to be the first female president of the Republic, I need to be able to be a servant of the people first. I think some politicians want us to follow them, but they’ve got nothing to show about what they’ve contributed to society. I think that when you are an effective politician, you’re somebody that can say, this is my track record, this is what I’ve done, and I’ve done that without a political landscape. I’ve done that just by being me. So serving is something that is within me and I truly believe we need more leaders who want to serve instead of more leaders who want to be served.”

Having transitioned from Power 98.7 to her current roles at Metro FM Talk and ENCA, Faith shared that she has been able to acknowledge or discover that the true essence of broadcasting in any shape or form comes down to one’s ability to build a human connection. 

“You have to be real. These spaces have allowed me to have a platform to connect and I genuinely care. “I care about the type of day that you have. I care about what is going on in your world. I care about the issues that are stressing you out. I have been able to find that link of connectivity for people so that they feel as though they’ve got an outlet through the radio. Traditional media, whether it’s through television, whether it’s through radio, has got the opportunity to change people’s perspectives, has got the opportunity to educate, has the opportunity to entertain, has got the opportunity to inform. What needs to start happening is that we need broadcasters that are intentional about all of those things. And I think we understand the power of the media. I mean, if you have 4.5 million people listening to you at a time, you take that kind of responsibility very seriously. 

You understand that “I’ve got the microphone that can change people’s lives and the outcomes of the future just by being able to connect with people.” And I think that becomes an imperative. So all the roles I’ve held have helped me understand the importance of media, the importance of communication, the importance of effective communication, and also the importance of being real because people wanna speak to a person that’s real. Someone that goes through things and struggles just like them. To be able to connect with somebody and say, you know what? You understand my pain, you empathise with my pain, and therefore I know that you will try your level best to find a solution for my pain.”

Faith also shared how she always keeps her pulse on current affairs and socio-political issues by being online and reading what people are tweeting, posting on TikTok and sharing on their Instagram pages or Facebook feeds. She is always engaging with people about their thoughts on the country’s economic climate so that she can have more meaningful conversations with the millions of people that tune in to her shows. Moreover, Mangope’s humility shone through this interview when she revealed that she will never judge or undermine anyone’s circumstances because she is not above anything or anyone. “That’s just the human experience, you have to be able to be vulnerable to it. I’m not too big for any form of experience. I’m not too big to go through a miscarriage. I’m not too big to go have a boy not like me.  I’m not too big to go through being dumped. I welcome these kinds of experiences because they make me more relatable. I’m not immune to not knowing what it’s like to not have anything in the fridge, because for a very long time in my life, I didn’t know that. So, when I speak about poverty, I don’t speak about it from an academic perspective through a thesis. I speak about it from the perspective of I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt and graduated from it. Vulnerability to the human experience makes one unique but relatable.”

As we came to the end of our fruitful discussion, I asked Faith what message she would like to leave readers, particularly the youth, and what legacy she would like to leave behind. She gave a passionate and powerful response, “I want to create conversations that empower and build this nation. I’m a patriot first. I’m so proud of South Africa and I love my country because the truth is I don’t want to go anywhere else. Yes, I love to travel but I wanna come home and South Africa is my home. I often realise that if South Africa is the only home I’ve got, then we’ve got a responsibility to make sure that those that are in government are governing this country right because it’s our home.  If they mess it up, they’re messing it up for us. Where are we going to live?  I’ve got the options, but I don’t want to live anywhere else. I want to live at home. So, we have to make sure that as young people, we are also conscious of the fact that South Africa is our home, that we are conscious that if we don’t vote for a leadership that will make sure that our home is kept proper, we will lose our home. If we don’t like who is in charge of our home, we can take them out. We need to know that we’ve got the power to take out those that do not treat our home with the respect that it deserves. We’ve got the right to vote for people that treat our home with the respect that it deserves.

Sometimes I describe younger people as “woke giants,” because sometimes they sleep, especially when it comes to politics. And if young people understood that  64% or 65% of this country comprises the youth, This country of ours is more youth than it is adults and if the youth decided, hang on a second, we will decide who is in leadership. We will decide who is in power by simply voting. They can change the history of this country by just simply voting because South Africa is governed and run by young people. It’s just that young people don’t realise that. We don’t just run groove, we don’t just run music genres. We run this country. Our politicians won’t tell you that you run this country because if they made you realise how much power you have, you’ll be able to say, I can put you in power, but in five years, if you mess up my home, I can take you out. We need young South Africans to realise that any revolution was never started by adults. A revolution was usually started by young people, who said, “You are messing up our home.” If I can inculcate that message amongst young people in this country, whether through radio, whether through television, then I can sleep at night because I know that I’ve reinvigorated the spirit of helping young people understand that they are the true leaders of this country.

I would love my name to live for a thousand generations because of the good that I added to this world. So if it’s through building hospitals, which one day I would love to do, because I advocate for good quality healthcare, or it’s through building more schools or it’s through creating more employment opportunities. If my name can live for a thousand generations because of the good that I did. I  will rest in peace forever and it starts by us doing something positive. So my deepest desire is to live for a thousand generations through the work that I do.”