Managing Director, MyDough
Thabelo’s passion for entrepreneurship started when she was young, fixing cars with her dad who was a mechanic and learning the ins and outs of selling, service delivery and managing employees. Fuelled by a desire to create impact, she started and co-founded her first business, a restaurant, when she was 19, as a young university student. She has since co-founded several businesses in the logistics, manufacturing, retail and security industries. Her exposure to business made her realise that many particularly black-owned businesses struggled to scale and sadly when the owner passes away, the business closes down − which is what she went through with her dad’s passing.
After witnessing her father’s business close shortly after his passing, she knew that for the rest of her life she would dedicate her service to empowering SMMEs and helping them not only grow and scale their businesses but ensure their sustainability.
Thabelo went on to study an MBA with research on the impact of ESD on SMMEs in the country and how they can be supported. As senior manager at the AGSA, she headed the Enterprise and Supplier Development programme where she supported over 80 black audit firms who now enjoy an annual allocation of over R250 million in audit work on the AGSA’s annual R1 billion budget and has gone to win several industry awards. She also led their contract work procurement process which managed to address a large outcry in the country where black audit firms and professionals were excluded from participation because of stringent tender requirements in the regularity, IT audit and investigations audit areas. Today, over 80% of their over 300 suppliers are black audit firms and professionals.
Thabelo left the AGSA in June 2021 to join MyDough as its first MD. MyDough is an incubator and digital entrepreneurship academy that she grew from one employee to 20 full-time employees today. She currently supports over 2 000 businesses through their digital platform which is available on all app stores and as a desktop app with access to market and sales opportunities, funding, reward programmes for business, business tools, community and networking and mentorship. She has also been instrumental in helping over 1 000 businesses to rebuild in the wake of the July unrests and KZN floods.
Thabelo understands very well that business is hard, and her goal is to become a partner to founders, supporting them where it matters most. These efforts have resulted in over 80% of businesses in their ecosystem survive the COVID-19 pandemic through their agile response strategy.
