CEO and Founder of Kwandiso Consulting │ Co-founder of Langa Siphe Foundation
Ayanda started Kwandiso Consulting as a sole proprietor with a keen focus on SMMEs, women-owned businesses and governance. Kwandiso has grown beyond her wildest expectations. Kwandiso is a business that is unapologetically about women, driving financial inclusion and showing entrepreneurs that CAs are not only for elite businesses, that governance is a way of life rather than an event, and that we have to be intentional in our decision-making. Kwandiso has a notable township economy drive, because this is regarded as the forgotten economy. They also provide pro bono services for organisations in the non-profit sector.
Ayanda was recognised by Brightest Young Minds (BYM) as one of their 100 Brightest Young Minds of 2021. BYM is an organisation that recognises youth that are proactive in solving socio-economic issues facing the African continent. She was appointed to the board of directors for BYM in 2022.
In 2022, she was honoured as a finalist in the Gender Mainstreaming Awards by RMB, Accenture and Business Engage in the category ‘Positive Role Model’. She also sits on the Audit and Risk committees of Equal Education and Wesgro.
Following a life-changing loss, Ayanda co-founded an organisation called Langa Siphe focusing on the lost and forgotten women and children of Africa. The organisation fights for them, their rights, their livelihoods, their dignity, their education and their happiness, and provides mentorship, coaching and educational programmes to them. They also adopted Zanokhanyo Children’s Safety Home in Khayelitsha, which is a home for abandoned children. For her 31st birthday, Ayanda ‘adopted’ 31 kids, with family and friends donating towards the cause.
Ayanda believes she is about to leave a lasting legacy. She is a CA that has managed to find innovative ways to marry qualification to purpose. She has used her profession to ignite a remembrance of the last, the least and the lost. She has used the hat that she wears as a CA to open doors for others − to encourage, protect and promote.
Her story is an integral part of her journey of leadership. In Ayanda’s words: ‘Who I am as a leader is inextricable from who I am as a professional, a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an employer, a businesswoman, an activist and a speaker … at the very core of who I am as Ayanda. As a leader, I am allowing myself to be vulnerable and vulnerably honest with myself, with those I lead, with those who lead me, with the world which breaks me and mends me over and over again, and with people who I am called to serve.’
