A respected brand and reputation authority, Thebe Ikalafeng has been named one of the ‘100 Most Influential Africans’ by New African Magazine. He has travelled to over 50 countries across Africa and the world and worked on over 100 brands, gaining an incomparable perspective and experience on building brands and reputations in Africa.

During a distinguished corporate career that started at Colgate Palmolive in New York and culminated at Nike as group marketing director for Africa, Thebe led Nike to the status of number-one brand across Africa, grew the business by over 450% and earned over 75 local and global awards.

Since establishing Brand Leadership in 2002, he has led over 100 brands across all spheres, including places, institutions, products and political brands such as Brand Ghana and Brand South Africa, Transnet in South Africa, University of South Africa and University of Botswana, Zanaco Bank in Zambia, Mail&Guardian Africa in Kenya, Africa Green Revolution Forum in Tanzania and Ethiopia, and the successful political branding campaigns for Presidents Atta Mills and John Mahama of Ghana in 2008 and 2012 respectively.

Thebe is a non-executive director of Mercantile Bank Holdings, Brand South Africa, WWF South Africa (WorldWideFund for Nature), South African Tourism, and chairman of Brand Finance Africa, a division of Brand Finance plc. He is the Founder & Chairman of the Brand Africa and Public Sector Excellence initiatives, and founder of the Brand Africa 100: The Most Valuable Brands in Africa.

Under Thebe’s guidance, Brand Leadership has been recognized as Marketing Services Agency of the Year by Fin Week (South Africa) and with several global awards for Effective Brand Transformations by REBRAND 100 (USA).

He has been recognised as one of the Top 10 Thinkers in Marketing in an Ipsos survey among business decision-makers in Southern Africa and one of the Top 10 Africans to follow on Twitter by How We Made It In Africa.

Thebe holds BSc and MBA degrees from Marquette University in the USA after attending Wits Business School and Harvard Business School. He is a qualified Chartered Marketer (SA).