he man is a star – whether he’s a rising one or one that is already shooting, I’ll let you be the judge. A baby in Zambia, a toddler in Scotland, a school boy in Botswana and now an achiever in South Africa – you would battle to find a better argument for a world view in one’s developmental years. I am talking about Musa Kalenga, a familiar face on local television and other media who recently acquired the title of SA’s youngest Chartered Marketer. “I am the middle child in a family of five children. We lived in various countries before relocating to Hillbrow in 1994. It was difficult to adjust; our car was stolen shortly after arrival prompting us to move to Windsor. There was a lot of tension between black and white kids back then and I found myself acting as mediator in school all the time. Having been in Scotland, I was not troubled by issues such as race allowing me to focus on studies which earned me a scholarship to Lonehill College and not too long after, entry into Wits for a BCom (Bachelor of Commerce) degree.”
of which were spent travelling to their countries of origin. The group began hosting parties at Wits and grew rapidly prompting Kalenga to think about scaling it down and finding a clear purpose. “I became chairman of the Youth Advertising Board of South Africa while still at Wits. The experience gave me a chance to interact with the marketing fraternity and I soon realized that big corporates did not know how to market to young people. I thought this was a gap Monatefellaz could fill and set it up as a marketing consultancy. I got my first client when Richard Branson came into the country with Virgin Money and their partners ABSA approached me to help them,” he recalls. At the age of 24, Kalenga employed about six people under Monatefellaz which experienced phenomenal growth as a result of the company’s unique understanding
experts in the youth market but I had the desire to scale up our operations by securing lucrative business that is government work. But as the only shareholder, it was difficult to do this as we could never obtain a rating that is higher than BEE Level 3. This made me more amicable to the idea of a buyout when my mentor Thebe Ikalafeng approached me through his Brand Leadership Group. The transaction was completed this year and Monatefellaz in essence became part of their I-Hop division with me heading up the division.” Kalenga recently completed the Chartered Marketer qualification through the Wits Business School. He explains that one needs ten to fifteen years of marketing experience to be awarded the qualification. He however successfully challenged this pre-requisite in an interview to get into the programme making him the youngest person in South Africa to possess the qualification at the age of 26.
“A baby in Zambia, a toddler in Scotland, a At such a school boy in Botswana and now an achiever in young age, Kalenga SA – you would battle to find a better argument has been the subject for a world view in one’s developmental years.” of various
While at Wits, Kalenga and a group of about fifteen other foreign students set-up Monatefellaz, a website where they posted anecdotes from their holidays, most
of the youth market. “What we preached was that the speed of change in the youth market happens a lot quicker,” he explains, “The mistake companies make is that if they are doing a strategy now, they are using information gathered last year. For the youth market, that data is probably already outdated.We were
features on radio, TV and in online and print media. He has been featured on M-Nets Carte Blanche, was one of the bloggers for The Economist and has been profiled in various magazines including Drum, YOU and Destiny Man. On DSTV, he was the host of a breakfast show on channel 114 called Africa Awakes and later hosted his own talk show known
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