Sonja De Bruyn, co-founder and principal partner of Johannesburg-based investment firm Identity Capital Partners, told an audience at Nelson Mandela University on 12 August that South Africa’s core problem is not a shortage of economic potential but a scarcity of leaders willing to act on it. Delivering the university’s annual Raymond Mhlaba Institutional Public Lecture in Gqeberha, De Bruyn moved the accountability question squarely onto institutions and the people who run them.
The lecture, titled Ubuntu, Governance and Shared Prosperity: Building an Economy that Works for All, placed institutional integrity at the center of the country’s economic transformation debate. Drawing on nearly three decades in investment banking, private equity and corporate governance, De Bruyn argued that leadership quality becomes most consequential precisely when uncertainty is highest, when decision-making clarity and organisational resilience are under the greatest strain.
Her definition of leadership was deliberate and specific. “Good and strong leadership has a vision and a plan for getting from point A to point B, even if it’s not in a straight line,” she said. “It has resilience, it has courage and it has adaptability.” Crucially, she rejected the idea that effective leadership requires complete information. “You don’t always have perfect information, and you don’t always know what the outcome is going to be. But you’ve got to make decisions, as best you can with the information at hand, and keep moving.”
South Africa’s unemployment crisis occupied a central part of her analysis. De Bruyn identified low growth, inadequate investment, infrastructure failures, weak state capacity, corruption and educational shortcomings as the structural drivers of joblessness. By framing the problem as systemic rather than cyclical, she redirected accountability toward institutional performance and governance standards, not external economic headwinds.
Governance, in her account, is the mechanism through which those structural obstacles can be dismantled. She connected stronger institutions and trustworthy stewardship of public resources directly to investment, growth and employment outcomes. Fighting corruption, she argued, goes beyond recovering lost funds. It requires rebuilding institutional credibility and restoring investor confidence. South Africa, she said, needs more ambitious governance standards and the leadership courage to enforce them.
Meanwhile, De Bruyn was careful not to reduce her argument to a catalogue of failures. She identified the country’s people, sound financial infrastructure, abundant natural resources and economic resilience as foundational strengths. She pointed to national diversity, generosity of spirit and the concept of Ubuntu as attributes that distinguish South Africa even amid its difficulties.
She also addressed the obligation of those already in positions of influence to develop the next generation of leaders rather than consolidate personal advantage. Her message to women in leadership was direct: “When you get into the room, hold the door open for the next woman. Don’t close it behind you.” Mentoring and sharing experience, she argued, are not optional gestures but essential mechanisms for building the capable leadership the country requires.
Respondents at the lecture extended her institutional critique into concrete service delivery terms. Ambassador Nozipho January-Bardill, former Chairperson of Nelson Mandela University Council, argued that Ubuntu principles must translate into functioning institutions that deliver basic services, pointing to failures in water, sanitation, electricity and waste management as direct impediments to community potential and national resilience. Nelson Mandela University Vice-Chancellor Professor Sibongile Muthwa described the annual lecture series as a platform for thought leaders who challenge conventional thinking and stimulate dialogue. Faculty of Humanities Executive Dean Professor Pamela Maseko highlighted De Bruyn’s significance as a Black woman occupying an influential space in South Africa’s economy and business leadership.
De Bruyn, whose parents are from the Eastern Cape, also conducted a student masterclass hosted by the Raymond Mhlaba Centre for Governance and Leadership, where she examined the country’s transformation policies alongside the obstacles and opportunities facing young South Africans. Whether those young South Africans will find institutions capable of meeting them halfway remains the open question her lecture left on the table.