Hearing people address her as “Doc” still has a weird ring to it, but it’s something she’ll get used to.
“It’s as though someone will wake me up from a deep slumber; it hasn’t sunk in yet,” says Dr Nkhensani Makhobela, the Deputy Director: Legislature Communication and Stakeholder Management in the Department of Group Communication and Marketing.
Makhobela recently obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree in business administration from the Stafford University in Uganda. She says her studies were inspired by her intrigue by corporate governance in South Africa’s state entities, which she explored in her thesis, with a focus on stakeholder management.
She says the journey wasn’t easy, which makes the achievement a thousand times more worthwhile. It’s something she’s wanted to do for years and is finally able to tick off her bucket list.
“I still can’t believe it. There was so much pressure. The last chapter is challenging. It either breaks or makes you. When I finished it, I cried,” she says, with a sense of elation.
Dr Makhobela is a published author and editor. She has always been passionate about reading, and so a career in writing suited her best, she says. She’d always known she would be a writer. As a child, she was intrigued by what journalists did. She says she considers writing to be her gift, and the broader communication space something she was meant to grow into.
In high school, she was already producing content for the school newsletter. A teacher said she would make a great journalist and that’s how Makhobela was inspired to gain plenty of knowledge to become a proficient writer, leading her to intern at Zimbabwe’s The Herald newspaper.
Dr Makhobela was born in Mamelodi, but after turning 11, she and her family “skipped” the country, forced into a life of exile. She has stayed in Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. She speaks 13 languages.
She wrote her final school examination in Zimbabwe and obtained A-levels in 1986. In 1987, she enrolled for a National Diploma in Mass Communication at Harare Polytechnic. She decided to pursue a BA degree in Political Science and International Relations at the then Rand Afrikaans University (University of Johannesburg) in 1997. She later acquired a Master of Science degree in Media Management from the University of Stirling in Scotland, for which she received a scholarship.
Makhobela has a lust for life and leisure. She’s travelled to the UK, the US, Thailand, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Bogota, Switzerland, and Brazil, including Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.
She loves dancing, cooking, and learning. “I have a love for learning, and I’m intrigued by new things.”
Her mother, Jane, and late father, Eric, instilled a love for learning in her from a young age. “Education for my parents was no compromise. Our dining room tables, wherever we lived, were our study tables. When we were learning Portuguese, we learned it as a family.”
A milestone in her career was when she interviewed former president Nelson Mandela. Her love for stakeholder relations started when she was appointed to Ramano and Associates, which was followed by a prosperous career in communications. She later joined the National Business Association as a stakeholder management communications specialist, where she launched her own company that offered a variety of communication strategies, business rescue, advertising, and marketing.
She joined the City of Joburg in 2006 as a spokesperson for the Executive Mayor at the time, Amos Masondo. For a brief time, she worked in former Executive Mayor Parks Tau’s office before moving to strategic communication to focus on stakeholder management within Group Communication and Marketing.
Makhobela says the beauty of being a doctor is that you can write papers on any topic. For now, she will take a break. A priority in her life is her son, Akanani, who’s starting varsity this year and her role at St Michael’s Anglican Church.
Written by Brümilda Swartbooi
28/01/2022