Adrian Gore started Discovery in 1992 with seed-funding of R10 million from merchant banking group, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), as a health insurance company within the RMB stable. By 2009, Discovery had become a large, listed, financial services institution employing more than 5,000 people and comprising not only Discovery Health (DH), but also Discovery Life (DL), Discovery Invest (DI) and Discovery Vitality (a wellness programme).

The case illustrates a number of practical marketing issues: the marketing challenges of launching a budget airline: gaining high visibility and awareness with a relatively low share of voice; the relationship between an organisation and its advertising agency; the requirement to maintain a consistent marketing strategy over time, but to adapt the execution as market dynamics impact the consumer. Given the dynamics of most industries, kulula.com cannot afford to be complacent, as new entrants are always on the horizon.

In February 2009, Justin Smith, manager of the good business journey at Woolworths, a leading South African department store, was a worried man. Woolworths had launched its five-year sustainability strategy just under two years before. After undertaking an impact assessment, Smith was concerned that the original targets – which covered transformation, social development, the environment and climate change – had been set without a clear understanding of exactly what it would take to achieve them.

MTN was launched in 1994 as a leading provider of communication services, offering cellular network access and business solutions. After building up a successful operation in South Africa, achieving a market share of some 38 per cent (second only to Vodacom, the dominant mobile telecommunications provider), the group began its expansion into the rest of Africa in 1998. It was the first South African cell phone network operator to do so.

In August 2019, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the African Leadership University (ALU), Fred Swaniker, and co-founder and former chief operating officer (COO), Khurram Masood, considered how to ensure the sustainability of ALU and its vision: to develop three million high-calibre, ethical leaders in Africa by 2035. ALU’s innovative business model aimed at solving Africa’s challenges by instilling good leadership values and an entrepreneurial mindset in its students. 

In July 2018, Donné Nicol, outgoing chief executive officer (CEO) of the Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation, considered how to manage her exit, as she would hand over to Mmabatho Maboya, the new CEO, in September 2018. Nicol, who had worked closely with Ramaphosa since 1991, had helped to establish all his philanthropic initiatives. She had been CEO of the Foundation since 2015, and executive director of its predecessor, the Shanduka Foundation since its inception in 2004.

In July 2020, Charlene Lackay, group corporate social investment (CSI) manager at financial services group, Momentum Metropolitan Holdings (Momentum Metropolitan) was considering how best to monitor and evaluate the activities of the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation volunteer programme. Pressure on funding made it critical to provide evidence of what the programme was achieving.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began having a devastating impact on the Egyptian economy and people, and Noura Selim, executive director of the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD), considered how the foundation should address the needs of the most marginalised populations. Up until then, SFSD had largely focused on improving the lives of poor people through education, and social and economic empowerment programmes.

By June 2019, Janet Mawiyoo, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Kenya Community Development Foundation (KCDF), and her executive team had reached the conclusion that it was no longer viable for the Foundation, which carried out the organisation’s development activities, to be so integrally involved in the operations of the investment activities of the KCDF Trust, the latter having been established in the mid-2000s to manage and grow the assets of the Foundation.

At the beginning of September 2023, Dr Judy Dlamini, the founder and chair of the Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF), reflected on FALF’s progress in its pursuit of transformation in academia. Formed in 2020, FALF was an independent, registered, non-profit company that aimed specifically to empower black and coloured women from South Africa to progress into academic leadership at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).