Professor Thuli Madonsela was one of the speakers at the JSE SheInvests conference 2025 as she is featured as a contributor in the JSE developed Coffee Table book, Architects of Influence: Women in Business.
We caught up with her at the event as she reflected on some of the early decisions that shaped her career and shared her vision of what the future could look like if women had equal investment opportunities.
When asked about key career decisions, Prof. Madonsela emphasized the importance of taking initiative. “One of the key decisions was never waiting for permission to lead,” she said. “I started volunteering while I was in Law School, and during that time I also learnt to listen to my own voice. One of the bigger decisions I made early on was to establish what my purpose in life was.”
She added that while volunteering opened many doors, discernment was just as important. “Primarily, I’d say yes to a lot of volunteering — but I also learnt to say no to opportunities that weren’t aligned. Volunteering shouldn’t be dismissed. It gives you two things: skills and opportunities.”
Looking ahead, we asked Prof. Madonsela what the future might look like if young women had equal access to investment. She highlighted the need for women to become conscious capitalists and social impact investors.
“The first thing I’d like women to invest in is to be the kinds of venture capitalists who are conscious capitalists and who are social impact capitalists. I see women investing in manufacturing of things that families and communities can use. I think a lot of our investments right now are into things that are from other countries which is great but to invest in building our productive industries. I see tech, I don’t think we have enough young women in tech, so the women my age who have money should be the kind of venture capitalists who are looking at how do we invest in young people who are coming up.”
As the Director of the Centre for Social Justice at Stellenbosch University amongst many other roles, she also underlined the importance of investing in technologies that shape equitable policies.
“At Stellenbosch, one of the things that we suggested to the government is investing in technologies that can predict the impact of policies. A lot of our policies worsen poverty and inequality but that’s a straight bullet; it’s not the intent, it intends to shoot something else but keeps worsening. But if we invest in young people who build tools such as the Social Justice Assessment Matrix, we make sure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, accidentally.”
