Amanda Dambuza: Empowering Women, Inspiring Change

Entrepreneur, humanitarian, author, wife, and mother, Amanda Dambuza juggles many roles while mentoring women through her Vastly Sage platform, highlighted by the annual Uplifting Brunch.

When we arrange to meet for brunch midweek, I ask Amanda Dambuza for a time so I can send her a meeting request. In less than a minute of our agreeing on the time, she sends me a meeting request and a venue. I’m floored.

I assumed – and you know what they say about assuming – that she’s so busy she doesn’t do such things herself. But I’m wrong. She may be a busy mother, an author of books, a non-executive director on both listed and private boards, with interests in information technology, property, and leadership development, and the creative mind behind the Vastly Sage talk show on YouTube, amongst many other things, but she’s not the grandiose ‘busy and important’ Joburg executive that she can’t handle some things herself.

“One of the things I’m weary of being turned into is a demi–god. When you are a mentor and literally have people weeping on your chest telling you their life story, there’s a risk of getting an overinflated ego. I’m vigilant about that. What I am is a vessel, my impact doesn’t mean I want to be put on a pedestal. I’m a human being,” she tells me over tea (her) and a flat white (me). The overall winner of the 2017 Veuve Clicquot ELLE Boss award, Amanda also took home the win in the entrepreneurship category as well.

In 2019, she was recognised as one of the top 50 inspiring women by Inspiring Fifty, an initiative in partnership with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, celebrating amazing South African women in tech and innovation. Plus, she was nominated for the 2019 Gender Mainstreaming Awards as a Positive Role Model. Her story of struggle, triumph and success has been documented in her acclaimed books, Therefore I Rose and Baked in Pain, where she shares her incredible journey of overcoming challenges to become an award-winning businesswoman. She’s also the author of a delightful children’s book called A Brave Girl named AYAH, which tackles important topics and brings a sense of hope to young readers.

What started in 2019 as a concept with a working title of “Amanda and Friends” eventually grew into the Vastly Sage Brunch, a space where women come together to get inspired and share knowledge. The intention was to have a premium but soulful experience. The inaugural 2020 event at Signature Restaurant in Johannesburg was part-ticketed and largely self-funded. Amanda explains why, “I was clear on what experience I wanted to create, and since people were putting on masks and being brave coming out, I wanted it to be special and for it to come to life the way I saw it in my mind. I didn’t want to be negotiating with people who don’t get the vision”.

Since then the Vastly Sage Brunch has sold out almost immediately every year, attracting more than 500 women from all walks of life.

Veuve Clicquot and YourLuxury Africa return as partners with Kitchen Aid Africa, Telkom’s Enterprise Development Programme, Future Makers and Telkom Business, also contributing to the event which will be held on 16 November at the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Rivonia. “The key component to strong partnerships is trust and putting our audience first, so I am delighted to welcome new partners this year,” says Amanda. One of these new partners is pharmaceutical, MSD South Africa, with a groundbreaking HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine, which Dr Mpume Zenda will touch on during her talk about women’s sexual health.