PIVOT POINT: Monalisa Zwambila, the owner of Riverbed

Monalisa Zwambila owns and manages what is probably South Africa’s largest independent, black-woman-owned advertising agency. Over the last decade, R\VERBED (Riverbed) has emerged as a medium-sized agency with revenue well above R50m and 40 employees, placing the agency in league with similar-sized agencies, such as Grey Africa, Saatchi & Saatchi and Net#work BBDO. Year-on-year revenue growth in 2015 stood at 26%, 13% in 2016 and is projected to hit 35% in 2017, pushing it into to the R70m–R100m revenue tier. Zwambila studied accounting but her passion had always been music. She was a member of jazz band Basadi and music allowed her to access her creative side. Her first business was a recording and production studio, where she was fortunate enough to record the late, great Nana Coyote and, in doing so, was exposed to the marketing side of the business. At this point, she moved into P