- EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW How do you look back at your professional journey traversed thus far? Could you share some of the experiences you've had that really stick out for you? Also, what are your key learnings? My professional journey is one that I have curated with intent. I am transformational in nature and so I have never had one role longer than 4 years. I go into an organization and disrupt it positively and then move on. I get bored by normalcy and have never been able to do business as usual work. Mediocrity is simply not my thing. I don’t do coasting and surviving on the sidelines. The day I feel like not getting up to work is the day I resign. I like to see the impact of my work in the lives of the populations I serve. I like to improve on the argument of the organizations I choose to work for. I choose where I want to work and with intent, I pursue
Matlhogonolo Mponang
opportunities there. I am past the point of applying for roles I
I understood that it was not personal. It was needed to
am not headhunted for and I am headhunted on a weekly basis. And I do not say this to brag. It is a statement of fact.
get him and his organization where he wanted it to go and
I love my current job. I am not moving anytime soon because
still am for the exposure he afforded me the organization
it was his right to shape it as he did. Grateful as I was and ceased to serve my purpose. It stopped deserving the
it is an amazing place to work with so much content and I am
privilege of my time. We often feel that we are being
a content junkie. I consume knowledge by the minute. I am
done a favor by being kept employed but no- we choose
not good at small talk. If you cannot dialogue in an elevated
where we go and we should. I have never looked back. I
fashion I book out and switch off. So I cannot occupy spaces that do not challenge my own assumptions. I am a learner and can only work for people that are invested in my exposure, so
have hired so many people that I spotted as talent and most of them are ExCo in many organizations across industries- I consider that to be my greatest professional
that I in turn can do the same for others. I delegate to the
achievement- the uplift of others to get to the places that
point of abdication because I want those I leave behind
many are told they will never get to and to sit in chairs
empowered, well informed and enabled to take after me. I am
around tables that were in the past reserved for those
also a doer, so I do not do well in spaces of verbose architecture. I think that the world is full of empty talk.
with social connections.
We need to DO. I have walked away from talking boardrooms
I consider myself the voice of the slave and downtrodden.
that do nothing. I do not want my legacy to be that of failure
In me is an abiding belief that anyone from anywhere can be anything they choose to be. I am passionate about
and so I run away from inertia faster than Nigel Amos can run
social justice and have been vilified for my stance to go
a race. I also cannot survive environments where I am
against the grain. Some within the media in particular
not able to speak my mind. My expression of self is true
have attempted to present me in a prism that only they
freedom and so I cannot work in spaces where I am expected
can understand but I will never change. Anyone can write
to grin and bear it. That would not be me and it would kill me. Like literally I would die a silent death.
whatever fiction they want about me but I am going to
I was a junior manager at 26 years at Botswana
proud of the fact that I open doors to ALL. That is the
stay focused on that which is bigger and better. I am
Telecommunications Corporation and from that time I set my sights on ExCo level roles. I managed to get into an ExCo team at 28 at the Local Enterprise Authority and when Tebogo Matome hired a new ExCo team and relegated us to
greatest marker of my career. I actively fight against the notion that certain spaces are for certain people. I abhor that notion and am immediately dismissive of all things elitist.
middle management positions I left. FUTURELAB MAGAZINE
- 0 3 -
VOLUME 02
