Natural hair entrepreneur Sonto Pooe also built her company by questioning an industry norm. Nativechild emerged from a childhood experience that left her searching for healthier alternatives for textured hair long before the natural hair movement became mainstream. Today, the brand sits on shelves alongside multinational competitors, demonstrating that locally developed beauty products can compete on quality while speaking directly to African consumers.<\/p>\n
Sustainability entrepreneur Xolile Mabuza has turned discarded rubber tubes into premium fashion accessories through Tendalo Trading. Her work reflects a growing shift among South African entrepreneurs towards circular economies, where environmental responsibility is embedded in the business model rather than treated as an afterthought.<\/p>\n
If the Bold Woman finalists represent businesses that have matured, the Bold Future finalists reveal where the next generation of entrepreneurship may be headed.<\/p>\n
Technology features prominently.<\/p>\n
Pretty Kubyane’s eFama platform uses artificial intelligence and data to connect farmers with buyers, while Tshaamano Mabuba’s BuddyAI is bringing multilingual tutoring to WhatsApp, making AI-powered education accessible to learners who might never use expensive learning platforms.<\/p>\n
Maambele Khosa’s women-led e-hailing service, SheCab, responds to one of South Africa’s most urgent social realities: women’s safety. By employing women throughout the business, the platform is as much about creating economic opportunities as it is about changing how women experience public transport.<\/p>\n
“One of my SheCab drivers received a life-changing career opportunity through a passenger she met during a ride,” Khosa says. “That’s when I realised SheCab is not just a transport service. It’s a space where women see each other and choose to lift each other up.”<\/p>\n
Perhaps that is what distinguishes this year’s finalists. Their businesses are personal but they are designed to solve collective problems. They emerge from moments of vulnerability, frustration or exclusion, yet scale the experiences into enterprises capable of creating jobs, changing industries and expanding access.<\/p>\n
The winners of the 2026 Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award and Bold Future Award will be announced on 15 July. But beyond the eventual trophies, this year’s finalists point to a broader shift in South African entrepreneurship \u2014 one where boldness is measured less by risk-taking alone and more by the willingness to build businesses that respond to the realities people live every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natural hair entrepreneur Sonto Pooe also built her company by questioning an industry norm. Nativechild emerged from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[45,49,48,137,140,282479,282481,282484,53021,282480,5685,282482,282478,75549,282483],"class_list":["post-802595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-innovation","tag-lindiwe-nkuna-kgopa","tag-nativechild","tag-pretty-kubyane","tag-social-impact","tag-sonto-pooe","tag-south-africa","tag-tendalo-trading","tag-veuve-clicquot-bold-woman-awards","tag-women-entrepreneurs","tag-xolile-mabuza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}