User:BraWillySeyama/sandbox

Bra Willy Seyama is an entrepreneur, data analytics enthusiast, author and thought leader who is recognized for sharing of valuable insights across the continent through long-form blogs on digital trends, articles, media appearances, and YouTube videos. In addition, he is increasingly involved in numerous public initiatives to contribute towards meaningful Black economic transformation of the Marketing, Advertising and Communication (MAC) industry.

Early Life and Education

Bra Willy Seyama was born on 28 July 1968 in Sharpeville, 70 kilometres south of Johannesburg. He identified the need to be educated from an early age in order to free himself from the shackles of Apartheid and to achieve greatness, leading to the following academic record:

Matriculation: Mohloli Secondary School, Sharpeville, 1987 Bachelor of Commerce (BCom): Wits University, 1992 Master of Business Administration (MBA): Pretoria University, 2005

His academic journey equipped him with a strong sense of self-confidence to choose his own path, and the discipline to pursue his dreams.

Bra Willy’s curious mind has led to him calling himself an eternal student. He fully embraces continuous learning, and he argues that, while some form of education is important, people do not need education to be learned, and to succeed in their pursuits. For him, every new experience - be it physical, emotional, or psychological - provides opportunity for the curious mind to learn.

Formal employment journey

Before venturing into entrepreneurship, Bra Willy cut his teeth in the corporate world.

Here is his formal employment timeline: 1993: His first employer was SA Breweries, where he spent 10 years in various parts of the business including warehousing, distribution, trade marketing, brand marketing, channel marketing and consumer development. 2003: His was appointed as head of marketing for affordable coffee and coffee creamer at AVI (previously known as National Brands). 2006: His last formal employment was at Telesure Investment Holdings, as head of new business development.

He left the corporate world at the end of 2008 to pursue his entreprenenurship dreams.

Entrepreneurship

Bra Willy Seyama has been an entrepreneur for over 14 years. He is best known for having founded and continues to lead a boutique digital content solutions and data analytics company called eNitiate.

eNitiate has done work for clients in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria. Over the years, the company’s profile of clients has included Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB, Kenya), FNB (Botswana), Bank of Uganda, Social Media Week Lagos (Nigeria), National Department of Health (South Africa), The Fincial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA, South Africa), and the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa).

In 2022, Bra Willy co-founded an online funeral insurance company called Voyse online burial insurance. The other co-founder is his daughter - Tebello Seyama.

Voyse, FSP 52995, is underwritten by KGA Life, authrised insurer that has been in business since 1986.

Voyse’s focus is on providing funeral insurance services primarily to the 25-34 year-olds, the segment of the South African population that is underseved by traditional insurers, and who are the leading age group for internet usage in the country.

Voyse has the most comprehensive suite of free complementary funeral products in South Africa, which include a burial programme platform with over 25 free templates that can be customised, and over 40 recorded African gospel songs that can be listened to, all for free on the Voyse website.

Online content publishing

Bra Willy Seyama is an avid author with many blogs and articles to his name. Most of his published writings can be found on the eNitiate website, where he shares insights on key digital trends taking shape on the continent.

He also occasionally publishes on the Black Agencies and BANA websites.

Bra Willy has championed the development of videos for and has been managing both his own and eNitiate Youtube channels since 2011 and 2013 respectively.

Since October 2022, he has focused his attention on the development of video content for and managing the Voyse Youtube channel.

Thought Leadership

Bra Willy Seyama has appeared on South African media and other public forums talking about various digital technology and communication topics over the years. The media he appeared on include SABC 2, eTV, ANN7, News Room Africa, and SAFM.

With the genrative AI gaining steam, Bra Willy is increasingly paying close attention to this emerging technology, and he is featured on Joburg Pulse, an internet radio channel for the Johannesburg Metropolitan Area, on the first Thursday of each month to chat about trends related to AI.

Passions

Bra Willy’s curious mind has led him to launch various initiatives over the last 14 years.

The initiatives worth mentions are the following: eNitiate Visual Radio, 2015. Years before online radio or podcasts became popular, Bra Willy launched an initiative he termed eNitiate Visual Radio. The name was derived from the saying that radio is the channel for creating theatre of the mind. eNitiate Visual Radio was a weekly slot on the Internet radio, which was used to interview people across the African continent on digital trends and other related topics. African Languages Matter, 2018. Digital Marketing Skill in Africa Audit, 2020. Digital South Africa Today, 2022. Bra Willy launched an initiative in 2022. The idea is to demonstrate that South Africa is one of the data-rich countries in the world. One of the digital assets for the initiative is the website by the same name, and for this initiative can be found

Founding member of BANA

Bra Willy Seyama co-founded Black Agencies Network Association (BANA) - a lobby group for Black economic transformation in the marketing, advertising and communication (MAC) industry - in 2022.

BANA was established in 2022, inspired by the finding that only 2% of media spend went to Black anegcies in 2021, pointing to the fact that the MAC industry is not transforming despite 27 years of political democratic rule led by the ANC in South Africa.

BANA is the largest lobby group in the MAC industry in South Africa with over 50 registered agencies, according to an internal industry audit that was performed in August of 2023.

BANA, a member of Black Business Council, actively lobbied the MAC Charter Council - the industry body appointed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies and tasked with the review of the current MAC BEE transformation codes - during the public hearings that culminated in the recommendations that, if passed, will remarkably favour Black-owned agencies.

Bra Willy Seyama’s Top 10 Quotes

Our seemingly down moments can serve as the best moments for (re)invention. You choose. Where there’s (Bra) Will(y), there has to be a way. My biggest fear is not dying, or public speaking. My biggest fear is not having agency. Don’t allow anyone who does not see or believe in your vision to influence it in any way. In the world of data, experience is at best a hypothesis that has to be validated. Most people know what you should not do, or how you must not do it. But very few people know what you must do, or how you must do it. Working smart and working hard are not one versus the other. They are 2 sides of the same coin. I have a deep desire to be excellent, not perfect. Be good to others when it does not matter to you, so they can be good to you when it matters to you. Wanna be rich? Watch the Rands and cents. Wanna be wealthy? Watch the mindset.