Amanda Dambuza is a leadership strategist focused on inclusion, governance and performance. With experience advising executives and designing programs that embed inclusion into day-to-day leadership, Amanda brings a practical, evidence-based approach to culture change.
Her work helps leaders align governance practices with organizational values to improve trust, decision quality and long-term performance. Amanda is known for translating research into clear playbooks leaders can apply in meetings, hiring, and performance management.
She runs briefings, workshops and longer leadership programs that prioritize measurable change rather than abstract ideals. Organizers book Amanda for executive summits and conferences where the goal is to leave with both the mindset and tools to make inclusion operational across the business.
Amanda Dambuza is the Chief Executive of Uyandiswa; a project management consulting firm she founded six years ago. Previously, she was the Financial Services Director of the JSE listed software organisation, Adapt IT. Adapt IT owned 49% of Uyandiswa, a deal concluded in October 2014.
Effective as of the 1st of July 2017, Amanda concluded another transaction with Adapt IT to buy back 49% of Uyandiswa making it 100% Black Female Owned (BWO) organisation with approximately ninety staff. This transaction also included a buyout of the Business Analytics and Intelligence business of Adapt IT.
Some of her most recent awards include the 2017 overall winner of the International Businesswoman Award, Veuve Clicquot and ELLE Boss having won the entrepreneurship category as well. This award is to honour inspiring businesswomen who empower, support and encourage female creativity and leadership.
Amanda has recently been nominated as one of the top 50 women through the Inspiring Fifty an initiative in cooperation with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for the most inspiring South African women in the technology and innovation sectors.
Amanda Dambuza was also nominated for the 2019 Gender Mainstreaming awards as a Positive Role Model.
A seasoned and highly regarded businesswoman, she was named in the Top 30 Women You Need to Know and applauded by Leadership Magazine.
An author of Baked in Pain and an awarded gender pioneer, her passion lies in her ability to open opportunities for other women in business. She spends most of her time running her businesses and mentoring young and old in how to achieve the best out of their lives.
Prior to founding her own companies, Amanda had spent most of her over thirteen-year corporate career in Information Technology within the Financial Services industry. Amanda Dambuza held various senior roles at all four major banks in South Africa with her last role as a Chief Information Officer at Barclays Africa where she drove a change budget close to R1 billion – spread across the thirteen countries in Africa, including South Africa.
Her clients were some of the most senior executives heading up the various divisions – Finance, Compliance, Risk, Sourcing, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Corporate Real Estate, Security, Internal Audit, Legal, Treasury and Barclays Shared Services. She drove demand management, prioritization, execution as well as service management and support.
Amanda Dambuza span of accountability further extended to the Technology Competency Centres of SAP, SharePoint and Reconciliations where she led multiple teams locally and internationally to deliver all IT services to the Enterprise Shared Functions.
Amanda Dambuza – Leadership is a Wits University and Duke Corporate Education graduate. She is also a certified PMP®, PRINCE2®, AGILE and ITILL practitioner which enables her to keep abreast of industry developments and continuous improvements.
Amanda is also a member of various boards and is a proud ambassador of an NPO called Donate-A-Piece whose aim is to take chess to disadvantaged schools and help to build children’s analytical and strategic capabilities.
She has graced the cover of Mindspace Magazine and she has been featured on multiple ELLE Magazine issues, Destiny Magazine, Luxuria Lifestyle as well as numerous online digital publications including Entrepreneur Mag, Business Insider, Tech Financials, IT Web and Engineering News to mention just a few.
Amanda Dambuza has also been featured on multiple radio stations and television programmes, to note Mindspace TV on CNBC Africa, Top Billing and Morning Live on SABC 2. She uses these platforms to deliver positive messages of hope, self-belief and the benefits of having a clear vision for your life.
Amanda’s book, ‘Baked in Pain’, she takes her readers through the emotional roller-coaster, which was her life growing up in apartheid South Africa. A product of abandonment and rejection, she goes very deep in narrating the abuse she suffered as a child and the negative scripts that were fed to her over the years.
Amanda Dambuza further explores, supported with research the way these messages can be internalised and become the truth. She flips the lid on what is expected of victims of abuse and challenges the notion of “once abused always abused” as she reflects on her own life as a mother, wife and an internationally celebrated businesswoman.
What would happen when Amanda finally summonses the courage to break free from Amanda Dambuza old life, in search of a relationship with her mother and a brighter future?
Would she find what she’s looking for? Amanda Dambuza candid recollections bare her soul, the deep faith and courage that carried her from her earliest days as a young child to her current life. It is an applaudable universal story.
In a time where all forms of abuse remain rife, this book provides incredible inspiration and lessons that will motivate the reader to use their traumatic past as the fuel they need to soar and live a life filled with purpose and to be of service to others.
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