Fundisile Serame

Fundisile Serame (Mother, Wife and Managing Director & Founder of TechnoFundis)  Fundisile’s personal and business profiles are intertwined. She is about three things: Business, Leadership, and Lifestyle. Fundisile is very passionate about family, business, writing and women empowerment.As a working mother and wife, Fundisile juggles the tasks of building and managing a research and innovation agency, TechnoFundis, and being a weekly business columnist, while keeping her family happy. She is in constant pursuit of a success formula and believes that women are more than capable of achieving career-family balance. She is inspired by incredible women that have planted a seed of empowerment and excellence; those that are nurturers of their families and have equally achieved excellence in their careers. She looks up and deliberately associates with women who are masters of their destiny; architects of their brands! BusinessThrough TechnoFundis, she facilitates research and development of innovations that respond to business and to socio-economic challenges of the continent. Through her work at TechnoFundis, she also provides market validation and business support to startups. The business is currently operating in South Africa and Lesotho. For more information on TechnoFundis, please refer to: http://www.technofundis.co.zaWritingDue to her passion for research, innovation and writing, she is currently a weekly business contributor for thePost, a Lesotho-based newspaper, as well as online blogger at TechnoFundis. She draws from both research and experience to write on issues affecting the business environment; from business strategies and innovation to entrepreneurial challenges and successes - offering suggestions on how to manage better and smarter. For a view of one of her recent articles, visit:http://www.thepost.co.ls/business/managing-the-value-chain-of-innovatio… Women EmpowermentFundisile’s innate desire to empower women is not new. She has contributed to the development of women leaders, particularly in IT, and has had the pleasure of mentoring and speaking at IT women conferences.  Career Experience Before she fully got involved with the business, Fundisile was an Information Technology (IT) Senior Manager: Government Transversal Solutions responsible for directing public information and library sectors strategy and establishing a business unit to serve the sectors. Having started as a Software developer building enterprise solutions, and evolved into different levels of management, her extensive development and consulting experience (16+) in IT cuts across both private and public sectors in different industries including public health, local government, insurance and telecommunications. Fundisile’s career has included stops at the State Information Technology Agency (SA), Accenture South Africa - consulting at MTN, Momentum, Software Futures, and others.Qualifications and achievementsFundisile holds a Masters Degree in Business Information Systems from Tshwane University of Technology, having focused her study on Mobile Health Technology Innovations, for which she passed with distinction. She was awarded an NRF bursary to complete her dissertation.She is a GIBS Programme for Management Development alumnus and a Massachusetts-South Africa Technology Fellow (2013) - a programme of Bentley University and South African Partners, funded by the US government. Recently, at a conference in Cambridge, Boston, she presented on open innovation models.Prior to that (1999), she was awarded a DANIDA scholarship to study at the International People’s College, Denmark, which, she says, completely changed her world outlook.Mission, Values and Leadership StatementShe endeavours to be a consistent, authentic and results-driven leader and mentor whose work inspires individuals and business leaders to discover and develop their true potential thereby delivering positive results. She upholds values of professionalism, accountability, ethics and Integrity.Goals, aspirations, a business plansShe aims to combine her leadership, research and business consulting expertise to offer innovative approaches to achieve individual and business results.Her goal is to grow TechnoFundis impact and expand the company to other SADC countries in the next few years, while collaborating with different organisations in developing products and services that respond to needs of emerging markets. She is working on plans to further expand her contribution to the startup ecosystem, business magazines and other thought-leadership media platforms. She intends combining and developing her leadership, research and business consulting expertise to develop women leaders and women-led businesses to achieve greater heights despite all odds.