Meet Bongani Chinkanda

Bongani started his career over a decade ago at Unilever, where he discovered his passion for marketing.

Bongani started his career over a decade ago at Unilever, where he discovered his passion for marketing. He then went on to pursue the world of business through starting his own Dzuwa, a small agency which played in the mass market space. With years of experience under his belt, including a stint at another Johannesburg agency, Bongani joined Elevator as the Business and Strategy Director, before moving into the role of CEO at HDI Youth Marketeers. Driven by creativity and a steep belief in exploring new and innovative ways of staying ahead of the curve, Bongani aims to maintain and develop the growth mandate of HDI Youth Marketeers. One of the ways in which this will be done is through capitalising on media and digital trends – including AR, VR and MR (mixed reality).

“It’s important to dominate the digital space and focus on very particular audiences, as specialists in the youth space,” says Bongani. Bongani also confirms his commitment to further integrating HDI into the TBWA group, as well as entrenching the organisation’s footprint on the African continent, adding, “Disruption is in our DNA, it’s who we are, and not just what we do.” In his tenure at HDI Youth Marketeers, Bongani intends to widen the youth narrative, and participate in important youth conversations. In fact, he admits to being quite staunch in his beliefs around youth education, access to opportunities, and the role that brands can play in this space. “Meaningful businesses are the only businesses that stand a chance in the modern-day economy. Studies found that meaningful brands have outperformed the stock market by 206% over the last 10 years,” he says