A former broadcast journalist who attended Rhodes University, Mandy de Waal spent twenty years in consulting, branding and reputation management before returning to journalism.
Mandy de Waal has written a slew of stories about graft and corruption including the Mugabe/Naspers story which raised comment in Business Day and interviewed on 702, SAFM and Cape Talk. de Waal currently writes for Noseweek; Brainstorm Magazine; ITWeb, Mark Magazine, MarkLives as well as titles in New York and Toronto.
A judge for the Discovery Health Journalism Awards, de Waal also sits on the panel of judges for the PICA Awards Magazine Publishers Association of South Africa.
During her career de Waal has counselled blue chips like ABSA, Acceleration, BT, Consology, DMX, Gold Reef City, Heinz, Microsoft, Mosaic Software, Motorola, Nashua Mobile, Nestle, Shoprite Checkers and The South African Post Office. Her awards include the Text 100 Chairman’s Award, Planet Text Award and the Financial Mail PRISM award.
Some milestones along the way:
• de Waal brought The Forgiveness Project to South Africa by hosting Jozi’s first Forgiveness Festival. TFP is an international organisation founded by Marina Cantacuzino with help from the late Dame Anita Roddick, and aims to build a future free of conflict and violence by healing the wounds of the past. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is the project patron, while supporters include Dame Helen Mirren, the late Terry Waite and Annie Lennox. The project is funded by (amongst others) Gordon Ramsay, The Roddick Foundation, Findhorn Foundation and The Body Shop Foundation.
• Helped found innovationTOWN a national campaign to promote innovation in South Africa with CIDA City Campus and the amazing Dr Taddy Blecher. This project is being reframed to be a non-profit organisation and will be relaunched soon.
• Helped publish Value through Values, her friend and mentor Jerry Schuitema’s remarkable book about the value of service and how to end economies and societies predicated on greed and corruption.
• Helped pioneer the South African ‘Media Image Survey’ with MediaTenor, the country’s first comprehensive study of media coverage attracted by JSE-listed companies.
• Founded leading brand and reputations consultancy Idea Engineers, taking it from a start-up to a multi-million rand business counselling South Africa’s top brands.
• Led the local chapter of the technology specialist communications firm Text 100, winning local and global awards for the work she did in the field of high-tech communications.
• Helped launch many of South Africa’s first internet businesses including M-Web and 24.com.
• Helped launch and market South African local to global success stories including online payment giant Mosaic Software - now S1 Corporation (Nasdaq: SONE) and online marketing technology experts Acceleration.
Hi Mandy, very nice blog you have set up here! Got some interesting reads!
Posted by: Simon | 13 October 2008 at 18:30
@Simon: Thanks so much for your comments. Appreciated!
Posted by: Mandy de Waal | 14 October 2008 at 07:04
Hello. I visited because my "blog catalog" dashboard suggested that our blogs had a "50%" similiarity. I think the computer that dreamed up the percentage has been unwell lately. Anyway, despite our vast differences in content, style, approach, topic (you get the idea) I enjoyed my visit and shall still consider you a distant but dear relative.
Posted by: Ram Venkatararam | 24 January 2009 at 23:49