Sasdc Diversity Council

Sasdc Diversity Council By executing our mission of Collaborate, Certify, Connect, Capacitate and Celebrate, the South Africa

Grown for Global, and it starts with a woman who has spent sixteen years making technology work harder for the people wh...
18/06/2026

Grown for Global, and it starts with a woman who has spent sixteen years making technology work harder for the people who rely on it.

Meet Phumudzo Portia Ligege, founder and director of Isivuno BizAnalytics Hub, a proudly South African, Black woman-led IT company she built in 2015. While much of the sector chases private contracts, Portia pointed Isivuno at the harder and more meaningful problem of helping local government and public enterprises get real return on their technology, so the institutions that serve ordinary South Africans actually run better.

Isivuno delivers IT professional consulting through certified engineers alongside bespoke solutions built around each client, spanning everything from change management and project governance to data, security and enterprise systems. The work has earned recognition too, with Isivuno named among the top ten outstanding innovators in the Basali Standard Bank programme for women in business.

Portia is the kind of founder G-GEAP exists to back. She has already moved through the SASDC's women entrepreneur programme and is currently on an International Executive Leadership Development Programme, building exactly the leadership depth that turns a strong local business into one ready to compete well beyond our borders.

In a green economy that runs on smarter systems, the technology layer matters as much as the solar panel or the harvest, and that is the space Isivuno occupies. They do it the right way, with sustainability written into how they build rather than bolted on after.

If you want to work with a business that takes that seriously, you can reach Isivuno here: Web: www.isivunobh.co.za Email: [email protected] Tel: 082 717 2781

Grown for Global, and this is what it looks like.

Project EMBRACE is supported through the SASDC's partnership with the IYBA WE4A Project, with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

SASDC Supplier Soapbox | 25 June 2026The mic is open and the floor belongs to certified Black businesses.Join us for our...
17/06/2026

SASDC Supplier Soapbox | 25 June 2026

The mic is open and the floor belongs to certified Black businesses.
Join us for our next Supplier Soapbox on Thursday, 25 June, from 12:00 to 15:00. It is free to attend as an audience member, and it is exactly the kind of room where corporate South Africa meets the suppliers ready to deliver.

This session puts six certified businesses in the spotlight to share who they are and what they do best:

iTravel2See turns travel planning into a managed, end-to-end experience so your business trips and getaways run without the admin headache.

Optimotiv keeps the wheels of industry moving as a fuel and petroleum products supplier built on reliability, integrity and consistently clean product.

Try Easy Electrical Solutions is a Level 1, Black women-owned business developing the next generation of artisans through SETA-aligned electrical and skills training.

KSM Chemical Solutions is a Level 1, 100% Black women-owned manufacturer of sanitisers and eco-friendly cleaning products, proudly made in Sasolburg.

McNeil Argus Africa brings pharmaceutical know-how to the continent, supplying medicines where they are needed most.

SGM Electrical handles three-phase electrical installations across domestic, industrial and commercial sites, plus solar and standby power for when the grid lets you down.

Bring your questions, bring your procurement wish list, and come see why supplier diversity is good business, not just good intentions.

Register now. The spotlight is on.
🔗 Register here: https://sasdc.org.za/index.php/events/sasdc-soapbox/sasdc-supplier-soapbox-june

📞 011 100 1025
🌐 www.sasdc.org.za

Looking to take your agro-processing business beyond local markets?The Small Enterprise Development & Finance Agency - S...
17/06/2026

Looking to take your agro-processing business beyond local markets?

The Small Enterprise Development & Finance Agency - Sedfa, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, is hosting a webinar on the agro-processing sector and export readiness, and it is one worth sharing with your network.

The session unpacks how agricultural and agro-processing enterprises can prepare for and access export markets, covering:
👉 Export opportunities and market access
👉 International market requirements and compliance
👉 Packaging, labelling and product development for export markets
👉 Support available through the SEDFA Export Development Programme and the Department of Agriculture

For suppliers ready to scale, this is practical, actionable insight on getting your product export ready.

📅 26 June 2026
🕥 10:30 to 12:00
💻 Microsoft Teams

Register here: 722404bf-1b05-48c8-b589-54a27fd09b7b@e2546b9d-33f9-4279-b6ed-e809f62fb336" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/722404bf-1b05-48c8-b589-54a27fd09b7b@e2546b9d-33f9-4279-b6ed-e809f62fb336

Grown for Global, and it starts with a woman who built her business on skin rather than in a boardroom.Meet Thembisile M...
10/06/2026

Grown for Global, and it starts with a woman who built her business on skin rather than in a boardroom.

Meet Thembisile Mdakane, founder of Tlure Skin and an internationally qualified aesthetician who spent more than a decade working alongside global dermatological names before she decided the South African market deserved better, so in 2014 she went and built it herself.

Tlure Skin is a Proudly South African skincare manufacturer doing what most of the industry still avoids, using locally sourced raw materials to solve real skin concerns without the harsh chemicals and without ever reaching for the skin-bleaching shortcut that so much of this category was built on. Everything is designed around skin health rather than skin erasure, working across hydration, cell turnover, irritation control and damage repair for every tone, every age and no gender in particular.

That philosophy is exactly why Tlure belongs in the Greening the Global Export Accelerator Programme (G-GEAP), part of the SASDC's Project EMBRACE.

As Thembisile puts it, the raw materials are homegrown not because it makes a nice story but because they are genuinely world-class, and that one line is the whole thesis of this programme.

If you want to support a business that is doing it the right way, you can reach Tlure here:
Web: www.tlureskin.com
Email: [email protected]
WhatsApp: 076 606 7160
Socials:

Grown for Global, and this is what it looks like.

Project EMBRACE is supported through the SASDC's partnership with the IYBA WE4A Project, with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

09/06/2026

Ask any founder what changes them, and few will say the numbers. Mmapule Tshabalala might.

Sharing her feedback at the WEFL graduation, the founder of Insightful Solutions was honest about where the programme caught her off guard. As part of the very first WEFL cohort, she expected a course. What she got was a rewiring of how she runs her business.

The financials were the part she had spent years looking at from a safe distance, glancing at the high-level picture and moving on. The programme, and the guidance of Mr Subanda who took the cohort through the money side of business, pushed her to actually sit with her numbers and understand them properly. She describes that as one of the biggest changes in how she operates now.

There was the people side too, learning to bring stakeholders who knew almost nothing about her business into the room and build solutions together anyway. And there was sustainability, which she had never imagined applied to a services business until the programme showed her otherwise. Today she counts the people she trains and develops as the social impact her company creates, and she has learned why being able to measure that impact matters as much as making it.

That is what a graduation like this really marks. Not the end of a course, but the moment a founder starts seeing her own business differently.

Project EMBRACE is supported through SASDC's partnership with the IYBA WE4A Project, with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

🎥 Watch Mmapule's feedback on the programme here:

Today, on World Food Safety Day, we reaffirm a fundamental truth: safe food is not a privilege—it’s a right, and it's es...
07/06/2026

Today, on World Food Safety Day, we reaffirm a fundamental truth: safe food is not a privilege—it’s a right, and it's essential to public health, inclusive growth, and environmental sustainability.

At the SASDC, we are committed to transforming South Africa’s food systems by empowering Black-owned agribusinesses, particularly those led by women and youth, to meet global standards for food safety and sustainability.

Through initiatives like Project EMBRACE and the Greening the Global Export Accelerator Program (G-GEAP), we support:
- Women farmers adopting eco-friendly, food-safe practices
- Agribusinesses embracing organic production and traceability
- Enterprises aligning with export-ready food safety protocols
- Inclusive participation in climate-smart food value chains

We’re building a future where Black-owned food enterprises are not only safe and sustainable—but competitive, resilient, and globally recognised.

On this day, we celebrate those championing food safety from farm to fork—and call on all stakeholders to continue investing in food systems that nourish people and the planet.

This World Environment Day, the signal we want to send is a simple one: greening the economy is not a future ambition, i...
05/06/2026

This World Environment Day, the signal we want to send is a simple one: greening the economy is not a future ambition, it is already happening.

The theme for 2026 is Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future, and the global call is to stop talking about change and start steering it.

That is exactly what Project EMBRACE was built to do. Through the Greening the Global Export Accelerator Programme and the wider EMBRACE ecosystem, the SASDC is helping Black and youth owned businesses move into the green economy on their own terms, across renewable energy, agriculture and agro-processing, eco-tourism, the circular economy, the blue economy, construction and transport.

What makes this matter is that it is not theory. It looks like Zilon Bulk Bags refurbishing and re-using industrial packaging so it stays out of landfill, sourcing every raw material locally. It looks like Tlure Skin formulating skincare from locally sourced materials without the harsh chemicals the industry leans on. It looks like founders learning green supply chain management, green product innovation and the leadership to carry a business across borders the right way.

Climate action, when you get close to it, is just people choosing to build differently.

On this World Environment Day, that is the signal worth sending.

Project EMBRACE is supported through the SASDC's partnership with the IYBA WE4A Project, with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

At the South African Supplier Diversity Council (SASDC), transformation means measurable change. Through our Women’s Ent...
04/06/2026

At the South African Supplier Diversity Council (SASDC), transformation means measurable change. Through our Women’s Entrepreneurship & Financial Literacy (WEFL) programme, we’re empowering Black women across Africa to turn ambition into enterprise.

Impact in Numbers
👉 3,640+ training hours delivered
👉 91 women empowered – 73% established businesses, 27% aspiring entrepreneurs
👉 445 jobs sustained across 6 African countries
👉 69 businesses + 25 aspiring entrepreneurs supported and growing

These aren’t just stats. They’re livelihoods, communities, and economies being shaped—by women, for everyone.

Through Project EMBRACE, we’re scaling this reach. More cohorts. More growth. More value flowing into the hands of Black women founders.

Project EMBRACE is supported through SASDC's partnership with the IYBA WE4A Project , with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

03/06/2026

"I walked in as a supplier. I walked out with a network."

That is how Lebo Mashaba of Real PPE Marketplace describes her time on the WEFL programme. And it is the kind of feedback that tells us the work is landing where it should.

When SASDC Board Chair Renee Horne and CEO Gary Joseph addressed the WEFL graduating class on Friday 17 April, the message was not ceremonial. It was a call. A call for procurement teams to do better. A call for corporates to widen the door, not just hold it open. A call for a procurement landscape that reflects the people who live and work in this country.

For suppliers like Lebo, that call becomes real the moment a contract is signed, a relationship is built, a business grows. The graduation was the moment. What it represents is the bigger story.

Project EMBRACE is supported through SASDC's partnership with the IYBA SEED Project WE4A, with funding from BMZ, the European Union, Norway, and the French, German and Slovak governments, and implemented by Expertise France, Enabel, GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini, SAIDC and SNV.

🎥 Watch Lebo's feedback on the programme here:

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