Zakes Bantwini on the importance of going back to school and building a foundation.
Katlego Sekhu
Zakes Bantwini recently sat down with My Top 10 at 10 with Tbose for an honest conversation about education, building something that lasts, and the discipline behind a career that refuses to coast on talent.
For Zakes, the foundation he has just launched is not new. The idea goes back to 2012. What took time was not the will to start, but the determination to understand it first.
“Before I do something, I better know what I’m doing,” he said.
So he went and studied. He studied social entrepreneurship to understand how a foundation could survive without leaning on a single donor. And he studied the business of entertainment, media and sport at Harvard before turning his attention to a new sports venture.
That same thinking reshaped how he sees the work itself. An entrepreneur, he explained, is measured by how much money they make. A social entrepreneur is measured by something else.
“A social entrepreneur is how many lives you’ve changed.”
It is why he speaks about incubation so deliberately. For Bantwini, helping someone into the economy is only half the job. The rest is teaching them to stay there, and to one day do the same for somebody else.
He has run that model for years through a house and studio where young musicians live, create, and leave with a career.
He is also candid about the danger most foundations face. Too many depend entirely on donors and collapse the moment the funding stops. “My foundation will outlive me,” he said. That, for him, is the whole point.
Even in the highest rooms, he stays a student. At Harvard, surrounded by Formula 1, NFL and NBA names, he admitted he was almost too nervous to speak. He learned anyway. The world, he realised, becomes bigger than you ever imagined once you let yourself keep learning.
Watch the full interview on YouTube.
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