Before coming to Openserve to become the managing executive of HR, Kgomotso Molobye (pictured on the right) worked predominantly in the mining and oil & gas industries, having been at AngloGold Ashanti and within the mining division at Sasol.
Her current role appealed to her because of the opportunity to create a HR legacy in what was a new and free-standing entity within Telkom. Among other things, Openserve builds the infrastructure required to deliver quality broadband and fibre services, and has been key to the Telkom journey of growth and connecting South Africans by delivering access to broadband and connectivity services to service providers.
“We all know what the current legacy of Telkom is and, when I had chats with both Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko and Openserve CEO Alphonzo Samuels, I loved what the vision entailed and I loved the idea of being the first HR director of Openserve and creating my vision of how I wanted HR to be able to influence the business and to shape the culture of the organisation”.
CHRO South Africa - an organisation that seeks to help HR executives to boost their network, knowledge and careers through events, media and peer-to-peer advisory - caught up with Kgomotso to learn a little bit about her ahead of upcoming executive HR roundtable to be hosted by Vodacom HR director Matimba Mbungela on 9 March.
Only seven months into her role at Openserve, Kgomotso says one her toughest challenges has been helping the organisation to change and adapt to a different mindset. There are also a number of team members who have been with the organisation for decades and thus have a very specific way of doing things and thus it makes it critical that the culture change journey is inclusive.
"Also, we handle the wholesale and infrastructure aspects of the Telkom business and that's why Openserve is considered to be the “nuts and bolts” of the business from an HR perspective because that's our highly unionised environment.”
