Founder of The Human Touch Maggie Mojapelo gives insight into how she spent over five decades gathering knowledge, getting experience and making an impact in organisations worldwide with transformative HR.
For Maggie Mojapelo, experienced board member, founder and director of The Human Touch consultancy, HR is not just a people function but rather, “a function that enables businesses to get value out of their key asset – people – and to create and sustain an environment that supports people to add exceptional value to their company.”
Maggie started the management consultancy that specialises in people performance function in 2011 after having had several stints as an HR director and/or executive at companies such as IBM, Nedbank, Avon Justine and Coca-Cola South Africa.
“My journey was not an easy one. Growing up in a small rural village, our home lacked both electricity and running water. My father was a man who’d struggled every day of his life, but refused to let hardship stop him from being a provider to his family and the broader community, while pushing his children to be the best they could be. My mother was at some point juggling three demanding jobs, working full-time while also raising seven children.”
For young Maggie, this meant she had a responsibility – a responsibility to show her parents that she could do what they did, and do it even better.
Road less travelled
The road was, however, marred with many challenges, her academic journey took many turns. She initially pursued medicine to honour her father's wishes but soon realised her true calling lay elsewhere and as such explored teaching, pharmacy and psychology.
In 1984, she completed a BA (Hons) at the University of Limpopo and happened to meet her biggest inspiration, her husband. They got married and she gave birth to a lovely daughter. “He was the one who told me, after we’d just gotten married, that I should register for psychology – what I’d always wanted to do. So I did.”
Even as she raised her children and took care of her home, Maggie was working full-time, investing in her career. Led by her inquisitive mind and equipped with an intimidating array of qualifications and credentials, she stepped into various significant roles in different organisations across South Africa.
In 2003, she enrolled for an HR diploma at the University of South Africa, which she completed in 2006. Ever determined, in 2013 she achieved an MBA from Henley Business School and completed multiple leadership programmes at prestigious institutions like the management advancement programme at Harvard and a certification on effective management and leadership at the University of the Witwatersrand Business School.
Throughout these years, Maggie was also reaching her career goals, becoming a woman transforming HR functions for major corporations. She first started as an HR specialist at IBM South Africa, then in 2003 she was appointed as HR director at Avon Justine South Africa. In 2007 she made her entry as an HR executive at Nedbank and later left the bank to join Coca-Cola South Africa as a HR director.
Starting afresh
While still toiling in corporate South Africa, Maggie took the next bold step in her journey when she launched her HR consultancy firm without much financial support and external assistance.
Describing it as an expression of herself, the firm quickly grew in rapidly and is now a well oiled machine that has been running for over a decade.
“I always start by considering the value I can add to an organisation. I always ask ‘what can I do for you?’ That has served me well for decades,” she says.
Often, people think that they can go into the consulting space because “I can think”. Maggie says she and her staff know it takes much more than that. “We bring the experience on the ground,” says Maggie. “We are not just getting into this because one day we woke up and didn’t know what else to do. This choice was something by design; we have filled ourselves up with the right knowledge, the right experience, and the right thinking, which we now bring into an organisation and show the value we add. We understand you. We can customise every problem based on what the problem is all about.”
The success of The Human Touch is testament to Maggie’s parents’ teachings. “At just 10 years old, inspired by mymother’s entrepreneurial spirit, I started selling tomatoes. The company is an expression of my personal experience, my upbringing, my personal beliefs, and myself as a child who was raised by people who had nothing, but made something. That continues to inspire me; you don’t have to wait for someone to do something for you. You can do it, and you need to enable others to make something out of something.”
Outside of work, Maggie describes herself as a family-oriented person. “I’m a daughter, I’m a wife, and I’m a mother of two beautiful children.”