Matimba has been the custodian of Vodacom's people agenda since 2014.
Vodacom CHRO Matimba Mbumgela has been nominated for the inaugural CHRO Awards. The ceremony, which will be held on 27 November 2019, will give HR directors and CHROs of listed companies, large corporations, state-owned entities and government institutions alike an opportunity to be recognised and rewarded for their exceptional performance and leadership.
Having before held senior HR positions at Unilever and BMW South Africa, Matimba joined Vodacom as the executive head of HR in 2003 and later fulfilled his long-standing goal of working abroad when he relocated to London, speding three years on secondment to Vodafone as the Regional Head of Organisational Effectiveness & Change, and Regional Head of Talent within the Africa, Middle East & Asia Pacific “AMAP” region. Prior to his assignment to the Vodafone AMAP Region, he was responsible for Talent Management at Vodacom for six years where he successfully delivered the integration Vodacom's local talent strategy into the Vodafone global strategy. He returned to Vodacom South Africa in 2013 and was promoted to his current role in 2014.
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Speaking at the Finance Indaba in 2017, Matimba said he believed HR was one of the professions that are least threatened by digitisation.
“Of course, the manual processes will become increasingly automated over time, but when one looks at the overall value-add of the role, I don't think there is too much room for mechanisation," said Matimba. "I don't know how possible it is going to be for a machine to be able to assess the skill and personality requirements of an organisation and be able to map that into a company strategy. That's just one example that makes me feel like I am going to be safe as an HR professional living in the age of digitisation."
Vodacom is a leading African mobile communications company providing a wide range of services including mobile voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 61 million customers. In addition to South Africa, it has mobile operations to include networks in Tanzania, the DRC, Mozambique and Lesotho and it’s mobile networks cover a population of approximately 200 million people. Through Vodacom Business Africa, the company also offers business managed services to enterprises in 30 countries across the continent. Vodacom is majority owned by Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile communications companies by revenue.
