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Lelapa AI

Mbali Ndandani has 14 years’ experience in social development, marketing and communication, corporate affairs, digital and technology. She is the Chief Commercial Officer at Lelapa AI, Africa’s leading language AI startup. She is also the co-founder of Zettuu Lab, a fashion incubator lab which provides ecosystem support for creators across Sub-Saharan Africa. She is the founder of The Hearth, a collective of African changemakers and thinker-doers aimed at accelerating and reimagining systems on the continent. Mbali is also the founder of A Re Connect — a game-based human connection platform targeted at teams, innovators and family units.

She is a guest lecturer in Inclusive Innovation at UCT, and a design thinking coach helping organisations innovate and solve wicked problems. She is a former basketball player and coach, and a social runner.

Previously, she was the Africa Technology Lead for Consumer Experience and Digital Transformation at Unilever, where she drove the technology strategy, roadmap and delivery of the relevant tech stack for serving mainstream citizens in Africa and driving business growth. She was also previously the Head of Technology for East Africa, based in Nairobi. Additionally, she led the Unilever Foundry, which identifies opportunities for startups across Africa to work with Unilever to solve business and citizen problems, and leads design thinking in Africa. To date, she has worked with and delivered solutions with 20+ startups and tech startup incubators and accelerators over 6 years across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mbali also held an additional role in the Unilever global Beauty and Wellbeing tech team, working on the digital, data and AI strategy and execution for the business group across Unilever’s 120 countries. Prior to this, Mbali led Digital Media in Unilever, working with 42 brands on their digital marketing strategies to drive consumer acquisition and sales growth, partnering with platforms such as Meta, Google and X on reach and brand-building initiatives across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mbali previously led Digital Experience and Digital Engagement at McDonald’s South Africa. She led a department with a dual role of defining the future, technology-enabled customer experience in-store, while building the brand online and driving eCommerce sales growth. She has also been a brand manager, driving category growth for the McDonald’s mass market proposition, including P&L management and brand strategy development.

Prior to this, she was a corporate communications consultant at McDonald’s, leading stakeholder relations, PR, media and government relations. She joined McDonald’s from Kaelo Engage, where she was an account manager at a consulting organisation working with corporates on their social development strategies, as well as brand and marketing initiatives linked to social impact.

Mbali holds a Master of Philosophy in Inclusive Innovation from the University of Cape Town. She is an industry participant and former juror in the IAB Bookmarks, AdForum and Mobile Marketing Association awards.