Nanyata Siyaya Radio Interview

On 6th June 202, Jacintha Naidoo, CEO of Nanyata Siyaya, was interviewed by Simon Parkinson on Hot 91.9FM.
The interview recording is below, followed by a transcript of the interview.

Nanyata Siyaya is a fast-growing management consultancy company, delivering value for money to our clients, as we assist them reach their objectives through the right people.

Transcript

Simon Parkinson
It is, of course, Hot 91.9 on a Monday afternoon. Now we’ve got a very special guest on the studio or should I say on the line here at the studio, Jacintha Naidoo, who’s the founder and CEO of Nanyata Siyaya, a management consultancy company that specializes in financial services. Good afternoon and nice to have you with us.

Jacintha Naidoo
Hi, Simon, and good afternoon to your listeners.

Simon Parkinson
Well, let me tell you, tell me a little bit about Nanyata Siyaya, and what you actually do, I’ve said that, you know, obviously, you’re a management consultancy company specializing in financial services, but that’s quite sort of broad, right?

Jacintha Naidoo
Yeah, sure. Well, simply put Nanyata Siyaya is, as you said, a management consulting company. We provide consulting and contracting solutions to our clients. We’re mainly in the financial services space, but we also have other clients, for example, in FMCG as well.

Simon Parkinson
Yeah. So what sort of sets you apart from the rest and there probably are quite a few different companies out there, but tell me, what are your USP’s?

Jacintha Naidoo
Well, you know, transparency is key in our approach. We are transparent with our clients. And we are transparent with our consultants, which means that our our clients get true value for their money and our consultants get maximum reward for the expertise. And in addition, we also provide oversight and we regularly touch base with clients and consultants. So both our clients and consultants are in constant contact with our management to reaffirm the desired objectives of the clients. And you know, we’ve managed, as you said, a highly competitive environment we’ve managed to carve out quite a niche in this environment. And we know what we can deliver best for our clients and where we feel we cannot we certainly don’t promise our clients we can, just to win some short term business.

Simon Parkinson
Now, I mean, it’s not been business as normal as we all know. It’s not been life as normal. What have you guys been doing during lockdown, are you operating differently? I presume you are. Everyone’s operating differently, right?

Jacintha Naidoo
Yeah, well, you know, our admin staff and management have been working remotely, so have all our consultants. However, you know, we’ve managed to still do amazing things during these trying times, we found a permanent job for someone – all virtual interviews. And as far as I know, you know, she still has not yet even met her new boss or her staff yet. Exactly. And also, all our consultants are working virtually as I said, and some of our consultants even started on projects during lockdown. We, you know, we’re very blessed to be creating employment over this very difficult period. And this is due to the relationships we’ve established with our clients over the years and this is actually what sets us apart.

Simon Parkinson
It is quite amazing. I have to say that a number of… I was speaking to someone at the weekend, and this person actually travels and he said to me, last year, he did 25 trips into Africa actually, in the space of one year, [inaudible] in a week, in two weeks. So that’s like, you know, as you can imagine, 25 trips, two trips a month. And I said to him, do you think you know, going forward, you’re gonna have to do as many. And he said, This, in actual fact, although, of course, is devastating for economies and for people and health, and so on and so forth, what it has done is it’s shown his colleagues and his customers that they can actually deal and work with each other remotely via Zoom, via Teams meeting, Google, whatever it is. But bottom line is that you don’t need to be sitting in front of each other all of the time. But anyway, enough of that, let’s look at your footprint and your growth areas and so on and so forth – tell me a little bit about that, if you don’t mind Jacintha.

Jacintha Naidoo
Sure. Yeah, well, we currently work with South Africa’s large financial service institutions, and many of them who have operations throughout Africa and Europe. And we’ve been working with one of Angola’s big banks since 2015, so I’ve had many trips up there to Angola as well. And language is not an issue, as we’ve had, you know, we’ve got a lot of seasoned translators within our team. And we’re in the process of expanding our footprint into other African countries, the UK and also parts of Europe.

Simon Parkinson
Now, I believe that that Nanyata Siyaya has various CSI initiatives, maybe you can just touch on those. Here at Hot 91.9, close to our heart, of course, is Hot Cares, which is part of our DNA. So CSI important to you guys as well I believe.

Jacintha Naidoo
Oh, extremely important. You know, we really like to believe we’re a small company at the moment with a big heart and I look forward to being a bigger company you know, with an even bigger heart. Our initiatives are quite varied but they all centre around supporting youth and youth development. Our main sponsorship is supporting several orphanages in the area, the Randburg area in which we operate. We also support an NPO called Seva Hands who run a school feeding scheme. We sponsored last year the Under-16 Titans rugby team when they toured Ireland, and we’ve also sponsored a young boy to compete in an international math competition, which he actually won. Most recently during lockdown, we’ve engaged our local council on embarking on a community project addressing food security as well.

Simon Parkinson
If you just joined us this afternoon on Hot 91.9, we’re speaking to Jacintha Naidoo, who’s the CEO and founder of Nanyata Siyaya, a management consultancy company specializing in financial services, I see that you’re BEE Level One as well. So that’s good news.

Jacintha Naidoo
Yeah, you know, it is. We are currently 100% black woman owned and run and which makes us B-BBEE Level One. And this coupled with our commitment to quality service has certainly allowed us to grow as well. We outsource a lot of our, if not all of our, support services, and we try and outsource to women-owned companies where we can ensure that we empower others as well in the process.

Simon Parkinson
I mean, empowerment is important, not only for yourselves, but as you say, for suppliers and people that you deal with. And potential clients, consultants, if they want to get hold of you, they want to speak if they’ve got some questions, how can they do that?

Jacintha Naidoo
Well, you know, we live in a virtual world now more than ever. So we, you know, we all are working remotely, but you can find us on nsholdings.co.za, or connect with us on LinkedIn or just search for me, Jacintha Naidoo, on LinkedIn. And my email is [email protected] and if you’re interested, we can set up a virtual meeting.

Simon Parkinson
Jacintha thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. Really appreciate having the chat here on Hot 91.9 and enjoy the rest of your Monday.

Jacintha Naidoo
Thank you, Simon. Cheers.

Simon Parkinson
Okay. Take care.