The MBA-equipped town planner who wants to improve life in South Africa

South Africa has struggled with poor town planning and power shortages for years.

Since 2007, blackouts have grown steadily worse despite repeated government pledges to end them. In 2023 alone, the public wouldn’t have power for an average of five hours daily.

The worst part is that these are not coincidental blackouts.

They are purposefully load-shedding, a planned electricity outage implemented by the national power utility, Eskom, in order to prevent the entire power grid from collapsing due to high demand exceeding supply.

As a town planner, this didn’t sit well with Robert Ndebele.

For the University of Johannesburg graduate who has worked on developing master plans, regional plans, and district and neighbourhood plans for urban and rural communities across South Africa, he wanted to learn more from the international business scene to do more for his community.

With that in mind, he made a move to secure a Chevening scholarship to pursue a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the University of Warwick.

And while applying for the prestigious fully-funded UK scholarship meant leaving everything behind to study in a foreign country, it was a gamble he was willing to take.

“I’m a town planner by profession, and I’ve been doing this for the past eight years, and I decided, you know what, I think it’s time for me try something else and give myself options,” says Ndebele. “And the only way for me to do that was to go for an MBA.”

When University of Johannesburg graduate Ndebele set his sights on an MBA, he knew he wanted to pursue it somewhere outside of his home country of South Africa. Source: Robert Ndebele

From town planning to business

Ndebele knew he did not want to do an MBA in South Africa — he was looking for something more international, and so the search ensued. 

“There was a lady from South Africa who studied at the University of Warwick and recommended it to me,” shares Ndebele. “I knew that I wanted to go based on the feedback that I had gotten.”

Embed in the university is Warwick Business School, where the full-time MBA programme ranked second in the UK and 11th in Europe by Financial Times European Business School Rankings 2023.

Finding the right school and the right programme was one thing, but securing a scholarship was another.

Ndebele applied for his Chevening scholarship in August 2022, and after months of anxiously waiting for an answer, he heard back from the organisation. They were interested in his first application, and he had the green light to go onto the second stage — the interview. 

“It was a very, very rigorous interview. I was really grilled about why I wanted to do an MBA and what I wanted to do after I got it,” he says. “I remember that I was so down once it was done. I already counted myself out of the process. I basically told myself that I’m not going to get this.”

But lo and behold, Ndebele managed to secure his Chevening scholarship, and it was off to the UK for him. 

“I remember getting that email, I was actually driving,” says Ndebele. “I was going to see my mom. I just stopped my car and digested that information. It was unbelievable!”

For Robert Ndebele, his MBA will be used to explore industries other than town planning. Source: Robert Ndebele

As this was Ndebele’s first time in England, let alone Europe, getting exposed to an entirely new environment was and still is an eye-opening experience.

His town planning eye was immediately impressed with the UK’s architecture, which he classifies as classic, something he had never seen back home.

Being at Warwick Business School was also an exposure for him too. With people coming from different parts of the world, this opened an opportunity for him to engage with his fellow mates, all striving for a similar goal: to graduate with an MBA certificate in their hands.

For Ndebele, his MBA will be used to explore industries other than town planning.

Moving from town planning to an MBA is a personal decision for Robert Ndebele, though his father played a huge role in his academic and professional journey. Source: Robert Ndebele

“I’m not going to do something that is drastically different from town planning. I also need to be very realistic about my changes. So, I need to do something that basically can leverage my previous skills. So those are the possibilities that I’m looking at,” says Ndebele.

During his town planning days, being involved with the community was a huge part of his profession – something he plans to incorporate with his MBA by engaging with the people’s needs.

“I’ve been exploring a few things like getting into renewable energy since there is a lot of hype around renewable energy, especially back home,” he says. “So maybe there is a space where I can find myself trying to get opportunities and involve myself in.”