A big part of our Dell Young Leaders program in South Africa is our work to bridge the gap between university and career. While we support our students to graduation by providing important wraparound supports like mentorship and academic guidance, we are strongly committed to also help our students prepare for and find employment. We help students hone interview skills, create resumés, and connect them with employers who are looking for hard-working, talented, and resilient employees.
In this video, you’ll hear from Bright Khumalo, a Dell Young Leader from Inchanga in KwaZulu Natal, who now works in asset management after graduating from the University of Cape Town. To Bright, being a young leader means giving back to his family and community. Bright is financially helping his sister through school and provides opportunities for other Dell Young Leaders to gain work experience in asset management through mentoring and summer work programs. He continues to give back to the program that helped him achieve his dreams, and is an inspiration to other students — and to all of us — as he grows in his career.
Meet Bright, a young leader in South Africa:
Transcript
Bright Khumalo: My name is Bright Khumalo. I graduated from the University of Cape Town. I’m an investment manager by profession. I manage clients’ portfolios both in South Africa, in South African markets and in the US market, and I am a Dell Young Leaders alumni. Growing up in my neighborhood in Inchanga, most of the time people that grew up in poverty end up in poverty anyways. So my story is that to get out of this circular life of being poor and because of my higher grades in school, I wanted more, I worked hard. I communicated quite frankly with my teachers to get guidance of what can I do to get out of this situation. And I knew that there must be a way out of this.
Being a Dell Young Leader for me means that I’m now able to pay for my sister’s high school education, breaking that cycle of poverty. Beyond that, my mission is to help as many people as I can, especially people who are in my shoes previously. So what I’ve done, and what I’ve taken to my own hands, is to invite them for vacation work in the asset management space where I am today. I’ve always considered myself a PhD student: poor, hungry, and driven. And now I’m still a PhD student. I might be privileged, but I’m still hungry and very driven.