Faith Khanyile is a Director of companies. Until recently, she was the CEO of Women’s Development Business Investment Holdings (WDBIH) of which she is one of the founding members. WDBIH is a broad-based women-owned and led strategic investor established in 1996 to promote the meaningful participation of women in the South African economy with a focus on facilitating economic opportunities and resources for rural women who are most affected by poverty. Over the past 25 years, Faith has worked for leading financial services companies in Africa in senior and executive positions and has acquired a broad range of experience in the areas of private equity, deal-making, impact investing, SME funding and development, fund management, Insurance, and Corporate & Investment Banking. She is a hands-on, results-orientated leader who is also very conscious of the critical and positive role that business can play in transforming and impacting society at large.
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Faith is passionate about the social upliftment and economic empowerment of women across South Africa and the African continent and is a strong advocate for women empowerment and inclusive growth for all. She has worked in the areas of women empowerment and impact investing for over 20 years in a number of capacities including partnering and mentoring emerging entrepreneurs, investing in small businesses, governance, providing access to markets to SME’s, advocating for gender transformation on the Boards of listed companies, etc.
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Faith has written articles for the likes of the Financial Mail magazine in South Africa and has been interviewed and quoted widely on her views on the importance of inclusive growth and gender parity across business, arts, science and education as a way to address stagnant economic growth, promote inclusive growth and economic justice for women. She believes in mentorship and sharing her knowledge, energy and skills with others and is a mentor and coach to many young professionals and emerging entrepreneurs.
Faith currently is a non-executive director of the JSE-listed Discovery Limited, Transcend Residential Property, Bidvest Limited and the JSE Limited. She also is the Chair of the WDB Growth Fund (an impact private equity fund that supports the growth of black and black women-owned SME’s) and a member of the Gender-Based Violence Fund, a not-for-profit fund formed by the private sector with support from the South African President to raise funds to fight gender-based violence scourge in South Africa.
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In 2017 Faith received the Business Woman of the Year Award (Corporate Category). She has a BA (Hons) in Economics, Wheaton College, MA, USA; MBA Finance, Bentley Graduate School of Business, MA, USA; HDIP Tax Diploma, UJ; and Executive Leadership Training – Columbia Business School, New York.
