On 14 March 2024, Dr Gloria Tomatoe Serobe was installed as the fourth Chancellor of the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). The investiture of Dr Serobe was performed by the TUT Chair of Council, Mr Ivan ka Mbonane, the Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, and the Registrar, Dr Michael Mushaathoni.
In her capacity as Chancellor, Dr Serobe has become the titular head of the institution. Her main role is to confer all the degrees, diplomas and certificates on all qualified granduands of the Tshwane University of Technology. She also becomes the ambassador and the face of the institution.
The second child of Tamsanqa Mamfanya and Dorcas Ndaliso, Gloria Serobe (neé Ndaliso) was born in the township of Gugulethu, Cape Town. Her childhood years were shared between Cape Town and the Eastern Cape village of Centani, from where her family originated and where her mother and grandparents lived throughout Serobe’s childhood. She is the granddaughter of well-known Methodist preacher John Zamile Ndaliso and his wife Victoria Nofikile Ndaliso. Her grandparents had a strong and positive influence on her character – especially in terms of their belief in the transformative power of education.
Life in the rural village of Centane also left an indelible mark on Dr Gloria Serobe’s outlook and approach to life. Her grandmother and her mother modelled for young Gloria a life built on self-reliance, perseverance and hard work. The two women ran small family businesses in Centane.
Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, Vice-Chancellor and Principal congratulating Dr Gloria Serobe, the new Chancellor of TUT..
Dr Michael Mushaathoni, the Registrar, robing Dr Gloria Serobe
as Chancellor of the Tshwane University of Technology.
When an opportunity arose for the young Serobe to be among the first few females to be admitted to the prestigious St John’s High School, in Mthatha, Serobe embraced the opportunity with both hands. She completed her BCom from the University of Transkei. A few years later, she obtained a Fulbright Scholarship that took her to Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she completed an MBA. She has never looked back.
One of her earliest jobs was that of being an accountant at Exxon Mobil, USA, where she worked for a few years before returning to South Africa where she joined Munich Reinsurance and Premier Group. Later, she left the world of accounting and moved into the world of investment and merchant banking – where she gained corporate experience especially in project finance, mergers and acquisitions. She later leveraged her corporate experience when in 1994, she, together with Louisa Mojela, Nomhle Canca and Wendy Luhabe co-founded the Women Investment Portfolio Holdings (WIPHOLD) - the first private equity company founded by women in order to bring women, especially black women, into the mainstream economy of the country.
Today Dr Serobe is the CEO of WipCapital financial services, a subsidiary of WIPHOLD. Dr Serobe is deliberate and intentional about the economic empowerment of women. She has a particular passion for the economic inclusion of rural women.
And yet, throughout her tremendous career of service, Dr Gloria Serobe has remained a family woman. Nothing has made this aspect of her character more clearer than her 2023 book - An Ode to my Mother-in-Law, Winnie Serobe. A Mentorship of Love and Honour - a book whose subject matter is as phenomenal as it is unusual. In the Foreword to the book, Mr Gaur Serobe confesses his initial doubts about the feasibility of a book about a mother-in-law, written by a daughter-in-law:
Prof Tinyiko Maluleke introducing Dr Serobe as the 4th
Chancellor of TUT.
Dr Gloria Serobe, the new Chancellor of the
Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).