“Out of more than 1 500 applications received, I was one of 20 candidates to be selected by Accenture, because of my qualification from the University of Pretoria (UP),” says UP alumnus Vincent Magagula, He now works as a Senior Strategy Consultant at multinational Deloitte in New York, US.

Magagula (28) hails from Pretoria and obtained a BCom degree in Investment Management at UP in 2016. He says that working at Deloitte’s headquarters has been great.

“The journey to get there was a long one, and being part of the company has broadened my horizons,” he says. “I’ve had great experiences working on projects that I wouldn’t have ordinarily worked on when I was in South Africa.”

He says his work is challenging and there are hardly any typical days in strategy consulting.

“Generally, we focus on solving a specific problem for a client, which is carried out in a structured project spanning 8 to 12 weeks in most cases,” he explains. “We also meet with the client regularly to better understand their business and work towards a solution. This culminates in providing clients with strategic options that best align with their intended goal”

What excites him about the job is that it is challenging and forces him to think critically and innovatively about how to solve a problems at a global scale.

Support is part of the culture at Deloitte, so while Magagula is being exposed to global leadership with the clients he works with, he is also supported by the higher-ups in that they recognise the hard work he puts in to be at the table.

“I think being South African is a superpower at some of these international spaces,” he says. “The manner in which we carry ourselves, and our sense of humility and being grounded really shines through in corporate environments.”

Thinking back to his student days, Magagula says that funding was his biggest challenge.

“My parents couldn’t afford to pay for my fees as they were making less than R60 000 a year,” he says. “I had to work extra hard be on financial aid through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, but also to secure additional funding. I got two bursaries – the Dell Young Leaders scholarship and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange bursary – which helped to ease the burden.”

He is involved in the UP-US Foundation, an organisation that assists alumni and friends of UP to give back financially in the most tax-effective manner. Magagula is active at a local level with the funding of his alumni chapter in New York.

“More broadly, I want to be a resource to fellow alumni who are thinking of making the transition to this side of the world, and I am contributing financially to the University through the alumni fund.”  

In the near future, he intends on growing within the consulting space.

“I am expanding my passions outside of work to focus on managing musical talent in the New York area,” he says. “Additionally, I have launched an art fund that focuses on bringing contemporary African art to collectors and investors in the US who may not have had the opportunity to really look into the African art market to add to their collections.”