Business information analyst Zenzile Ntshabele is proof that a “messy” journey can also lead to success. “The impact I’m making isn’t limited to the Department of Library Services only; it extends to the rest of UP, South Africa and beyond,” she says.

On the surface, Zenzile Ntshabele appears to have experienced a smooth trajectory to success. A business information analyst in the Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria (UP), she has just started a PhD in Mathematical Statistics.

Yet her background didn’t instantly equate with prosperity. Ntshabele went to one of South Africa’s most under-resourced, no-fee, rural schools. She was driven by “a desire to excel, to be better, to be much more than where I was coming from, to be something more”, she says. But her journey was even more rocky and convoluted than that. “Messy” is how she puts it.

First, she battled with maths. After scoring below 50% for it in the first term of matric, she promised herself she would do better, and cracked 74% in the finals. Then she chose to study industrial mathematics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal “because it sounded fancy”. But it included the core subject of computer science – and she had never touched a computer before. She struggled with other subjects too, due to many factors. At the end of the first semester, she stood in the queue in front of the dean’s office facing possible academic suspension. She says she “escaped it by the eye of a needle”, and ultimately swopped to applied mathematics and statistics.

As if those challenges weren’t enough, she had fallen pregnant at the age of 15 in Grade 11.

“Thank God for my mother,” Ntshabele recalls. “She didn’t allow me to stay at home and raise the child. I delivered the baby in December, and by January, I was back at school for matric. My mother is my hero. If it wasn’t for her, I would have been delayed.”

Her mother, Busisiwe Msweli, repeatedly told her children – who include a social worker, a teacher and two engineers – that their late father, who died when Ntshabele was seven, valued education. As she matured, Ntshabele realised this had been her mother’s way of motivating them. And it paid off.

“You always want to honour the people who have passed on, and make them proud,” Ntshabele says. That’s why my siblings and I ran after education.”

Now the proud mother of three daughters, the youngest of whom is six, Ntshabele says: “I love spending time with my family, laughing at my husband's jokes and listening to never-ending stories from my kids. Those things relax my mind, and I draw strength from that.”

She joined UP as a National Research Foundation intern 10 years ago, directly after graduating with an honours degree in Statistics, cum laude.

“I love the culture and drive for excellence and innovation at UP,” she says. “I love the environment. It feels like home, but I also like the evolving nature of my work. I get to create new challenges for myself because I don’t like routine. And even though I’m in the Department of Library Services, the impact I’m making is not only limited to the department; it goes to the rest of UP, to South Africa and beyond.”

Her job involves collecting and analysing library statistical data from various sources to identify trends, patterns and insights that drive strategic planning and operational improvements, and translating these insights into business intelligence for the library’s executive team. She explains business intelligence as “presenting actionable business information for informed decision-making”. “Our market is the UP community,” she adds. Ntshabele’s research includes assessing the needs and expectations of this community through quantitative and qualitative measures.

“The outcome of this research informs our marketing strategies, helps refine processes, and drives a culture of continuous improvement and excellence,” she says.

Ntshabele says she’s known for thinking differently and taking ownership of her work. She explains that being the odd one out in the department – the only statistician without another to guide her – means she takes her own approach.

“I make sure I prioritise self-development so that I’m up to date with developments in my field. I don’t need to be told do this and that – I take initiative and ownership of my own work, and improve as I go. I must also give my manager, Elsabé Olivier, flowers for the significant role that she’s played in shaping me into the professional that I am today, and for giving me room to be creative.”

Ntshabele has enjoyed presenting her research at national and international conferences, including the 15^th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries Conference 2023, the International Symposium on User Experience 2023, and the 62^nd Annual Conference of the South African Statistical Association 2022. They were mostly online, but in 2019, she attended the 13^th International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries in Wales; she also visited her peers at King’s College in London and the University of Oxford for benchmarking purposes. “I loved London,” she says.

Now Ntshabele is not only at the pinnacle of her education, but is also part of an academic family; while she’s doing her doctorate at the University of the Witwatersrand, her husband is completing his PhD in Entrepreneurship at UP.

She laughs about how he came to her office to ask her out the day after they had first met.

“I said ‘no’,” she exclaims. “The day he was asking to take me out was a Wednesday, and that was my home cell day,” she says, referring to an intimate midweek church service she attends.

In the end, she suggested he come along. Now he is an equally avid and loyal member of the Christian Revival Church in Silver Lakes, Pretoria, even serving as an usher. She assists with cooking meals that feeds thousands of children who attend services each Sunday. “We make sure that when they go home, their tummies are full.”

Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if you see Ntshabele roaming the campus at midday every day. She and her manager, Olivier, the assistant director for marketing and quality assurance, with whom she travelled overseas for that memorable conference a few years ago, usually go for a walk at lunchtime.