Khaya Dlanga
Senior Communications Manager for Content Excellence and Digital at Coca-Cola
Khaya Dlanga is an author, blogger and Senior Communications Manager for Content Excellence and Digital at Coca-Cola. He is also one of the most influential individuals in South African Media.
Prior to joining the corporate world, he led a successful career in advertising. He boasts more than 30 local and international awards in advertising. These include a Loerie Grand Prix and two New York Festival Grand Prix wins. He was also the winner of two Cannes Gold Lions. The first he won as a creative and the second as a client during the most recent Cannes awards in June 2014. He is one of very few people to win a Gold Cannes Lion as a client and as a creative.
In 2008, Khaya was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in Advertising, Media & Marketing in "The Annual – Advertising, Media & Marketing" edited by Jeremy Maggs.
He was the winner of Financial Mail's Adfocus New Broom award in 2009 - awarded to a young marketer making an impact in the industry.
Khaya travelled to Rwanda to interview President Paul Kagame in 2011 for YouTube Worldview on the request of Google. These series of interviews included other world leaders such as Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama which received the highest number of views. In fact, in 2007, Khaya’s question was the only one from an African YouTube user to be answered by Barack Obama during his US presidency campaign via YouTube.
Khaya was inducted as an Honorary Golden Key member in 2012 by Wits University, joining an illustrious list of the likes of Trevor Manuel and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
He is the author of "In My Arrogant Opinion" and, the bestseller, "To Quote Myself: A memoir". Most recently, Khaya organised the Peace Bus initiative which spoke out against Xenophobia and provided supplies for displaced people.
Widely regarded as "the man to follow on Twitter" and one of South African media's most influential people, he has come a long way his rural Eastern Cape roots.
