The people driving Machipu's mission.

She served as Director-General of the North West Province in the Premier's Office, and spent nine years as an executive at ESKOM, where she created and led an independent training unit responsible for executive development of C-suite executives across state entities in the Department of Public Enterprises portfolio. She has served on private, public and non-profit boards since 1993 — including Transnet and the Industrial Development Corporation — and has chaired more than ten.

Her most prized accomplishment is her stewardship of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, to which President Mandela appointed her Trustee in 2001 and where she serves as Chairperson today. In 2013 she was appointed Deputy Chair of the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust, leading the team that raised one billion Rand to build South Africa's first quaternary children's hospital.

She is a founder and honorary life member of the Businesswomen's Association and the International Women's Forum South Africa, has served as a Global Director and Chair of Presidents of the International Women's Forum in Washington DC, and sits on the Board of Governors of Rhodes University.

A few years after his release he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and completed an MBA in the United States. He has held senior executive and board positions at African Bank, where he served as CEO, Citibank in New York and South Africa, Barclays Bank, First National Bank, and as Executive Director of the Canadian stockbroking firm Brockhouse Cooper. He recently stepped down as Deputy Chairman of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and is Chairman of Revolut South Africa.

He credits much of the transformation of the past four decades to organised business lobbies — NAFCOC, FABCOS, which he chaired, and the Black Business Council, of which he was a founder member. He joined the Institute of Directors in 1987 and has chaired and served on the boards of numerous JSE-listed companies and multinationals.

He holds an honorary doctorate in Commerce and Economics from the University of Zululand, received the Chancellor's Robben Island Alumnus Award from UNISA in 2022, and is the author of the award-winning autobiography From Robben Island to Wall Street.

In 2012 he moved into business development for a bus manufacturer, winning and running a scholar transport project of over 120 buses ferrying pupils to more than 30 schools across Gauteng. On completion he was promoted to Director of Enterprise Development and Training at Busmark, a manufacturer responsible for assembling over 70% of the buses operating in South Africa's public sector, expanding operations into Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique and Zambia.

He also served as General Manager of a telecommunications company providing internet connectivity and telephony across more than 22 000 provincial lines for the Mpumalanga Provincial Government. Under his leadership TIDNIC developed critical systems for the Gauteng Liquor Board and today serves as the appointed national ICT service provider for SANTACO, the South African National Taxi Council.

She has written on gambling addiction for Responsible Gambling, and spent two years writing addiction and recovery material while working for the Addiction Recovery Centre at the Halfway House on the East Rand before returning to Sandton.

Amara studied towards a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English in the United States. On her return to South Africa she built a career in administration, holding roles at Summer Place Boutique Hotel, Thamaga Holdings and BancPlus, and has served as Office Administrator at Machipu Holdings since 2016. She holds a Higher Certificate in Office Administration from Damelin College, and brings that discipline to the governance and secretarial function of the company.