Ethical AI in South Africa: Managing Business Risk

SA businesses are embracing AI, but ethical blind spots are becoming a major operational risk. 

 

South African organisations are accelerating their adoption of Artificial Intelligence, but many are overlooking the single factor that could derail efficiency gains, expose them to regulatory scrutiny, and damage brand trust, says Alkemi Collective CEO Bradly Howland. 

 

He argues that ethical AI is no longer a marketing conversation, but a core business governance issue that belongs on leadership agendas alongside compliance, cybersecurity, and reputational risk. 

 

“AI is now integrated across customer service, fraud detection, recruitment, content creation, and decision support systems. Yet the governance frameworks around how these tools are designed, trained, and deployed remain worryingly thin,” he says. “Companies are moving faster than their risk controls, which is a red flag for any board.” 

 

Recent investigations into bias within fraud detection tools used by medical schemes have highlighted how untested or unbalanced datasets can result in discriminatory outcomes, operational failures, and significant reputational exposure. 

 

“These are not theoretical risks. When an algorithm misclassifies, the consequences are felt by real people and the financial and reputational fallout lands with the organisation, not the software provider,” Howland adds. “You cannot outsource accountability to a machine.” 

 

He believes the challenge for South African businesses is twofold. First, the country’s social and economic complexity makes biased automation particularly dangerous. Second, the rapid global push towards AI regulation means organisations without proper governance will soon find themselves out of step with emerging compliance standards. 

 

“South Africa cannot afford a trust deficit in technology. If consumers or stakeholders believe AI reinforces old inequalities or operates opaquely, the damage will be lasting. Ethical AI is not a moral accessory; it is a business continuity requirement.” 

 

A framework for responsible AI in South African organisations 

Howland argues that businesses should urgently strengthen four areas of governance if they want to protect long-term value and maintain stakeholder trust: 

 

Transparency

AI-generated or AI-assisted outputs should be clearly disclosed to internal and external stakeholders. Transparent communication reduces reputational risk and aligns with emerging global standards. 

 

Data and bias auditing

AI systems must be trained and tested on data that reflects South Africa’s racial, linguistic, and geographic diversity. Regular audits should be mandatory to ensure models do not reinforce historical inequalities or embed unfair decision-making. 

 

Human oversight

Human decision makers must remain ultimately accountable. All AI-supported actions, from content production to risk scoring, should be vetted for accuracy, cultural alignment, and compliance with ethical and legal frameworks. 

 

Skills development

Teams need deeper fluency in both the capabilities and the limitations of AI. Without upskilling, organisations risk misusing tools, misunderstanding outputs, and missing early warning signs of algorithmic failure. 

 

“AI can transform how businesses operate, but only the organisations that prioritise governance, clarity and trust will see sustainable value,” says Howland. “At Alkemi, we work with clients to interpret and oversee their AI use, shape ethical communication frameworks, and guide responsible adoption. Our focus is on helping businesses set the right guardrails and communicate transparently so that stakeholders understand, trust, and support the role AI plays in their operations.” 

 

Why this matters for business media audiences

According to Howland, the organisations that treat AI governance as a strategic business issue now will be the ones that gain a competitive advantage as regulation catches up. 

 

“Boards want clarity, executives want capability, and consumers want trust,” he says. “The communications industry has a critical role to play in helping companies navigate this new frontier with intelligence, responsibility, and transparency.” 

 

He adds that as South Africa’s economy becomes more digitally dependent, ethical AI will influence capital decisions, brand reputation, regulatory compliance, and customer loyalty. 

 

“AI is a business tool with ethical consequences. If we do not address the governance gap, the cost will be measured not only in failed campaigns, but in damaged brands, unnecessary litigation, and eroded public trust.” 

AI in the Workplace: Why Human Judgment Still Matters

By Bradly Howland 

CEO, Alkemi Collective 

 

A few months ago, one of my team leads submitted a first draft of a client strategy document in under two hours. It was polished, well-structured, and covered all the expected ground. It was also, on closer reading, almost entirely generic. The AI had done its job. The thinking had not. 

 

That moment sits with me, because it captures something the industry is not yet being honest enough about. Artificial intelligence has not simply made us more efficient. It has changed what efficiency means… and in doing so, it has created a new and underappreciated risk: that we begin to mistake fluency for insight. 

 

The productivity gains from AI are real

The productivity numbers are real. Research from MIT and Harvard Business School consistently shows that AI-assisted knowledge workers complete tasks 20% to 35% faster, often with measurable quality improvements. Across the communications and marketing industry, output volumes have surged. Agencies that once needed teams to produce a content campaign can now do it with a fraction of the headcount. Clients are asking for more, faster, and at lower cost. The market is obliging. 

 

However, here is the argument I want to make and I accept it may be unpopular in some boardrooms: the productivity gains from AI are real, but they are also creating a form of output inflation that we are not yet equipped to manage. 

 

The Hidden Cost of AI Productivity

Output inflation works like this. As the cost of producing work drops, so does its perceived value. When content is abundant and cheap to generate, differentiation becomes harder. The premium shifts away from production capability and towards something far more difficult to automate: judgment, interpretation, and the ability to navigate genuine complexity. Yet the commercial pressure is moving in exactly the opposite direction. More deliverables. Faster turnaround. Shorter thinking cycles. 

This is not a technology problem. It is a leadership problem. 

 

Organisations embedding AI into their workflows are making implicit choices about what they value. If the metric is speed and volume, then depth and originality will be quietly deprioritised. Nobody announces this. It simply happens, gradually, as the incentive structure shifts. Over time, it hollows out the very capability that justified the premium in the first place. 

 

AI adoption in South Africa

In South Africa, this dynamic carries an additional layer of complexity. AI adoption is uneven - not just across industries, but within them. Some organisations are accelerating rapidly, deploying tools across research, content, and client service. Others are still building foundational digital infrastructure. The result is a dual pressure: to catch up quickly, often without the governance frameworks or strategic clarity needed to do so responsibly. 

 

The risk of moving fast without that clarity is not only reputational, it is also structural. An organisation that uses AI to replace thinking, rather than to enhance it, is not becoming more competitive. It is becoming more fragile, dependent on tools it does not fully understand, producing work that is difficult to defend when it matters. 

 

What AI means for communications

For the communications industry specifically, this should prompt some uncomfortable self-examination. Our value proposition has never been rooted in volume. It lies in the capacity to read a situation accurately, to shape a narrative under pressure, to exercise judgment when the facts are contested and the stakes are high. These are not capabilities that can be automated. But they can be eroded - through neglect, through underinvestment, and through the slow substitution of speed for thought. 

 

The organisations that will succeed in this next phase are not those that use AI most aggressively. They are those that are most deliberate about where it stops. 

 

That means protecting time for thinking, even when technology makes it possible to move faster. It means being explicit about where human judgment is non-negotiable, and building that distinction into how work is structured, priced, and evaluated. It means resisting the temptation to let a client brief become a prompt, and then mistake the output for a strategy. 

 

AI has made work faster. Whether it makes work better depends entirely on the choices that sit around it - the questions we ask before we run the tool, the standards we apply when we review the output, and the intellectual honesty to know the difference between something that looks good and something that is good. 

 

Speed is not the test. Judgment is. 

 

Howland is the CEO of Alkemi Collective and President of the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA). 

Corporate Reputation: The New Rules of Reputation Strategy

#WPRD26: Corporate reputation is statecraft now 

By Bradly Howland, CEO, Alkemi Collective

 

In April, Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau responded to the threat of a 25% United States tariff on South African auto exports with something notably absent from the modern communications playbook: he asked for a meeting. It was not a statement, campaign or rebuttal thread. Just a request to get South African and American officials into the same room before either side tried to win the argument in public. 

It is a small detail, easy to miss amid louder tariff news. But it is also, in miniature, the whole argument of this piece: that corporate reputation now behaves like statecraft, and that most of the profession is still equipped for something else. 

 

Corporate reputation now behaves like statecraft

The rest of the year has borne this out in real time.  

The US Supreme Court struck down the 30% tariff on South African goods in February 2025. Within a day, a separate authority imposed a 10% baseline tariff. The African Growth and Opportunity Act was renewed for a single year rather than the multi-year term South Africa had wanted. Washington has since imposed a new 12.5% tariff following a forced-labour enforcement finding that Pretoria disputes, and government is now weighing retaliatory duties of its own.  

None of this has been resolved through messaging. It has been resolved, when it has been resolved at all, through negotiation, leverage and the careful management of a difficult relationship that nobody expects to become friendly, only survivable. 

 

Why traditional PR strategy is struggling

Most public relations practice was not built for difficult relationships. It emerged in a media landscape with a stable, largely trusted gatekeeper in the middle and an audience that was broadly willing to listen once reached. Say it well enough, often enough, to enough people, and belief would follow.  

That assumption is the quiet foundation under most of what the profession calls strategy: messaging architecture, share of voice, campaign reach. Public affairs and crisis specialists will rightly object that their corners of the profession have always known this. The objection rather proves the point: they remain corners. 

The assumption no longer holds and there are numbers behind that claim. 

The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that seven in ten people globally are now unwilling or hesitant to trust someone who holds different values, comes from a different background, or draws on different sources of information. Trade wars rank among the events that have done the most damage to trust over the past five years, behind only inflation, misinformation and the pandemic. 

The institutions people are walking away from are precisely the ones PR has traditionally used to reach them: trust in national government leaders and in foreign business leaders has fallen sharply, while trust in neighbours, colleagues and immediate circles has risen. People are not becoming harder to reach. They are becoming harder to reach at a distance, through institutions, by people who do not already have standing with them. 

Diplomacy never assumed a captive, well-disposed audience. It assumes the opposite… an audience that may be indifferent or actively opposed, and that requires years of relationship-building rather than persuasion in a single cycle. Three of its habits translate directly and are worth stealing outright. 

 

Three lessons PR can take from diplomacy

First comes deterrence over persuasion. Sometimes the goal is not to convince anyone of anything. Instead, the goal is to make an action too costly to take against you. A strong reputation can do more than create goodwill. It can raise the cost for anyone considering action against you. That is close to how AGOA now operates for South Africa. Both sides maintain the relationship because they understand the cost of losing it.  

The corporate version is unglamorous: the company no campaigner or short-seller bothers to target, because its record is documented, dull and already priced in.  

Next comes alliance-building over stakeholder mapping. A stakeholder map is a snapshot, drawn up and activated when a crisis lands. An alliance is mutual and maintained whether or not you currently need it.  

China's response to American tariff pressure is instructive. Rather than relying mainly on retaliatory tariffs, it has deepened trade relationships with emerging markets. It has also used its position in critical minerals as leverage.  

The leverage is structural and no company can replicate it; the behaviour, building reciprocity before it is needed, is available to anyone. That is alliance-building deployed as strategy by an actor with every reason to simply posture in public instead.

Finally, there is calculated ambiguity rather than the pressure to always have a statement ready.

Minister Tau's own language through the AGOA saga has been notably careful: welcoming the renewal while pointedly flagging its short duration, a diplomatic parenthesis rather than a declaration. PR culture treats silence, or qualified language, as a failure of communications. Diplomats know it is sometimes the only accurate way to describe an unresolved position. 

 

Why This Matters for Africa

This matters more in Africa than the trade press coverage suggests, and not only because of goodwill.  

AGOA-linked exports from the continent fell 32% in the year to November 2025, with South African auto exports alone down almost 75%. Local automakers still posted a record overall export year by finding buyers beyond the US. That does not rebut the point. It shows the second habit above, alliance-building, executed under duress.  

That is not an abstract trust deficit. It affects jobs and GDP. Both move with how the diplomatic relationship is managed. The underlying trust environment is not the one most PR training assumes. In last year's barometer, South African trust in business sat at a relatively strong 68%, while trust in media sat far lower, at 46%. PR has traditionally used the intermediary to reach audiences, but that intermediary is not the trusted party here.

 

Reputation strategy belongs at the top table

None of this means communications teams should become junior diplomats. It argues for something more specific: that reputation strategy belongs in the room with legal and government affairs, with the same seniority and the same access, and that the professionals doing it need to be trained to read power and leverage, not only narrative and tone. 

The organisations that adapt fastest to this will not be the ones still perfecting their messaging. They will be the ones that learned, the way government has been forced to learn this year, that some relationships are never won. They are only managed, continuously, for as long as they matter. 

 

Howland is the CEO of Alkemi Collective, and is the immediate past President of PRISA. 

G20 Lessons for Marketing, Media and Reputation Leadership

By Bradly Howland 

CEO: Alkemi Collective 

 

South Africa’s hosting of the G20 Summit in 2025 wasn’t just a diplomatic milestone. It was a live, high-stakes demonstration of what strategic communication looks like when the stakes are global, the audience is fragmented, and the entire world is refreshing their news feeds for the next headline. 

 

For those of us working in marketing, media, and professional communications, the summit delivered a masterclass. These G20 marketing lessons are surprisingly transferable to the boardroom, the campaign war room, and the brands we build daily.

 

Below are the five non-negotiable insights that stood out most, not from a political lens, but from a communications leadership perspective. 

 

 

  1. Africa took control of its own narrative: The power of pre-framing.

 

One of the biggest strategic wins of G20 Johannesburg was how intentionally South Africa, as the first African host, shaped the narrative before anyone else could. Analysts and global media often arrive with "pre-loaded assumptions" about Africa, assumptions that, if left unchallenged, become the default story. 

 

South Africa didn’t wait for external validation. It proactively framed the summit around a powerful, values-driven theme: Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability. This was more than a slogan; it was a narrative filter. It ensured every discussion, from debt relief to climate finance and global wealth inequality, was interpreted through the lens of the Global South’s priorities and a distinctly African voice.  

 

Furthermore, the early adoption of the Leaders’ Declaration, a move celebrated by many nations but reportedly opposed by the US, sent an immediate, decisive message about the host's agenda-setting power and multilateral consensus. 

 

Marketing Takeaway: 

 

  1. Integrated communication works: internal & external must align

 

A standout element was how seamlessly domestic communication and global communication were integrated.  

 

The government didn't just speak to foreign media; they spoke to South Africans in communities, on social platforms, and through outreach programmes like the establishment of the Township20 (TS20) engagement group.  

 

The goal was clearly: “Let South Africans understand the G20’s relevance and let the world hear the voices and priorities of all South Africans.” 

 

This deep, concerted effort secured an essential social licence for the event. By the time the summit kicked off, citizens were talking about it with a sense of ownership, not distance or apathy. This internal buy-in became a protective shield, allowing the hosts to focus on the external narrative while maintaining national cohesion. 

 

Marketing Takeaway:

 

  1. The M20 Media Summit elevated information integrity to a global strategic imperative

 

The M20 Media Summit, convened by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), was not a side-show, but a powerful, proactive call to action. African media leaders successfully tabled the Johannesburg Declaration, and its formal handover to President Ramaphosa ahead of the main summit cemented its standing as a major agenda point. 

 

The M20 Declaration fundamentally framed Information Integrity as essential to democracy, development, and the achievement of the G20’s goals. 

 

Key planks of this declaration were: 

 

Marketing & Media Takeaway: 

 

  1. Complex crises can be turned into reputation wins

 

The summit wasn’t without dramatic tensions: the glaring absence of a major G20 leader (the US), geopolitical conflicts dominating headlines, and relentless online noise were real threats to the host's success. Yet, South Africa's communication response was a study in narrative discipline. 

 

Instead of reacting defensively to the US boycott or allowing the absence to derail the talks, the hosts calmly reframed the story. The narrative became: "Multilateralism still works, with or without certain powers." The early adoption of the Declaration in the face of opposition reinforced a confident stance, allowing objective progress, the focus on the Global South agenda, climate finance, and debt relief, to replace political theatre as the main story. This pivot turned a potential crisis into a proof point for the strength of the collective and the host's strategic resolve. 

 

Marketing Takeaway: 

 

  1. The world responds to consistency and professional rigour

 

Perhaps the most important lesson for our industry is that the success was not accidental. South Africa didn’t improvise its way to a strong outcome. Every element, from the core messaging, the high standard of the media centre experience, the social sentiment tracking, the community dialogue, and the aligned leadership narratives, was part of a coordinated, professional effort. 

 

That consistency is why the payoff was so big: renewed international respect, stronger national pride, better-informed global audiences, and global recognition for Africa’s communication maturity. The seamlessness of the operation, widely lauded by the media, reinforced the credibility of the entire agenda. 

 

Marketing Takeaway: 

 

The formula for building value remains the same, whether you're running a global summit or launching a new consumer brand: 

 

The bottom line? 

 

The G20 was a potent reminder that communication is not window dressing; it is a strategic asset and a source of competitive advantage. It also confirmed that Africa is not a passive participant in global storytelling; we are increasingly a co-author of the global narrative. This requires communicators who can work with cultural intelligence, data, creativity, and professional discipline. 

 

As we continue our work of raising professional standards, strengthening narrative leadership, and championing ethical communication, the G20 stands as proof that South Africa can communicate at a world-class level, with world-shaping impact. Our industry should take that momentum seriously and build on it loudly, proudly, and intentionally. The world is clearly still listening, and we have the capacity to lead the narrative. 

CMO Role: The Future of Marketing Leadership

The decline of the CMO is a strategic misstep for business 

By Bradly Howland 

CEO: Alkemi Collective 

President: Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa 

 

The CMO role is undergoing a significant shift. New research from Forrester confirms a downward trend that many business leaders have failed to take seriously.  Fewer than 60% of Fortune 500 companies now have a marketing leader reporting directly to the CEO, down from 63% in 2024. The number of executives still holding the actual title of “Chief Marketing Officer” has slipped below 50%. While these percentages may appear marginal, they reflect a more consequential erosion of influence. The traditional authority and centrality of the CMO are being dismantled - and quietly, in plain sight. 

 

This is not just a change in reporting lines or nomenclature. It is symptomatic of a wider strategic misjudgement that risks undermining long-term brand value, customer trust, and market competitiveness. At a time when brands are navigating unprecedented complexity, economic instability, and social expectation, sidelining marketing is a high-risk move. 

 

Over the past decade, the role of the CMO has been steadily carved up. Newer titles (Chief Growth Officer, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Digital Officer) have emerged, each assuming a fragment of what was once a unified portfolio. As responsibilities have splintered, so too has the strategic power once concentrated in the CMO’s office. In many organisations, marketing now sits further from the centre of influence, relegated to execution rather than leadership. 

 

The reality is that marketing has evolved far beyond its traditional creative brief. It is no longer just about generating demand or managing campaigns. Marketing today sits at the intersection of trust, technology, purpose, and performance. It connects internal strategy with external perception, translating company values into experiences that resonate with stakeholders - customers, employees, investors, and communities alike. 

 

Excluding marketing leadership from strategic conversations creates a vacuum in this space. Disconnected brand narratives, reactive communications, and inconsistent customer experiences are all downstream consequences of that exclusion. The risks are not theoretical. They manifest in reputational damage, declining relevance, and missed growth opportunities. 

 

The fragmentation of the CMO role has also weakened internal alignment. When customer insight, data interpretation, channel strategy, and brand narrative are managed across separate leadership tracks, businesses lose the coherence needed to drive sustained performance. Clarity of voice, purpose, and positioning becomes harder to maintain. 

 

This trend is particularly concerning given the increasing scrutiny placed on companies’ ESG performance. Purpose is no longer optional, it is a business imperative. Stakeholders now expect consistency between what a company says and what it does. Without a strong marketing leader at the executive table, ESG risks becoming superficial, performative, or misaligned with broader strategy. 

 

A capable marketing leader brings not just storytelling, but substance. They are responsible for aligning internal culture with external expectation, managing reputational risk, and embedding brand trust into every customer and stakeholder touchpoint. These are essential leadership functions, not peripheral tasks. 

 

South African companies are not immune to these shifts. In fact, many are navigating even more fragile trust dynamics - across economic lines, historical legacies, and increasingly vocal stakeholder groups. Local brands must manage global competition, social responsiveness, and technological adaptation simultaneously. Strong marketing leadership is not a luxury in this context. It is foundational. 

 

This shift also coincides with rapid advancement in data analytics, automation, and AI. These tools offer extraordinary insight into customer behaviour, but they require strategic interpretation. The human judgment to turn raw data into commercially intelligent decisions still resides with leadership. Removing marketing from the top table means removing the function best positioned to make meaning of those insights. 

 

The responsibility does not rest solely with the C-suite. Marketers must also show up differently. It is no longer enough to be creatively talented. The profession must consistently demonstrate impact in business terms; market share, revenue growth, customer lifetime value. Influence is earned through credibility, clarity, and commercial fluency. 

 

Within PRISA, the repositioning of communication professionals as strategic advisors has become a core focus. As an institute, we are working to elevate professional standards and reinforce the strategic value of communications, PR, and marketing in the business ecosystem. This is not about chasing relevance. It is about restoring rightful influence - through rigour, capability, and measurable impact. 

 

The CMO role is not disappearing because it is obsolete. It is shrinking because its value is being misunderstood, both externally and internally. The role must evolve, certainly. But it should evolve into something even more powerful, not more peripheral. 

 

Business leaders who fail to recognise this shift risk operating with a strategic blind spot. The brand voice, customer trust, ESG credibility, and cultural alignment that marketing leads are uniquely positioned to manage cannot be delegated down or divided across competing roles. 

 

There is still time to course correct. Boards and executive teams must reevaluate how marketing is represented at leadership level. Marketers must assert their value more boldly and speak in terms that drive business confidence. 

 

The need has never been greater. The companies that succeed in the years ahead will not be those with the flashiest campaigns. They will be the ones with the clearest sense of purpose, the strongest customer alignment, and the courage to put marketing where it belongs… at the heart of business strategy. 

PR Industry in South Africa: Shaping the Future

Why agencies must help shape the future of communication

South Africa's PR industry operates in a world where trust is increasingly fragile, misinformation can spread faster than the truth, and the value of credible communications is under real pressure. The role of our industry has never been more critical.

The Role of South Africa's PR Industry

South Africa’s communications professionals sit at the intersection of business, government, and society. They help brands build and maintain trust, shape the stories that inform public understanding, and hold themselves accountable to ethical practice in a space where the stakes are high.

 

Despite this importance, the structures that support and professionalise the field often need strengthening. Industry bodies like the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) play a vital role in this work, and agencies cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.

 

PRISA has served as the home of the communications profession in Southern Africa for decades. This is not about legacy for its own sake, but about real, present-day relevance.

 

Today, PRISA’s work is essential in addressing some of the biggest challenges facing the industry. Its commitment to ethics is crucial in an age of disinformation, AI-generated content, and declining media trust.

 

The PRISA code of ethics is not just a symbolic document, but a practical framework for navigating complex client demands, public scrutiny, and the responsibility to the truth.

 

“Ethics is not negotiable,” says Bradly Howland, CEO of Alkemi and President of PRISA. “Our industry is under the microscope in ways it has never been before. We must be able to show clients and the public that we hold ourselves to real standards. Without that, our credibility collapses.”

 

Education and professionalisation are equally important. The sector faces a serious skills challenge, and PRISA’s role in accrediting programmes, supporting continuing professional development, and promoting professional standards directly improves the quality of work agencies and practitioners deliver. Transformation remains a core priority as well. A diverse, inclusive industry is not only fairer but smarter, better able to serve a country as varied and complex as South Africa.

 

When Howland accepted the role of PRISA President in June, it was with the conviction that the industry cannot keep doing things the same way.

 

“We have to be more professional, more accountable, and more relevant to business and society,” he says. “That means updating what PRISA offers, making sure it is financially sustainable, and building real value for members while advocating for standards that protect our industry’s reputation.”

 

“This is not work any one person or organisation can do alone. It needs buy-in from the entire industry, and especially from agencies that help set the tone for how we practice.  At Alkemi, the commitment to this work is deliberate and active,” Howland adds.

 

He explains that supporting the industry is smart business.

 

“We invest time mentoring the next generation of practitioners because we want a strong talent pipeline. We have worked to revitalise the PRISMS because our industry needs a credible, aspirational showcase of excellence. We also believe in using our own platform to drive conversations about ethical practice and the evolving role of communications.”

 

Howland adds that this is not charity, but strategic thinking. “If the industry is healthier, we are all better off. Clients see more value in our work, talent stays in the sector, and standards rise across the board.”

 

“If you work in an agency, run one, or call yourself a professional in this field, the challenge is clear. Get involved. Support the work of your respective professional bodies. Offer your expertise. Help hold our industry to higher standards,” he says. 

 

“We often tell clients we are their strategic partners. We need to be strategic partners in shaping the future of our own industry too. If we do not do it, someone else will - and we may not like where it ends up,” says Howland. 

South African PR Agency | Public Relations

Questions and Answers 

By Bradly Howland
CEO: Alkemi Collective

 

Tell us a little bit about your PR company?
At Alkemi Collective, we see ourselves as more than just a PR agency, we’re an integrated marketing communications partner. 

From PR to content marketing, social media, and brand strategy, we help brands tell real, human stories that build trust and drive business results. With offices in Cape Town and Joburg, we’re proudly independent and proudly South African. 

  

What industry does your company provide PR to?
We work across multiple sectors, including financial services, health, technology, and public sector. We’re sector fluid, but people-focused, because at the end of the day, every industry comes down to relationships. 

  

What does being in the PR sector mean to you?
For us, it’s about helping businesses earn their voice and their place in society. It’s not just about reputation management, it’s about building trust, shaping narratives, and helping organisations show up in authentic, credible ways. 

  

What do you love most about being in the PR sector?
The impact. When done right, PR is invisible infrastructure, quietly enabling businesses to operate, governments to connect, and communities to engage. It’s also a sector that constantly evolves, keeping us sharp, creative, and human. 

  

What does this year’s World PR Day theme ‘Building Bridges & Navigating Polarisation’ mean to you?
This year’s World PR Day theme is a clear call for communicators to step up. Our profession has a responsibility to move beyond hype and performative slogans. We’re in the business of making sense of complexity, creating clarity, and helping organisations behave in ways that earn trust. That requires us to think critically, act ethically, and commit to work that matters. 

  

What do you love most about being in corporate communications in Africa?
Africa is a continent of complexity and possibility. What we love most is the need to constantly adapt,  understanding local contexts, navigating cultural nuances, and helping African brands tell their stories both locally and globally. No two days (or campaigns) are ever the same. 

  

How does your PR organisation have a role to play in shaping business, governance, and society?
We believe communication is a strategic tool. Whether it’s helping a business secure its social licence to operate, supporting government agencies with public education, or managing crises, our role is to help organisations engage transparently and meaningfully. The work we do builds trust, and trust builds economies. 

 

How important are platforms such as Bizcommunity to you and your clients' presence in the business media?
Platforms like Bizcommunity are essential. They give us access to industry peers, decision-makers, and the broader business landscape. For our clients, Bizcommunity offers a credible platform to share thought leadership, insights, and celebrate their milestones. 

 

What has been your company’s greatest achievement to date?
Every client win matters to us,  from launching national campaigns to securing hyperlocal media stories that shift perception. But if we had to choose, our greatest achievement is staying true to our values while evolving as an agency. In a fast-changing industry, that’s something we’re proud of.