As Mazi Asset Management marks two decades in business, the journey of its founder, Malungelo Headman Zilimbola, offers a powerful lens into the values that helped shape the firm, from discipline and difference to a lifelong belief in learning.

The farm before the fund

For Malungelo Zilimbola, asset management did not begin in a boardroom. It began on a cattle farm outside Mahikeng, where he grew up as the eldest son of Xhosa-speaking cattle farmers. Wealth, in that world, was tangible. It had four legs, needed watching and could not be separated from family responsibility.

Born in Klerksdorp and raised in the North West province, Zilimbola was moved with his family to a rural area near Mahikeng at the height of the 1976 uprising, where he could attend a smaller school in a safer environment. The area was classified as a homeland and, because of his Xhosa roots, he was formally regarded as a foreigner in the Setswana-speaking community around him.

His name added to his distinctiveness. Named after his uncle, his second name, Headman, was a nod to Xhosa royalty. In the mouths of local schoolchildren, it became "Herdman," which was accurate: he was tending his parents’ cattle at the time. It was an early, accidental lesson in the language of value.

“I was an asset manager when I was still a boy, looking after my parents’ assets.”

That observation gave rise to the company's name. iMazi (cow) in Nguni cultures symbolises enduring value and prosperity. Their investment philosophy prioritises opportunities that deliver consistent, long-term returns.

The hunger to learn

Zilimbola credits much of his success to a love of reading that began well before secondary school. His sister is seven years his senior, and he worked his way through her textbooks long before reaching the relevant grade.

“It was just that hunger for knowledge. When the kids were playing outside, I’d close myself in the study and read all my sister’s books. It was not even pressure at all. It was something that just came from within.”

His academic performance earned him a full scholarship throughout high school, followed by Department of Public Works sponsorships for his tertiary studies and a SAFEX scholarship awarded on merit for his BCom Honours.

He crossed the country to study at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and then the University of Cape Town, where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Quantity Surveying, the financial management discipline of the construction industry. He later returned to UCT for a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management, funded by the SAFEX scholarship awarded on merit.

His pivot into finance was prompted by the 1998 interest-rate shock, when rates rose to 25% and the property sector came under pressure. After completing his BCom Honours in Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management at UCT, he joined Investec Asset Management (now Ninety One)  in 2000 as an investment analyst.

“You can imagine the pressure. But the culture at Investec was: "Here’s your space; do your work." They didn’t care about the how; they wanted the outcome. And I managed to produce it.”

His method was characteristically self-directed. He approached management with a proposal: any financial book he purchased using company resources would go into the company library when he was done. The library grew. So did his knowledge of the industry.

Building something different

After Investec, Zilimbola moved to RMB Asset Management, where he served as Senior Portfolio Manager and Director, managing R60 billion in assets and heading African operations across Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland. He sat on the board as the only black director. The experience of navigating institutions that were not built with him in mind would prove formative.

In 2006, having accumulated nearly a decade of investment experience and a clear sense of what was missing in the industry, he founded Mazi Asset Management with R2 million of his own money. The firm currently manages approximately R46 billion in assets and has earned recognition from Morningstar, the Raging Bull Awards and ABSIP, among others.

Zilimbola wanted a firm that reflected a different way of thinking. While many asset managers draw analysts from a narrow pool of finance graduates, Mazi recruits engineers, mathematicians, and actuaries alongside traditional finance professionals. Diversity of background, in his view, is a structural defence against groupthink.

“I know that I’m different, and I enjoy being different, and I enjoy bringing people that are different into the same space and having that tension in terms of discussion. If you do things the same way, you cannot expect a different outcome.”

The firm also runs a graduate programme designed to bring young people from assorted backgrounds into investment management, a direct expression of Zilimbola’s belief that his own rural upbringing gave him insight that no textbook could supply.

“My background, coming from a very rural area: that’s what allows me to bring solutions, knowing how people live, where people come from, and how education is such a game-changer.”

Twenty years on

Asked what has kept Mazi viable through market downturns, financial crises and a global pandemic, Zilimbola points to three things: a vision that people genuinely share, meaningful roles for every member of the team, and a strong ownership culture that goes beyond titles and pay grades.

“In other companies, the guys are happy just to pay you and give you a title, and your opinion does not matter. At Mazi, people get meaningful roles. That becomes ownership. And I think that’s what keeps people through the tough times.”

The company began, like many black-owned investment managers of its era, with incubation mandates, institutional arrangements designed to give emerging managers a foothold. Zilimbola is clear-eyed about that origin and equally clear about what followed. “Once we got the opportunity, we proved ourselves. After proving ourselves, we graduated out of those mandates and moved into the mainstream, competing with Allan Gray, Coronation, whoever.”

Two decades in, Mazi competes in that mainstream as a proudly South African firm, one that Zilimbola believes carries a particular responsibility to demonstrate what is possible.

“I want to say that we represent a truly proudly South African company, one that gives opportunities to everybody in South Africa.”