Industry Profile – Tholoana Qhobela

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by admin in Personality Profiles

Name: Tholoana Qhobela
Company: The Jupiter Drawing Room Johannesburg
Title: Executive Business Strategist

What do you enjoy most about your portfolio?
Seeing a strategy come to fruition in exactly the way we planned

Where did you go for the summer holidays?
Stay right here in Jozi. It’s the best time of year to enjoy the city.

Describe your home environment briefly.
Quiet, private, hidden. My sanctuary.

Are you more of a TV/Radio or DVD person? Favourites?
All three. I have a few TV programs I follow. The radio is always on and DVDs are biased to current affairs / social affairs documentaries and for leisure, I am a sucker for BBC drama

My Favourite DVD’s / movies ….
My favorite DVD is Control Room, a documentary about the media management of the Iraq war and my all time favorite movie is The Godfather Trilogy

We live in a brand conscious society. How do you feel about that? Are you a labels or off-the-peg person?
I am ambivalent about us being a brand conscious society: my career depends on it, but the sociologist in me sometimes finds it hard to do what we got to do!
On a personal note, I am hyper aware of how brands are created so I tend to be off the peg. In fact, the more popular the label, the more likely I am to by pass it! Money does not buy taste.

What’s your Sunday morning read?
The Weekender, The Citizen, The Sunday Times, The Mail and Guardian

Which are your favourite magazines or must-buy mags of the month?
I am still looking for a magazine that is relevant to my lifestyle and life stage

Favourite on-line site?
Huffingtonpost.com

Your South African hero/oine?
The mamas (and papas!) that are unnamed that go to work for little reward, sometimes bringing up other people’s children, but invest everything in their kids so they don’t have to live the same life as they have.

Best dining out venue?
Anywhere that I can still smoke

No 1-industry peeve?
Forgetting that some of the good old media is what the majority of the country consumes – we seem to think that it isn’t all that good no more and the ‘sexy’ new media is the only way

Best all time local destination?
My family home in the highlands of Lesotho