By day, Khulile Vilakazi-Ofosu holds down a steady, demanding job as a senior forensic expert at a multinational IT company.
But with her background in auditing and finance, she is perfectly poised to occupy another role out of office hours, by combining her flair for figures with her natural head for business.
Khulile is not just an entrepreneur; she’s a “hairtrepreneur”, the driving force behind a company that produces natural hair extensions for women.
Bounce Essentials was born out of Khulile’s own unexpected hair loss after her first pregnancy, and it stands today as a crowning symbol of pride, empowerment, and styling, backed by a range of natural-hair dolls for children who want a reflection of their own looks and self-worth in the toys they play with.
Between her busy days and her fast-growing sideline, Khulile found the time to sit down with Ruda for an insightful chat about ambition, opportunity, and the hair-raising life of a modern business executive.
Hello and a very warm welcome to another session of the Change Exchange, and my guest today, Khulile Vilakazi Ofuso. Senior? What did you tell me just now, which I’ve now forgotten?
Senior investigations manager at Microsoft.
But you also run your own business.
Yes, I’ve got my own business as well with my partner, Caroline.
OK, we’ll talk about that. Don’t sweat. [Laughs] Sorry. What did you study and why?
Gees! OK. I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. But when we were growing up, we were told that teaching doesn’t pay. I’m not sure if that has changed much.
Where did you go?
In Newcastle, KwaZulu Natal. So I grew up there with my great grandmother and my grandmother.
Sorry, may I ask why, where were your parents?
So my mom had me when she was 16 years old. Both my mum and dad were 16 at the time, so they were just babies themselves and my mum gave birth in January, she had to go back to school and kudos to my grandmother for allowing her to do that because most kids would then, you know, stay at home and look after kids. They’re babies. So my grandmother was quite progressive and she took care of me. At the time, her mother was still alive, so my great grandmother took care of me and she passed on when I was seven years old. Then my grandmother…
And did your mum finish school?
She did…She did.
Sjoe, that is an example.
Yes. That’s why I’m saying kudos to my grandmother because, in those days, you know…
It wasn’t really the done thing.
Nope, not at all.
And so did you grow up with the idea of ‘I will go to university, I will get a further education’.
Absolutely. And I think growing up with mom, with my grandmother, I always felt when kids at school talk about their mom and dad, I didn’t have that. I only first met my dad when I was in matric and then he passed on, but I’ve got … My mom got married when I was, I think three years old to my dad now, who is my stepfather, but I never call him that because he’s the only father that I really knew. A wonderful man. And so …
Growing up, did you think you would go to university? Was that always the plan?
The plan was that I wanted to be better than my circumstances. How I was going to do that I didn’t know, but I think at a very young age I knew that education was probably the way there and I was heavily influenced by my aunt, Nonhlanhla, who at the time was a lecturer at the University of Zululand and I got to stay with her and her husband. So the whole family unit that I observed living with them, in education, and what education can do for you. So they were, even today, they are very big influences in my life.
And you said you thought about teaching, but then you decided…
I love teaching and I’m still holding on to some hope that I will one day be a teacher or a lecturer in my old age. I love teaching, but I mean growing up again, and I’m not sure whether it’s changed that the teaching profession is not known to pay well. And I mean my grandmother was a nurse and she had seven kids of her own and now as the eighth kid now because my mom was just a baby when she had me, so I could see how difficult things were. So I was naturally drawn to something that would pay more and everybody said that it’s finance. So that’s how I ended up in finance. And little did I know that I would really enjoy it that much.
You worked in finance and auditing at the oil firms? At Castrol, at BP and was it Total as well? How did you experience that as a young black woman 20 years ago?
I think when I started my career I actually started at NBS corporate bank. It was still NBS then, and I went in as an intern, doing my practical training and then they offered me a role as a head office bookkeeper. And so that was my first real taste of what finance was like. I then worked for Castrol as an assistant finance manager. And that’s where I really started thinking, you know what, I’m really not enjoying this. I really didn’t enjoy finance. Luckily for me, I think I was there for like three years and then BP bought Castrol. So with that whole transition, there was an opportunity for me to go into auditing when when I joined BP.
Internal auditing?
Yes, I’m there. So I never looked back. I love auditing. You know, every audit that you do, it’s like a different project. So there is not that repetitive nature of core finance, which is what I really didn’t enjoy.
But once again it must have been difficult because internal auditing by its nature is there to question and here you were young, black, and a woman?
It is very difficult, especially because you are an employee of the company. So you’re often looked at as a stumbling block to whatever the business wants to do. So I really learned it very early on, in my career for me to really have the desired impact, I need to understand the business and be able to be seen as a trusted business advisor rather than the police, which is what auditors are normally looked at as you know – we do a policing function. But in the business today, for you to be relevant as an auditor, you need to be a trusted business advisor, so that the business knows that you are on their side and whatever advice you’re giving them, it’s for the benefit of the company. It’s not that you are just being a stumbling block.
Auditing is under such pressure in South Africa at the moment.
World wide, actually.
How do you keep that distance? How do you … Because it sounds like a balance. How do you, on the one hand, you do work in the interest of the company, but on the other hand you have to keep a kind of a skeptical distance.
You do. Yes and no. And the fact that you know that you are part of the business. So whatever advice that you’re giving is advice that you would any way adopt yourself because your pay check depends on, on the livelihood of this company. Right? So again, gaining the trust of the business and working as part of a team rather than as a policing function, really earns you trust and it makes your job a little bit easier when you do have to put up the, you know, the policing function.
And raise the red flag. How did it happen that you started your own business? Bounce Hair?
Oh Wow. So fast forward, I’m 38 years old. My first pregnancy I had my daughter, six months after having my daughter. I lost my hair. All of it. I was bald. I’ve always had a very thick head of hair. So that came with a lot of really, I must say I was depressed that year when that happened. So I spent a lot of time researching on the Internet to find out, you know, cause I didn’t want, I’ve never been one for weaves, really. Not that there’s anything wrong with, with them, I wanted something that when somebody looks at me they won’t really see that it’s fake hair. So I got it in my head that surely there must be somebody, somewhere that can turn Indian hair to look like black, African hair. So when I was doing my research I bumped into my partner now online and she had just started bringing the Afro Hair into South Africa.
So I bought a wig from her and it came and it still was the wig that, you know, wigs have those columns that you need to attach them to your head, but I didn’t have hair so there was nothing to attach it to. So I went to doctor Google to see what I can do, you know, to make it user friendly for the person that doesn’t have hair and then come YouTube and a lot of videos of people teaching you how to make wigs. So long story short, I took that hair, that my partner Caroline had started bringing into South Africa and made my own wig with it. And then I told her, you know, look at this, most people especially black ladies, I don’t know why somehow our hairline recedes and you will find that we need to be adaptable to that because we don’t have hair to then attach the combs into. So I said, you know what, this could be something that could really go a long way in South Africa, not just for people that cosmetically don’t have hair, but maybe for cancer sufferers, so it can help a lot of people. And Caroline was like, you know, this is brilliant. Would you be interested in a partnership? So that’s how the business started and we’ve traveled all over the world. Really just trying to perfect the company to what we have today.
Hair is a huge issue for black women, which I think, white women just don’t get.
Yeah. I think because when growing up we were never taught how to take care of our hair and also growing up the only real measure of beauty, were the Barbie dolls, with a straight hair, that’s all we knew. So I can bet that there is no black woman that has never tried their hand in a relaxer. Unless maybe the millennials. But yeah that was the standard of beauty and because we saw hair as problematic because we didn’t know how to take care of it, we then went to use chemicals that damaged our hair.
So the same idea led to you starting the doll series.
Yes. So my daughter’s turning four in a couple of weeks. My daughter’s hair is like shoulder length already. It’s all natural. So when she was about to turn three, she came home from school one day and said, mommy, I want hair that flows, you know, cause obviously she goes to school, her friends have long, blonde hair, brown hair, whatever. So I can remember very well where I was sitting when she said that. And how it struck me.
What did it make make you feel?
At that moment I paused and I looked at it like, do you know how beautiful your hair is? Do you know how it’s an an envy of many people and for you to already at this age, this is the conversation I was having with myself, I mean she was three. She wouldn’t, you know, take all that in. And so for her at this age to already be thinking like this. And I’m not sure whether that’s what she was thinking and she’s three years old but to aspire for something more than what she has… I remember very well, I know something had to be done at that moment. I can actually feel the feeling that I felt then. So I went around the market to look for black dolls. And basically what I found were Barbie dolls that were painted black, they still had their sharp noses, they were skinny as anything with their straight hair. My brother-in-law lives in the States and I was like, Fred, can you find me a really representative black doll? He also couldn’t.
Short answer is no.
So he couldn’t. He got me some dolls, but still their hair was not. So I spoke to my partner, Caroline, who is just honestly a godsend. I spoke to her and said, you know what we know about hair now, why don’t we find a manufacturer that can design a doll that looks like our kids and speak to our hair manufacturer to then make the hair part.
And what was the response when you went you tried to find manufacturers?
So we had this thing because everybody manufacturers in China. So we went to the Hong Kong Toy Fair thinking that’s where we’re going to find a supplier. They turned to us down. They were like, they don’t do black dolls, black dolls are ugly, black dolls don’t sell and they were busy pushing Barbie dolls, because they can be painted black. So they didn’t understand what we wanted because it’s just bigger than us, it’s our kids, it’s the future generation.
It’s the ideal of beauty.
Exactly, and it has to change. That’s why you have so many issues with women these days, you know, anorexia, all types of eating disorders because we’ve got this ideal of what beauty is, you know, so we really wanted our kids to be comfortable in their own skin, and one of the things that we wanted was even the body, you know, it shouldn’t be skinny, Barbie is not a baby, right? So I don’t know. I mean, Kudos to them, they’ve been there for a hundred years plus.
I must say that if Barbie were a real person, she would fall flat on her face because she’s far too heavy.
Exactly. So I mean this is no criticism of Barbie butwe wanted something authentic, something that really represented an African Child. We decided to venture into Europe and we found our manufacturer there.
And how has it been going?
It’s been brilliant. Really the response has been so overwhelming. Positive. It’s not only in South Africa and it’s not only the black market, by the way, about 20-22 percent of our sales go to white mothers. Yes, some of them have adopted black kids, but some just want diversity in toys. They want their kids to grow up knowing and appreciating and embracing diversity. So markets have really opened up far and wide and we’re really grateful for that.
How do you juggle a full time job and a business.
So we’ve been very lucky. I’ve always said, you know, I’ve done my hard labour growing up so I really don’t want work very hard and I wanted to work smarter. So Caroline and I have really built a business that runs on its own. We’ve got three dedicated people that manage the orders and shipments and stuff like that. So all that it requires from both of us is some strategic direction. So we meet on Saturday or on Sunday, I mean she’s in London on Skype and then we do the week’s review and also look forward to the next week. What do we need to do? You know, three months from now, what do we want to do? So it’s not that labour intensive on our side. I mean, I’d be lying if I say I’ve never sent an email or two during Microsoft hours, but really it is, it is a business that runs on its own and it’s an ordering business. So it’s not that we physically do anything with our hands.
You’ve also got two ladies who make the clothes because the clothes are part of the thing. They’re beautiful.
So we have one lady in Pretoria that does our clothes, that make the bulk of our clothes, and what’s really exciting about that is that we found this lady, doing a small scale operation on her own, where she would do wedding dresses and ad hoc gowns for people, but now she’s got a fully fledged factory where she does our clothes, with help, with machinery and I think she’s got about 12 people now working for her. So I mean we’ve created employment not only for her, but for six other people that you didn’t have before. So that’s really heartwarming for us to see how she has grown her business.
And plans and dreams for the business? And professionally for yourself?
The business part, we’re really excited. I wish this interview was like a month or three weeks later… We’re launching new products and we are opening our first concept retail store and the plans are just, I’m excited about them, but I don’t mind to give out too much, but we really want to entrench the Sibahle brand, as you know, the go-to brand for a black child, and more, so for kids in South Africa being the Rainbow Nation there are products where we will be embrace that and celebrating that diversity.
And where’s your first store going to be?
In Bryanston, hopefully. Just concluding the contract at the moment.
But you’re also a wife. That is another role that takes time.
It’s like I’ve got two kids.
You’ve been married for seven years. How did you meet and how did you decide he was the one? William, nê?
Yes. So we met at a friend’s drinks. I mean it was like my first week in Johannesburg after living in Cape Town for almost four years. It was his first week in Johannesburg after living in London for about three years. So we met at a friend’s drinks and we started talking and arguing, actually. Not talking. Arguing. And the first thing that striked me about him was the fact that he could hold his own against me. Right?
Were you not used to that?
No I really wasn’t. And we had the same interests. I mean we read a lot and we found out that we were reading the same book at the same time, which was like, OK, maybe I should look at him with, you know, more serious eyes. So that’s how we met. And it’s been 14 years.
But two busy careers, kids, the whole lot. How do you maintain your closeness?
So we’ve got a very good support structure, but we’re very hands-on parents. So we’ve got the one child Ayesha, we’ve never been very outgoing people. We really like our secluded lifestyle, we really like reading, music and traveling. So that hasn’t changed much and I think that also allows us the opportunity to be like just a close knit family.
You spend your free time together.
Together. So nothing has changed. I think Ayesha hasn’t brought in a very different dynamic, you know? So I think that it just works. And we’re still individuals, in the relationship as well, which I think has sustained us. He’s got his own interests, and I’ve got my own interests. We really allow each other to grow. So it’s William and Khulile and that’s Ayesha and that’s it. I’ve got my friends that I’ve got my own interests with and we pursue and he’s also got the same.
And how did you, how did Ayesha change you inside. Because children do.
Oh they do, they do! She’s really turned me upside down in a way. She’s so much like me. She really is like me and that frustrates me a lot. Really. She has taught me to be able to be fine with not being in control, right. All along.
Why? Because you can’t control her?
I really cannot, not in a bad way that she’s an unruly child and stuff like that. But she’s just, she has her own mind. She reasons. So sometimes I say Ayesha, you know, just do it. No mommy, but mommy. I’m like, no, actually there is no buts and she’ll be, no, there is a but. But Ayesha when I say something just don’t question it but my daddy says I must question everything. So you know, you’ll kind of just, when we were growing up, our kids, well, I mean our parents will be like, you know enough and you do. But she brings in the challenge. Why must I do it? Why can’t I do it an hour later. You know? So she’s really teaching me to be OK with not being in control.
And tell me a little bit about your home, what made you choose it? What big windows? A big tree outside?
It was the space. So growing up I lived in the typical township house. A four roomed house, not four bedrooms – a four roomed house. And my grandmother had seven kids. I was the eighth one.So the sleeping arrangements were difficult.
So you never had any personal space.
No, so I treasure that. I really treasure it. Even in our house when I’ve got my own room where I can just go and be. My makeup can sit the way that it wants to sit. There’s nobody saying I’m taking up too much space and stuff like that. So I really, really value space. So that’s what attracted me to our house. The space and the possibility of it.
And is Joburg home and will be? You’ve lived in KwaZulu-Natal, you’ve lived in Cape Town.
I’m not really stuck on a place. It’s just where William and Ayesha are. So I’m easy. I’m really easy. I’m not stuck on a particular place.
Well, I can only say all of the very best and I look forward to seeing your shop. It’s going to be so exciting.
Thank you so much and thanks for inviting me.
Thank you for being our guest. Until the next time. Go well.Â
- This interview first appeared on the Change Exchange, an online platform by BrightRock, provider of the first-ever life insurance that changes as your life changes. The opinions expressed in it don’t necessarily reflect the views of BrightRock.
