I learnt a lot about myself and my true potential. And, most especially, that the world really is all about business – and the sooner I was able to harness that knowledge, the sooner I would be able to have more fulfilling experiences in the business world.

People used to say to me: ‘You’re an actress. What are you doing at business school?’ But I need to share the idea that there is a business behind everything.

The regular range of Management Advancement Programme (MAP) students includes middle managers, executives, directors and CEOs. Why then would a glamorous young soapie star choose to take this course? Shelagh Foster finds out.

Driving to the SABC in Auckland Park, I considered the thespians I know. In addition to their obvious drive and talent, the other characteristic they share is professionalism. Yet professionalism on stage and screen doesn’t always equate to sound business sense in managing one’s personal career. Many become so swamped by castings, performances, finances and family that the cracks soon start to show. Katlego Danke, however, has a down-to-earth approach to being an actor.

She is petite, quirkily pretty, sizzling with positive energy and as dressed to kill as her TV character Dineo Mashaba. She has been on the Generations cast for five years and is perfectly at ease and in charge. No idle chit-chat here; she’s on a break and it’s down to business.

The daughter of a consul general of what was then Bophuthatswana, Danke was a well-travelled child who finally settled in Johannesburg to matriculate at her high school of choice, Sacred Heart College. Choice is a hallmark of Danke’s life – something she learnt from her father.

“You were in on the decisions,” she says of her father’s way. “He presented three of the top schools that he would agree to, and then you got to choose which one you were drawn to. You’d go to the interviews and then you would decide. It was the way my father approached parenting. We were always included on any decision that impacted on our lives in any way.”

This intelligent selection process has applied throughout Danke’s life, including options for her tertiary education. “When I came home one day and said I was going to the University of Cape Town, it didn’t come as a shock to my father, and he was like, ‘Okay, but I suggest you consider more options.’”

At that time, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. However, a gap year was not on the cards.

“My father said, ‘You’re going to have to buckle down and make a decision and even if it’s the wrong one, just pick yourself up, dust yourself down and get on with it.’” As it turned out, Danke’s first choice of a B.Com wasn’t a great success. “I should have chosen psychology; in fact, I still want to do that, but I went for something that wasn’t even on the cards. My father was taken aback but he said that whatever I decided, I should do the best job that I could do. ‘Even if you’re going to be a street sweeper, you must be the best darn street sweeper you can be. I’ll be proud of you.’ Unfortunately, my first year wasn’t a success. It wasn’t something I was passionate about and I didn’t really work hard, push myself… It was a drag and they ended up spitting me out. It was the first time I had failed and it was, huh? Crisis! What happens how?”

Her father was remarkably understanding and supported her decision to follow her heart – and the recommendations of career counsellors – and register for a UCT BA in theatre and performing.

However, Katlego Danke has never – despite a soaring career on stage and the small screen – seen herself as “just an actress”.

Immediately after graduating with honours, she entered the acting world, but soon decided she wasn’t finished studying. “I’ve always had this passion in me. I wanted to do an MBA. I’ve always seen myself in terms of a larger space. I’m an actor. I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve got ideas. I’m an academic on the one side… An MBA would arm me to balance my business side with the creative, artist, actress side.”

It would, however, be some years before that dream would become reality. Danke started working successfully in the acting industry, all the while with “something nagging”, she says. “There was something that needed completing, that I still had to do.”

She joined Generations in 2007 and almost immediately thought: “I know that there’s more to me, but there’s got to be more to what I do. I am ignoring a whole part of this industry: the business. Me as an actress is a business, and I need to look at myself as a business. How do I push myself, how do I brand myself? How do I get myself out there in a way that will give me more work, and will give me a steady career and will last longer than any role I can play on any soap or stage? I need some skills. It is time.”

Having reached a point where brand Katlego Danke had grown beyond that which she could control as an actress, she realised she needed to understand how the industry – the marketplace as a whole – worked; where she should place herself in it and how she might make a difference for herself in that world.

Believing that she might drown if she went straight into an MBA, and not prepared to accept failure as an option, Danke did some thinking. “I need to gear up for this, but what am I going to do in the meantime? I know! I’m going to do MAP. Friends told me that it was a wonderful springboard for the MBA, particularly if you haven’t studied for a while. I knew I needed to open my brain in different ways. That’s when the MAP idea came about.

“Being a part of the Wits Business School went over and beyond my expectations. I learnt a lot about myself and my true potential. And, most especially, that the world really is all about business – and the sooner I was able to harness that knowledge, the sooner I would be able to have more fulfilling experiences in the business world,” she says. “My most memorable experience was finding out that, together as a syndicate group, we could conquer anything. The group had an invaluable impact on not just my studies but also my experience of MAP as a whole.”

Spreading the word

Danke completed her MAP in 2010 at the age of 32 and now feels a strong need to share her business skills with her peers and community. “I have a responsibility to teach my peers not only about the entertainment industry, but that beyond this acting, there’s a production side that runs the machine. It’s all about rands and cents, profit and loss – and people don’t see that. I also have the responsibility to say to my younger siblings, cousins, anyone who’s coming along, that whatever it is that you do, you must have the integrity to push yourself beyond your boundaries to achieve a lot more.

“People used to say to me: ‘You’re an actress. What are you doing at business school?’ But I need to share the idea that there is a business behind everything. And to teach young people that, if I can do it, you can do it.”

Completing the MAP has changed the way Danke conducts herself as a business. “I've learnt that business is business. So even if that business is myself, there's nothing personal about it. Lessons in personal branding and learning how to truly market yourself in a highly contested market have also been eye-opening. It's what I learnt about entrepreneurship and business in general that I can say truly changed my world. Knowing how to run yourself involves crucial skills that everyone needs to learn. This is not something that is special to one industry more than any other. This should be taught at schools.”

Apart from continuing her studies with an MBA, Danke also plans to write a book. “It will be about my experiences as a South African; as a black woman moving through the eras that we’ve been through. We as South Africans have so much to offer, but we don’t see it. We keep looking outside of ourselves: who can tell us? Who can help us? But we have resources, talent, manpower. We are rich if we look to ourselves…

“That’s my mission. We need to put ourselves on the map. We do have something to offer the world and we do have a voice.”

We do, yet the voice of Katlego Danke rings that much clearer than most.