Tarryn-Leigh Solomons
Editor’ s Note
IT’ S A WRAP!
Welcome to the final month of 2025! We’ ve landed here wiser and a bit more battle-tested. While it may not have been a smooth ride, it indeed gave us movement. The kind of movement you feel in boardrooms, factory floors and in conversations with founders who sound less exhausted and more determined.
That’ s the energy running through this issue.
Vector Logistics’ CEO, Keith Pienaar, didn’ t sugar-coat anything when we spoke. The company took a messy, unpredictable 2025 and turned it into an opportunity to rethink its own backbone – ESG, digital agility, the whole lot. It’ s a rare example of sustainability and efficiency actually pulling in the same direction.
Then there’ s the OCIF Grow Programme offering up to R1 million to young entrepreneurs. Not in theory. Not in some distant future. Now. The truth is if we want a different economy, we need to back the people who are already building it from garages, laptops and late nights.
We also look at the surprising brute force of WhatsApp Business – still underestimated, still the easiest way for a small brand to become a big one.
The agriculture sector stepped into the future with the RMIS traceability system, giving our red-meat industry the digital backbone it needs to compete in export markets. And in mining, generative AI is doing something nobody expected – making maintenance less of a budgetary black hole and more of a strategic asset.
South Africa still has its rough edges, but the pace has changed. The conversations feel different. And as we close out 2025 and step into the festive season, I can’ t shake the feeling that businesses here are starting to build with intention, not just resilience.
Enjoy the read, and enjoy the pause.
Wishing you a beautiful Christmas! May your holiday be restful and filled with clarity and good company.
Tarryn-Leigh Solomons
Editor
2 INBOUND SA / December 2025