Nomonde White-Ndlovu

Bubbly Nomonde White-Ndlovu seems like far too nice a woman to ever imagine her irritating someone. She’s smart and quick-witted, cheerful and friendly, but it’s her irritation factor that I remember: how she once told a conference that her generation of black women fighting for equality in the IT workplace had a duty to get up people’s noses. “Some of us are going to irritate others, so not everybody has to do it,” she announced.

White-Ndlovu doesn’t remember saying that a few years ago, but she certainly remembers doing it. Because when she and her peers started battling for seats at the table, the places were almost always occupied by middle-aged white men with no desire to budge. And as she also told that conference: “You can’t expect to build and craft a successful business if you only have one racial group represented.”