Ma Zwane in a red traditional Zulu headwrap and collar necklace, arms crossed against a night city backdrop

Rita Zwane·known as MaZwane

From a shipping containerto Busy Corner.

Name: Conquering the Poverty of the Mind
Author: Rita Zwane

Entrepreneur. Author. Mentor. Township Economy Pioneer.

Explore her journey Book Ma Zwane

“I didn't start with a building.I started with a belief.”

Ma Zwane — entrepreneur, author and township economy pioneer

The woman behind the legacy

In 1989 Phumlaphi “Rita” Zwane left KwaZulu-Natal to find work in Johannesburg after becoming a teenage mother. She could count on the love of her family, a matric certificate and her faith — but had no job prospects, and no knowledge of the business world or life in the big cities.

Known everywhere as MaZwane, she went from having virtually no income or permanent home to becoming the first person to formalise and commercialise shisanyama in the townships — founding Imbizo Shisanyama, better known as Busy Corner, and building a comfortable home and legacy for her children.

Today she is a legend in South Africa as a pioneering entrepreneur — and an inspiration for anyone asking what is possible inside the informal township economy.

Read her story

The journey

A story told in decades, not moments.

1989

01 / 12

1989

Arrival in Johannesburg

Leaves Umlazi, KwaZulu-Natal for Johannesburg to look for work after becoming a teenage mother — carrying a matric certificate, her family's love and her faith, with no job prospects and no knowledge of the business world.

1997

A shipping container in Ivory Park

A former secretary, she starts trading from a shipping container on a street corner in Ivory Park — the seed of what becomes Imbizo Shisanyama, known to patrons as Busy Corner.

2014

Forbes Woman Africa: “Trial by Fire”

Forbes Woman Africa profiles her as the barbecue entrepreneur changing the perception that township restaurants are substandard.

2015

Top 5 in the SMME Awards

Imbizo Shisanyama Busy Corner is named one of five national finalists in the 2015 South African SMME Awards.

2019

Conquering the Poverty of the Mind

Publishes her memoir with Isabella Morris (Tracey McDonald Publishers, October 2019), launched at Imbizo Shisanyama in Ebony Park that November.

2020

Expansion to Mall of Thembisa

Takes the concept into a formal retail environment at the newly launched Mall of Thembisa — an upmarket Imbizo Shisanyama spanning two floors of the centre, with its own dedicated lift.

2022

A GIBS business school case study

Busy Corner becomes the subject of the case study “Busy Corner: Launching New Business in Uncertain Times” by Steven Zwane and Anastacia Mamabolo, distributed through Harvard Business Publishing.

2023

The hardest chapter

In 2023 the flagship Imbizo Shisanyama at Mall of Thembisa — two floors, its own lift, once host to the President and around 40 staff — shuts its doors after being battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath.

2024

Reopening

After the shutdown she reopens Imbizo Shisanyama at Mall of Thembisa in September 2024, rebuilding the business rather than walking away from it.

2024

Lifetime Achievement Award

Receives the Township Economy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award for turning a 1997 shisanyama container into a business that shapes township enterprise, policy and advocacy.

2024

The MaZwane Foundation

Runs the Winter Warmer campaign, inviting partners to support the foundation's community work.

2026

The work continues

Continues advocating for township economic development, digital inclusion, entrepreneurship and community investment.

The business

She didn't just build a restaurant. She built a movement.

Imbizo Shisanyama took a familiar township format and gave it operating discipline: consistent service, staff structure, supplier relationships and a brand people trusted. What began in a container became a business case study in how the township economy creates value when it is treated as an economy. The award-winning Imbizo Shisanyama now positions itself as “Africa's Ultimate Braai Experience” — an authentic African dining experience delivered with style, class and dignity.

Visit Imbizo Shisanyama

Food
A shisanyama menu executed at a standard that drew customers from far outside Ivory Park.

Food — Imbizo Shisanyama — Food
A shisanyama menu executed at a standard that drew customers from far outside Ivory Park.

Recognition

Forbes Woman Africa

2025 Businesswoman Award

Continental recognition for an entrepreneur who built enterprise where the economy was told not to look — and then insisted the township be counted properly.

Explore her achievements

Awarded

2025

Forbes

Awards

A record built in public.

2025
Businesswoman Award
Forbes Woman Africa
Honoured at the FORBES WOMAN AFRICA Awards in Pretoria on 5 March 2025 as Founder and MD of Imbizo Shisanyama Busy Corner.
2024
Lifetime Achievement Award
Township Economy Awards
Honoured for turning a 1997 shisanyama container into a business that shapes township enterprise and policy.
2015
Top 5 Finalist, SMME Awards
South African SMME Awards
Imbizo Shisanyama Busy Corner named one of five national finalists in the 2015 SMME Awards.
2017
SA's Best Shisanyama
Windhoek Search for SA's Best Shisanyama
Imbizo Shisanyama (Busy Corner) crowned the winner of the national #WindhoekSearch for South Africa's best shisanyama.
Case study
Case study: Busy Corner
GIBS · Harvard Business Publishing
“Busy Corner: Launching New Business in Uncertain Times” by Steven Zwane and Anastacia Mamabolo — taught internationally through Harvard Business Publishing.

The author

Rita Zwane and Isabella Morris

Conquering the Poverty of the Mind

MaZwane's Story — From Shipping Container to BUSY CORNER. The Entrepreneurial Journey of the Shisanyama Pioneer. With Isabella Morris.

Her memoir takes the reader from the tough times of finding her feet in Johannesburg, through a variety of jobs and life experiences, to fighting her way to success as a respected member of the township economy and starting the Imbizo Shisanyama business. It shows the true grit of a Zulu girl who believed in herself — and did it against all odds.

“When you see a township resident driving past in their new car, and they wave, and you wave back, it is extremely gratifying to know that they built their chakalaka business based on the small contract you gave them ten years previously.”

Key themes

Mindset and self-belief
Township enterprise
Women in business
Family and community
Failure and recovery

Enquire about the book

Beyond business

The MaZwane Foundation.

Documentary-style image of community and youth upliftment work

InspireEducateEmpower

MaZwane formalised a lifetime of community work by establishing the MaZwane Foundation, a non-profit built on three pillars — to inspire, educate and empower. Beyond grant-funded projects, she is widely recognised for hands-on mentorship of township youth, using her own journey and her memoir to show children and teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds that a different future is possible.

Youth mentorship
Skills development
Community upliftment
Entrepreneurship
Education
Early childhood development
Community support
Sport
Economic empowerment

Youth mentorship

Drawing on her own experience as a teenage mother who arrived in Johannesburg with little more than a matric certificate and her faith, she lectures and runs programmes that inspire children and teens to aim higher — using Conquering the Poverty of the Mind as a roadmap for breaking the poverty of the mind.

Skills development

Her businesses provide hospitality, service and entrepreneurial training to young people who lack formal qualifications, opening entry-level jobs and creating a pathway into the working world.

Early childhood development

A core pillar: educational support, safer facilities and foundational learning resources for toddlers and young children in under-resourced areas.

Disaster relief for orphanages

After a fire tore through Bathabeleng Children's Home in Ivory Park in July 2022, the foundation led a community drive to rebuild — using her business sites as collection hubs for clothes, bedding, food and toys, and raising funds to restore the children's showers, laundry, pantry and kitchen.

Dignity through sport

Backing youth sport to keep children safe and occupied outside school hours, including full soccer kits for local children's teams to restore their confidence and dignity.

Winter Warmer

An annual campaign inviting partners and businesses to support households through the coldest months of the year.

Enterprise development

Small suppliers around Imbizo Shisanyama have built their own businesses off contracts started with Busy Corner — a model she describes in her memoir.

Thought leadership

The township economy needsmore than survival.

Opinion

July 2020

Ill-conceived virus rules create a dependency culture

An argument against lockdown rules that shut trading doors in the townships and pushed self-sufficient businesses towards dependency.

Read the piece

Culture & Economy

June 2020

African culture is under threat from the Covid-19 pandemic

On what is lost when the gatherings, rituals and shared meals that hold African communities together are switched off.

Read the piece

Township Economy

December 2020

Celebrating the township economy through Imbizo Shisanyama at Mall of Thembisa

From shipping container to a two-floor flagship in a formal mall — what the move proved about township enterprise.

Read the piece

Leadership

October 2020

A story of perseverance, sacrifice and opportunity

Her own framing of how the business was built: perseverance, sacrifice, seizing opportunities and superior service.

Read the piece

Media

In her own words, everywhere.

In conversation

Speaking

Bring Ma Zwaneto your stage.

Ma Zwane speaks from operating experience — building, losing, rebuilding — with a practical view of what township enterprise needs from business, government and capital.

Topics