Komala Pillay took a decision to contribute what she has – a superb intellect, a unique way of viewing problems, intuitive leadership skills and a passion for education – to play her part.
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (13 July 2022) – Two years ago, Komala Pillay pressed pause on a very successful career in engineering to join the internationally acclaimed non-profit organisation Citizen Leader Lab (formerly Symphonia for South Africa) as its CEO.
Citizen Leader Lab was established in 2008 with a vision for Leadership that builds a better future for all.
“Our purpose is to develop conscious leadership that builds social cohesion, uplifts communities, and works towards achieving a just society. Our mission is to develop leaders who can catalyse positive change in their institutions, communities, and broader society; facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration to strengthen connections and partnerships across boundaries; create opportunities for active citizenship and engage with key public sectors, with education being a critical focus area. More than a million people have been impacted through 1,610 partnerships in under-resources schools and has won multiple impact awards.”
Now generally, engineers get a bad rap and truthfully, they don’t deserve it. Okay, they may be a little analytical for some people’s taste, but isn’t that to be celebrated in people who, if they get it wrong, could blow things up or raze big things to the ground? What I love most about engineers is that they deal in possibility; they see things in ways that others just don’t.
Enter Komala Pillay.
Komala had spent a year as a participant in Citizen Leader Lab’s flagship leadership development program, Partners for Possibility. It had been something of a game-changer for her, so when the opportunity came up to join the organisation, she took a huge career decision, applied and got the job.
A short sidenote on innovation
Could it be that by bringing specialised skills and ways of seeing the world from seemingly unrelated disciplines, South Africa might find new and innovative ways to deal with our seemingly intractable issues? What if engineers were to use their unique skills to improve, say, basic education? Or accountants, health care? Would this approach produce something fresh and new that those closest to the problem might have missed? Komala, and indeed the work of Citizen Leader Lab in general, tells us that the answer to that question is a big yes.
Now, this is all very well, but who gives up a successful engineering job to head up an NGO?
Komala would undoubtedly disagree if I made this almost other-worldly decision sound completely altruistic. The reality is that she knows something that we should all be alive to in our country, perhaps now more than ever before. South Africa urgently needs each of us to show up with what we have in our hands and add it to the pot. Komala took a decision to contribute what she has – a superb intellect, a unique way of viewing problems, intuitive leadership skills and a passion for education – to play her part in creating what Citizen Leader Lab refers to as #TheFutureWeWant, for the children of our country and hence for South Africa at large.
South Africa has a bright future (he said, whilst his laptop’s life gently ebbed away) because of people like Komala. She has offered her gifts and talents in an act of extraordinary generosity to humankind.
She inspires me to ask:
What do I have in my hands?
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