Lorato Tshenkeng

Lorato Tshenkeng is a renowned crisis and reputation management strategist with a keen interest in how technology disrupts life, work, and play. He is also a media contributor and freelance columnist, writing for tier-1 publications such as the Sunday Times and City Press. In 2009, he was recognised as one of Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans for his work as a communication strategist. A doting father of 3 and husband to Boitumelo – Lorato is the founder and CEO of Decode., a Pan-African reputation management and strategic communications firm headquartered in Johannesburg. Part of his entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding Rural Brands, a Johannesburg-based digital agency. He is the creator of #GovCommsSocial – a knowledge sharing platform for government communicators to help decode social media algorithms, understand data and trends, as well as best practices of communicating in this digital age. #GovCommsSocial has since 2020 produced the annual South African Government Leaders on X Report, a benchmark for assessing how cabinet members, their spokespersons, now deputy ministers and CEOs of state-owned entities engage with citizens through X. #GovCommsSocial also convenes the annual Social Media Summit for Government, in partnership with the University of Johannesburg Business School (JBS). The Summit is endorsed by the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA). Lorato’s key thesis - PR is what you do, not what you say - which he is a keynote speaker on. He’s also a proponent of combining human intelligence with artificial intelligence in strategic communications, and of reimagining citizen engagement. He is the co-founder and non-executive chairperson of the Rivonia Circle, a think tank and knowledge hub that facilitates policy conversations, mobilising South Africans to use their own POWER TO ACT towards achieving self-governance and demanding accountability from those who govern. He’s also passionate about using social commentary to advocate for professional activism, gender equality, social justice and volunteers at Future Kings – a mentorship programme for boys.