There are leaders who wait for the right conditions, and those who build them. In her first year as Managing Director of GVK-Siya Zama's Gauteng business, Jabu Serithi has proven that she belongs to the latter.
Stepping into the role in March 2025, Serithi inherited a business that had already come through its most difficult chapter, giving her, as she puts it, something many new leaders don't have: the space to build, rather than rescue. She arrived with a clear agenda: nurture the culture, sharpen commercial discipline, and invest in relationships.
The market, however, had its own agenda. A constrained Gauteng pipeline brought intensified competition, margin pressure, and persistent cash flow challenges, particularly on public sector projects. For Serithi, this became a catalyst. "Constraint breeds innovation," she says. "These challenges pushed us to look beyond mainstream construction for revenue opportunities, and that strategic shift is ultimately a healthier foundation for the future."
The MD seat also brought a shift in perspective that Serithi hadn't fully anticipated. A company of GVK-Siya Zama's size and complexity, she discovered, is truly the sum of all its parts. The support functions working behind the scenes, the teams that close the gaps between the visible, revenue-generating departments and everything that holds the business together, earned a new level of respect. "I don't think one can fully appreciate that until you're accountable for all of it," she reflects.
On the ground, the year delivered a portfolio of projects that speaks directly to what the organisation is capable of, and what Serithi's leadership has helped to unlock.
The completion of Soshanguve Mall is a defining achievement, welcoming 50,000 visitors on its opening day in November 2025 and marking the first time the company delivered a retail development exceeding R1.1 billion in value, a new precedent for the organisation.
Across Johannesburg, the construction business has been shaping the city, from the restoration of 5 Hollard Street, an Art Deco landmark originally completed in 1923, to the ongoing 85 Anderson development for the Deeds Office, which recently drew a visit from Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, who emphasised the importance of inner-city rejuvenation, a cause Serithi knows well. Under her leadership, the organisation has helped shape Johannesburg's built environment across multiple landmark projects, with the Transnet partnership in the CBD adding yet another chapter to that story. The picture that emerges is of a business that builds communities as much as it builds structures.
For Serithi, that belief in building with purpose extends beyond the project itself, to the kind of industry she is actively helping to shape. As one of relatively few women leading a major construction business in South Africa, Serithi is deliberate about using that position with purpose. She is candid about the challenges, construction's demands are relentless for everyone, but women continue to carry disproportionate responsibilities outside of work. Her response is to act, and to lead by example from within. "The real work happens in daily practice, in the moments where no one is looking and women are acknowledged as equals," she says. "That is where retention is won or lost."
Looking at the industry more broadly, Serithi identifies skills development and an enabling business environment as the structural fault lines from which all other challenges flow. The skills pipeline, she warns, is moving in the wrong direction, experience walking out the door faster than new talent is coming in. Until the industry addresses both its image and its conditions, that trend is unlikely to reverse.
As year two begins, the tone is one of confidence. The groundwork has been laid, the team has been tested and has delivered, and a diversification strategy is opening doors that mainstream construction alone cannot. "The first year was about understanding the business, the market, the people," she reflects. "Year two is about building. And the team that showed up through one of the harder periods this industry has seen gives me real confidence in what we can achieve."
For an industry that has long needed more leaders willing to think boldly, speak honestly, and build with purpose, Jabu Serithi's first year is a powerful reminder of what principled, people-first leadership can achieve, even in the most demanding of conditions.
