Saint-Francis Tohlang

Corporate Affairs Director, Nestlé East & Southern Africa Region Saint-Francis Tohlang is a member of the Executive Committee of Nestlé East & Southern Africa Region (ESAR), a region comprising of 23 countries. As Corporate Communications & Public Affairs Director, he leads the team responsible for Nestlé’s internal and external communications, public affairs for the company in the region. At 34, he is the youngest member of the Executive Committee of Nestlé ESAR. He holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences undergraduate and Honours degrees from Rhodes University and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cape Town. He was the recipient of a number of scholarships, most notably the Andrew Mellon Prestigious Scholarship and a recipient of a ‘Rhodes Top 100 Students’ award. His career spans different fields such as communications, innovation management, trend analysis, sustainability and professional services with specialization in go-to-market strategy. He was sent on assignment to the Nestlé headquarters in Switzerland as Corporate Communications Manager for Asia, Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa before returning to South Africa in 2020 to take on his current role. He previously held senior management roles within Nestlé in the region, such as Head of Internal Communications and Head of the Internal Innovation Programme. He has worked for Deloitte, Flux Trends and Wits University before joining Nestlé. In addition, Tohlang has worked as an independent trend analyst for various trend firms, both local and international, offering key insights into emerging markets trends with an African focus. This included providing trend analysis and insights for the number one and leading global trend firm, TrendWatching.com, as part of the Global Network – a selected panel of regional experts. In 2012, Tohlang was a writing contributor to a best-selling publication: ‘New Urban Tribes of South Africa’ edited by Dion Chang, and also contributes trend insight pieces for Flux Trends. In 2013 he was selected as a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and served as the Deputy Curator for the Johannesburg hub. He is a past board member of the Dance Umbrella Festival, Dance Forum and Inkululeko and he currently sits on the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) Africa Board. He has also represented the world youth alliance as a member and contributed to the UN Children and Youth global working group, contributing to discourse around the Post MDG implementation. Destiny Man magazine named him in their 2013 “Power of 40′′ report which recognizes top 40 men under 40 doing remarkable things in their fields.