Innovation City’s new Community Manager, Giselle Sari Botha, has built her career around people, stories and the connections that help businesses move forward.

Her path has taken her from television production and content creation into DeepTech, marketing and business development, giving her experience across industries, cultures and very different kinds of rooms. Now, she is bringing those worlds together at Innovation City.

We spoke to Giselle about designing for serendipity, why trust is one of a business’s greatest assets and what she hopes to make possible for Innovation City’s members.

Q: Before we talk about Innovation City, tell us about the path that brought you here. What have been the defining chapters of your career so far?

My career has taken a wonderfully non-linear path, but looking back, there is a clear thread running through it: people, stories and connections.

I started in television production at Media24 (Pty) Ltd TV, working across everything from reality and game shows to talk shows, children’s programming and research. That taught me how to work with very different people, how to listen and, perhaps most importantly, how to find the story in almost anything. I’ve also remained connected to the content world, including contributing to content creation for Netwerk24’s Klankgolwe podcast project through pop24.

From there, I moved into the DeepTech and innovation space, working in business development and marketing at SKEG. Suddenly, I was surrounded by engineers, founders, scientists and entrepreneurs building extraordinary things. My role became translating those ideas, finding opportunities and building the relationships that could help move them forward.

I broadened my business development experience through Aditure, a business advisory firm, and through working with a Dutch company in the finance industry. Those roles exposed me to very different businesses, markets and decision-makers, and taught me a great deal about understanding what a business really needs before trying to offer a solution.

They also reinforced my belief that business development is ultimately less about selling and much more about building trust, asking the right questions and creating meaningful connections.

Those worlds might seem very different, but they are all about understanding people. Innovation City feels like a place where those chapters come together.

Q: You attended Innovation City events before joining the team. What stood out to you then, and how has your perspective changed now that you are helping to shape the community from within?

What struck me as an attendee was the diversity of people in the room. You could have a founder, an investor, someone from a corporate, a technologist and a creative all having the same conversation. It didn’t feel like networking for networking’s sake.

Now that I’m on the inside, I realise how much work goes into creating the conditions for those seemingly accidental conversations to happen. Serendipity is wonderful, but you can also design for it.

My perspective has shifted from, “There are interesting people in this room,” to, “How do we make sure the right people in this room actually find one another?”

That’s the part I find really exciting.

Q: What made you want to move from business development into a role focused specifically on building a community?

For me, it feels less like moving away from business development and more like focusing on the part of it I’ve always enjoyed most: the people.

I’ve always loved the moment when you realise, “You need to speak to this person,” or “These two businesses should know each other.” I enjoy understanding what someone is trying to build, what is getting in their way and who or what might help them get there.

Community management gives me the opportunity to do that at scale. Rather than building one relationship around one transaction, you’re building an ecosystem of relationships that can continue creating value in ways you couldn’t necessarily predict at the outset.

Q: Your background includes international exposure through Erasmus. How did that experience shape the way you connect with people from different industries, cultures and perspectives?

My Erasmus exchange at Universität Hildesheim, together with my studies in intercultural communication and my experiences studying Dutch in Belgium and the Netherlands, made me very aware that we don’t all interpret the world in the same way.

It taught me to be curious before making assumptions. When you’re the foreigner in the room, you become much more conscious of how people communicate, what they value and how easily something can be understood differently depending on its context.

That has stayed with me professionally. I genuinely enjoy moving between different worlds and learning enough about someone else’s industry or perspective to find common ground.

You don’t have to be the expert in every room. Sometimes, being the person who asks the right question and really listens is far more valuable.

Q: You have described people, trust and relationships as some of a business’s greatest assets. What does that belief look like in practice?

It means treating relationships as something you build before you need something from someone.

In practice, it’s remembering what people are working on, following through when you’ve promised an introduction, sharing an opportunity because it made you think of someone and being willing to help even when there isn’t an immediate commercial outcome.

Trust is built through lots of very small interactions. People remember whether you listened, whether you followed through and whether you were genuinely interested in helping them.

Eventually, those relationships become an incredibly powerful form of capital.

Q: Founders often join business communities looking for customers, funding or partnerships. What do you think they sometimes overlook about the value of community?

I think we naturally ask, “What can I get from this network?” The more interesting question is often, “What can I contribute to it?”

The person sitting next to you might not be your customer or investor. But they may have made the mistake you’re about to make, know the person you will need to meet six months from now or simply give you a completely different perspective on a problem.

Community also gives founders something less tangible but equally important: proximity to other people who are building things. Entrepreneurship can be incredibly isolating. Sometimes the value isn’t a lead or a cheque; it’s having someone say, “We’ve been through that too. Here’s what we learnt.”

Q: How much of a strong community happens organically, and how much needs to be deliberately created?

I think it’s both.

You can’t manufacture genuine relationships. The best communities need enough space for unexpected conversations, friendships and collaborations to develop organically.

But you can create the conditions for serendipity.

That’s where deliberate community-building comes in: understanding what members are working on, knowing what they need, curating the right rooms, making thoughtful introductions and creating reasons for people to keep engaging with one another.

The magic should feel organic. The work behind creating the opportunity for that magic often isn’t.

Q: What do you believe founders and technology businesses in Cape Town need most from an ecosystem like Innovation City right now?

I think founders need access with context.

Cape Town has extraordinary talent, ideas, capital, corporates and entrepreneurial energy. The challenge is often not that the resources don’t exist; it’s navigating the ecosystem and gaining access to the right person, opportunity or conversation at the right moment.

That’s where I think Innovation City can be particularly valuable. We can shorten the distance between people: between founder and funder, start-up and corporate, idea and expertise, or one founder and another who has already solved a similar problem.

An ecosystem becomes valuable when being part of it helps you move faster than you could have on your own.

Q: As Innovation City’s new Community Manager, what do you want members to know about how you intend to work with and support them?

I want members to know that my door – and my inbox – is genuinely open.

My first job is to understand what you’re building, where you’re going and what would make your Innovation City membership more valuable to you. That might mean a specific introduction, a speaking opportunity, meeting a potential partner, finding someone with the expertise you need or simply having a sounding board.

I also don’t want our relationship with members to consist only of us contacting you when there’s an event. I want to understand what is happening in your business throughout the year.

And please tell me what isn’t working too. Community management isn’t about assuming what people need; it’s about listening well enough to find out.

Q: A year from now, what would need to have happened for you to feel that you had made a meaningful difference to the Innovation City community?

I’d love members to be able to point to tangible things that happened because they were part of this community.

Perhaps they found a customer through an introduction, met an investor at an event, found a collaborator over coffee, hired someone through the network, learnt something that changed their business or met somebody they would simply never have encountered otherwise.

But I’d also want something less measurable: for members to feel that Innovation City is their community rather than simply a place they belong to.

If, a year from now, someone tells me, “I met that person because of Innovation City, and that conversation changed something for us,” I’d feel like we’d done our job.

Giselle has already begun meeting Innovation City’s members and learning more about the businesses, ideas and ambitions within the community. If you haven’t introduced yourself yet, find her at the next event, stop for a conversation when you’re in the building or send her a message. As she puts it, the most valuable connections often begin with someone taking the time to ask the right question – and really listen to the answer!