Kume Luvhani’s career has taken her from banking, where she became a director at 29, to building a technology business of her own. As co-founder of Vaxowave, she works at the intersection of technology and business, an experience that has shaped how she thinks about the skills organisations need and the people they must develop to remain competitive.

It has also given her a particular concern about the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace. As businesses automate tasks that once fell to junior employees, Luvhani is asking what happens to the experience those tasks were meant to provide.

Some of the most valuable lessons in her own career came from preparing reports, analysing financial information and sitting in meetings where she did not yet understand everything. These experiences taught her how to think through problems, exercise judgement and recognise when something did not add up.

“My concern isn’t that AI is replacing repetitive work. In many instances, it absolutely should. My concern is that we may be automating the apprenticeship without redesigning how people develop expertise,” she says.

For Luvhani, the issue is not whether businesses should embrace AI, but whether they are thinking carefully enough about how the next generation will develop the judgement and experience needed to lead.

AI can provide answers, but experience teaches judgement.

Automating routine work may improve efficiency, but it also raises a question about how young professionals acquire the skills that more senior roles demand. If the tasks that once served as an introduction to an industry disappear, businesses will need to find other ways to develop expertise.

“We expect to have exceptional senior professionals, strategists and decision-makers in ten or fifteen years, but where will they acquire the foundational experience that makes that possible?” Luvhani asks. “There’s a difference between knowing the answer and understanding how to arrive at the answer. AI can increasingly give us the former, but experience, context and judgement are what develop the latter.”

She believes businesses need to be more intentional about creating opportunities for young professionals to learn. That could mean exposing them to complex problems earlier, providing structured mentorship or allowing them to work alongside experienced colleagues while using AI.

The objective for Luvhani is not to preserve every task simply because it has traditionally been part of an entry-level job. It is to ensure that removing those tasks does not also remove opportunities to develop critical thinking and professional judgement.

She stresses, “I don’t want us to build a generation that’s exceptionally good at prompting technology but hasn’t developed the judgement to challenge its answers.”

This concern extends beyond how people learn within organisations. Luvhani also sees a disconnect between the knowledge young people acquire through education and the capabilities employers need.

At Vaxowave, she has seen how technical knowledge alone does not necessarily prepare someone to work effectively in a complex enterprise environment. Understanding cloud computing, for example, is one thing. Being able to understand a client’s commercial challenge, assess the risks and recommend a solution that delivers value requires a different set of capabilities.

As technology becomes part of almost every profession, that combination of technical fluency and practical problem-solving will matter well beyond the IT department.

“We’re producing individuals who may have qualifications, certifications and theoretical knowledge, but employers are increasingly looking for people who can solve problems, think critically, collaborate across disciplines and adapt as technology evolves,” she says.

Closing this gap requires closer collaboration between educational institutions, businesses and policymakers, with more work-integrated learning, industry-informed curricula and opportunities for continuous reskilling.

It is also part of the thinking behind Lumina, Vaxowave’s AI-powered learning platform, which aims to make learning more accessible, interactive and practical. Rather than simply consuming information, learners can practise applying what they have learned.

For Africa, where access to quality learning opportunities remains uneven, there simply aren’t enough platforms like Lumina. A young population presents an opportunity, but realising it requires investment in the capabilities of those young people.

Building a technology business beyond the technical solution 

Luvhani’s perspective on leadership has also been shaped by the transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship. Her banking career gave her a foundation in governance, strategic thinking and disciplined execution. Building Vaxowave, however, introduced a different kind of responsibility.

“In corporate, you’re generally operating within an established ecosystem. There are processes, resources, institutional credibility and structures that support the decisions you make,” she says.

As an entrepreneur, she had to contend with questions that extended beyond whether a decision was strategically sound. ‘Would it generate revenue? Would clients trust the business enough to give it an opportunity? Could it pay salaries and remain viable?‘

She also discovered that previous achievements did not automatically translate into credibility in a new market. “You can have the best idea, the best technical solution and the most compelling strategy, but if you cannot commercialize it, execute consistently and build relationships of trust, it remains just an idea,” she says.

Building Vaxowave required her to earn that trust through delivery, one client and one engagement at a time. It also changed how she understood the responsibility of leadership.

“When you build a company, you’re not just building a balance sheet. You’re creating livelihoods, supporting families and giving people opportunities to grow. Corporate taught me how to lead within an established organisation and entrepreneurship taught me what it takes to build an organization worth leading.”

That experience informs how she thinks about technology adoption. Businesses may be eager to invest in new tools, but Luvhani believes they first need to understand the problem they are trying to solve.

“Are they looking to reduce costs, improve customer experience, increase productivity or create a new revenue stream? Without a clearly defined outcome, it becomes difficult to establish whether an investment has delivered value.”

She identifies three things that matter: connecting technology investments to business outcomes, recognising that adoption is a leadership and people challenge, and measuring value after implementation.

“Implementation is not the finish line. In many ways, that’s where the real work begins.”

For her, innovation is not measured by how much technology an organisation deploys, but by how meaningfully it improves the business. That requires leaders to remain accountable for the results rather than treating implementation as the achievement in itself.

The missing link between technology training and employment 

Luvhani applies the same thinking to the development of young talent. Training programmes, certifications and boot camps can introduce people to technology, but participation alone does not guarantee a sustainable career.

“Can they secure meaningful employment? Are they gaining real-world experience? Do they have access to mentorship? Are they building capabilities that will remain relevant as technology evolves?” she asks. “There are incredibly capable young people across this continent who simply haven’t had the exposure, networks or opportunities that allow their potential to be recognized.”

She believes businesses need to take greater responsibility for closing that gap. “They cannot continually demand experienced talent while being unwilling to invest in developing inexperienced people.”

That means giving young professionals meaningful responsibilities, appropriate support and a clear path to progression. It also means looking beyond qualifications when assessing potential, particularly in an industry where technical knowledge can quickly become outdated.

Through the work being developed by the Vaxowave Futures Foundation, Luvhani sees investment in young people as part of building the next generation of professionals, entrepreneurs and leaders, rather than simply a corporate social responsibility activity.

“We have to stop asking where all the experienced talent is going to come from if we’re not prepared to be part of creating it.”

The point is particularly relevant as AI changes the kinds of skills organisations need. Preparing people for the future of work cannot be left entirely to educational institutions or training providers. Businesses must also create opportunities for people to apply what they have learned, develop their capabilities and progress.

Africa must move from adopting technology to creating it

Looking five years ahead, Luvhani would like to see Africa become a more significant creator of technology, intellectual property and innovation, rather than remaining predominantly a consumer and adopter of global technologies.

She believes the talent and ingenuity already exist. What has often been missing is access to capital, infrastructure, markets and opportunities to develop and commercialise ideas.

“We have exceptional engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators building sophisticated solutions right here in Africa. But to scale, they need more than applause and recognition. They need commercial opportunities, patient capital and clients willing to trust them with meaningful work,” she says.

For Luvhani, the question is also about who benefits from technological progress. If AI makes businesses more productive but its economic gains remain concentrated among a small number of organisations and individuals, the opportunity will not have been fully realised.

Leaders therefore need to look beyond their own organisations and consider the wider ecosystem they are helping to build: the talent they develop, the smaller businesses they support and the opportunities they create for people who have historically been excluded.

That responsibility is personal as well as professional for the award-winning founder. She wants her daughters and their generation to grow up on a continent where ambition is not constrained by geography, access or the circumstances into which they were born.

“My hope is that five years from now, we’re not simply celebrating how successfully Africa has adopted the technologies of the future. We’re celebrating how meaningfully Africa has contributed to creating that future.”