The politician’s daughter who became a major tech CEO in South Africa and the US

Aisha Pandor is a prominent tech entrepreneur and investor who is following a different path from her family’s political roots.

Pandor is tied to highly successful ventures, founding domestic help platform Sweepsouth in South Africa before moving on and becoming CEO of California-based AI health platform Pandora Health.

Aisha is the daughter of Naledi Pandor, who served as an MP for the ANC from 1994 to 2024, and most recently served as the Minister of International Relations.

Her grandfather was Joe Matthews, an anti-apartheid activist and MP who represented the IFP from 1994 to 2004. He also served as the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security in the first post-apartheid government.

Her great-grandfather was Z.K. Matthews, an academic and prominent ANC leader who became the official ambassador of the newly independent Botswana in the USA in the 1960s.

Aisha Pandor’s story is different from that of her family, as she transitioned from scientist to local tech entrepreneur to investor and AI visionary in the US.

Pandor studied at the University of Cape Town and received a PhD in Human Genetics. While studying for her PhD, she also completed a Postgraduate Business Administration course, coming first in the class.

She thus became the first student at UCT to graduate with two separate qualifications from two different faculties on the same day.

She received a David and Elaine Potter Fellowship and several scholarships from the NRF and MRC during her time as a student.

With her research work, Pandor was the recipient of a South African Women in Science Award. She was also named as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2012.

Despite her scientific qualifications, Pandor went on to work as a management consultant at Accenture South Africa, where she worked in the telecommunications and mining industries.

She worked with clients on their HR Management, digital strategy and supply chain management. She ranked among the top three in her peer group in the EMEA region during her time at Accenture.

Sweepsouth, Pandora Health and E4E Africa

After two years of working as a consultant, Pandor started her entrepreneurial journey by co-founding Sweepsouth, an on-demand platform for booking domestic services.

Pandor said that the idea for Sweepsouth came one day during the December holidays when she was looking for a stand-in domestic worker to help look after her daughter.

She was inspired by online shopping and food delivery apps, and together with her husband, software engineer Alen Ribic, she founded Sweepsouth in 2014.

The company launched in June 2014 in four South African cities and provided work opportunities for thousands of women, many of whom were unemployed and underemployed.

Initial funding for the company came from Smollan, Vumela, CRE VC, the now defunct Naspers Foundry and Grammy Award-winning musician and venture capitalist Black Coffee.

With the following investments from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the total early investment in the company reached R75 million.

Under Pandor’s leadership, Sweepsouth became one of the fastest-growing startups in the country. It would go on to win the SiMODiSA Startup SA pitching prize in 2014.

The company would also be accepted into the prestigious 500 Startups accelerator in Silicon Valley in San Fransisco.

Since 2020, Pandor has also been a venture partner at E4E Africa, a $12M venture fund. The fund looks for underrepresented founders who build scalable, impactful ventures.

The venture capital firm’s investments include insurance company Pineapple, food supplier Yebo Fresh, and healthcare service BusyMed, with Pandor serving on the latter’s board from 2022 to 2023.

In 2022, she co-founded Pandora Health and became its CEO, which is an AI-driven precision health platform for women with chronic conditions.

Pandora Health works with academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies to create diagnostics and therapies.

Having moved from Cape Town, Pandor and her family now reside in Menlo Park, California, which is home to many of the world’s biggest tech companies and VC firms.