-- South African technology entrepreneur, social innovator, author, and recording artist Lindiwe Matlali announces the release of the forthcoming publication of No More Shrinking and a new music album created with 10-time Grammy-winning producer Kevin Bond. The two projects extend Matlali’s work across technology, education, leadership, and the arts, exploring a shared question: What becomes possible when people are given the space to fully express their talent, ambition, faith, and creativity?
No More Shrinking: The Distance Between Talent and Opportunity examines the structures that prevent talented people from reaching their potential. Drawing from Matlali’s experiences with loss, faith, motherhood, leadership, and entrepreneurship, as well as research into barriers facing talented people, particularly Black women, the book examines what she describes as an “Architecture of Containment.”
The book is positioned as both personal testimony and systemic inquiry. Its central argument is direct: talent exists everywhere, while opportunity remains unevenly distributed. Rather than presenting individual achievement as proof that anyone can succeed under the same conditions, Matlali examines the systems that require talented people to continually prove they belong.
“No More Shrinking is both a personal testimony and a challenge to the systems that waste human potential,” says Matlali. “The book asks why so many brilliant people are forced to spend their energy proving that they belong, when that same energy could be used to build, lead, create, and transform.”
The book’s foreword is written by Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, Executive Director of Prosus and CEO of Naspers. Pre-orders open August 9, 2026, South Africa’s Women’s Day, ahead of the global publication on March 8, 2027, International Women’s Day.
Matlali brings substantial experience to the conversation. She is the founder and group CEO of the UK-based aerospace and defence technology company SWERFVALK, founder of technology solutions company Apodytes, and founder and CEO of Africa Teen Geeks. Africa Teen Geeks has reached more than 800,000 children and co-created South Africa’s national coding and robotics curriculum.
Her work has also earned international recognition, including the Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth Point of Light, the World Economic Forum’s Social Innovator of the Year recognition, and Germany’s Digital Female Leader Award. She has also served on South Africa’s Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The forthcoming album carries the same philosophy into music. Rooted in faith, neo-soul, and jazz, the project explores courage, identity, emotional truth, and the personal cost of disappearing to fit expectations. The collaboration with Bond, whose career includes 10 Grammy wins and an extensive gospel production legacy, creates a musical setting for Matlali’s African voice and faith-centered perspective.
“The book gives language to the experience of shrinking; the music gives people somewhere to feel, grieve, worship, and become whole again,” Matlali says. “Both are expressions of the same conviction: becoming yourself fully is not arrogance. It is freedom.”
Matlali’s existing work as a recording artist includes a self-titled debut album centered on empowerment, faith, and resilience, as well as the single “Twenty Years.”
Together, No More Shrinking and the forthcoming album mark a broader creative chapter for Matlali, whose career has consistently centered on expanding access and creating pathways for talent. Her work across aerospace, technology education, entrepreneurship, publishing, and music reflects a belief that opportunity can be deliberately built.
The projects ultimately carry one message: people should not have to reduce their ambition, voice, faith, or creativity to fit the space they have been given. For Matlali, creating that space is both a personal act of freedom and a larger responsibility to ensure that talent has room to become power.
Contact Info:
Name: Lindiwe Matlali
Email: Send Email
Organization: No More Shrinking
Website: http://www.lindiwematlali.com
Release ID: 89200237
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