For years, many young creatives in South Africa have been handed the same quiet instruction: if you want to succeed internationally, you should shrink your identity and blend into someone else’s template. Nadia Jaftha, a Cape Town entrepreneur and co-founder of Ace Labs, says she never accepted that idea.
“For too long, there’s been a storyline that you need to soften your identity or imitate global stereotypes to win on the world stage,” she explains. “But the global market rewards authenticity. We’re making sure the next generation doesn’t have to doubt whether this career path is real—because they’ll be busy building it themselves.”
That belief has now received a major international stamp of approval. Ace Labs—an intelligence lab that Jaftha co-founded with her fiancé and business partner Reece Meyer—was recently invited to the TikTok Global Partner Summit in New York. For a digital agency based in South Africa, the invitation is being viewed as one of the most notable international recognitions it can receive.
The New York invite put the Cape Town-born team in the same room as TikTok’s worldwide industry leadership. For Jaftha, it felt less like a trophy moment and more like a mission statement landing in real time.
The Ace Labs push toward authenticity
- Jaftha says the path to that New York stage began with a frustration she couldn’t ignore: South African brands were finding it difficult to connect in a way that felt genuinely local.
- At the same time, she observed that many talented creators already had influence, yet often lacked the organisational and strategic structure needed to turn that creative power into long-term results.
- In her view, brands were seeking cultural relevance in a country with nuance, but struggled to work within creator culture without losing authenticity.
- She adds that exceptional talent could reach audiences, but frequently didn’t have the strategic infrastructure to convert that creativity into lasting value and revenue.
- Ace Labs was created to bridge that divide—working in its fourth year to help brands build creator-led campaigns grounded in cultural understanding, rather than chasing borrowed trends.
Ace Labs has since partnered with major names including Capitec, PayJustNow, and HUAWEI. Jaftha points to the agency’s collaboration with Capitec as especially important to Ace Labs’ momentum—an element she says ultimately helped make the TikTok summit invitation possible.
But the recognition isn’t only framed as a milestone for the company. Jaftha sees it as evidence of a larger shift.
“What we’ve built is an ecosystem—a creative hub where South African talent can access global opportunities without sacrificing their home-grown voice,” she says. “The global market doesn’t need us to be less South African. It needs us to be more of it.”
How the founders’ relationship shaped the agency
The personal story behind Ace Labs adds another layer to the business narrative. Jaftha and Meyer—who are engaged—built the company while growing their relationship. The overlap between their complementary strengths, according to colleagues, made them a strong professional match as well as a close personal team. Staff members say that chemistry shows up in the way the agency operates.
Kayla, a brand strategist at Ace Labs, describes the internal culture as fast-moving and focused.
“Reece and Nadia have built a team culture that’s dynamic, quick on its feet, and fully committed,” she says. “They make even the biggest goals feel achievable, stay grounded under pressure, map out the steps clearly, and put the right resources behind them.”
For teammate Resh, the New York moment carried an emotional significance that went beyond business performance.
“It created a real feeling of being genuinely seen—showing that work developed in Cape Town can sit alongside global industry leaders while still being authentically South African,” he says.
Ultimately, Jaftha hopes the message lasts longer than any summit invite or client list. Her goal is for young South African creators to hear something different from what they’ve been told before—that there’s no need to sand down their edges just to be taken seriously.
“The next generation doesn’t have to question the legitimacy of this career path,” she says. “They’ll be too busy leading it.”
