Nkhensani Nkosi is a South African actor, television personality, fashion designer, and entrepreneur who is best known as the creator and creative director of the Stoned Cherrie fashion line. Nkhensani Nkosi was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and grew up in Johannesburg.
Television audiences may be more familiar with her work as a judge on the first two seasons of the reality show Popstars, which aired from 2002 to 2003. On Popstars, she was credited as Nkhensani Manganyi, which was her maiden name.
Nkhensani has toured the globe as an entertainer, presenter, and actor, and has been in a number of stage productions, including Sophiatown, The Coloured Museum, and Marabi, all of which have won critical praise from worldwide audiences. Nkhensani is a native of South Africa.
She has a slew of trophies on her mantelpiece, the most gratifying of which was the Top Success Story of the Year – Top Women in Business and Government 2005 honor, which she received as a businesswoman.
Others include The Young Business Achiever of the Year – Young Business Quarterly and the Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2003).
In addition to having a degree in Industrial Psychology and Sociology, Nkhensani is a published author who has authored pieces for O Magazine, Y-Mag, and Going Up magazine, among others.
In 2005, she concluded her last season as co-producer and co-host of the SABC1 chat program Mojo, which aired from September to December. As a co-owner of Vicious Funk Productions, she started her television career by making corporate films and inserts for the SABC3 magazine program Options, which she also hosted.
Furthermore, she is a public speaker, and she has appeared as a guest speaker at a variety of events and conferences, including the globally famous Design Indaba. A gala event in New York brought together some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, among them Jerry Yang, the founder and chairman of Yahoo!, and Terry Bernstein, the company’s chief executive officer.
She was also called to speak to post-graduate students at The Gordon Institute of Business Science, where she was asked to stimulate them (GIBS).
As the presenter and official spokesman for M-Face Net’s of Africa in 1999, Nkhensani saw a vacuum in the market: the urban energy that existed on the continent was not being branded and packaged into goods.
There was a chance to create an African brand that embraced South Africa’s new sense of identity while also exploring what it meant to be an African in the twenty-first century in a unique manner, and this was the opportunity.
She thought it was time to start a new African urban fashion line, Stoned Cherrie, which has since been quite successful.
In 2005, she was recognized as a high-impact entrepreneur by the Endeavor mentoring program, which is located in the United States. She was chosen as one of six winners from a pool of 200 applicants from a variety of disciplines.
Many of her roles have been in films and television series, such as the films Soweto Green (1995), Kickboxer 5 (1995), The Legend of the Hidden City (1997), Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (1996-1997), It’s a Funny Country (M-Net), and Going Up 3 (SABC1). She has also appeared in several commercials and commercials for SABC1.
Nkhensani is married to Zam Nkosi, who is best known for hosting the SABC1 game show Selimathunzi. The couple is the parents of a boy.
