Saray Khumalo | Black Female Motivational Speaker | Gauteng

Saray Khumalo is an award winning Mountaineer, a Guinness World Record holder who provides world-class Transformational Coaching to entrepreneurs, executives, business professionals and sales teams all over the world.

As an experienced business executive, she has a solid track record in some of South Africa’s leading financial institutions as an eCommerce and Loyalty Specialist. In 2019, on her fourth attempt, Saray summited Mount Everest, becoming the first Black African woman to summit Mount Everest — a demonstration of her resilience, irrespective of her starting point and past unsuccessful attempts.

Saray uses a combination of mountaineering triumphs and her ability to steer businesses to partner with organisations that are on a transformational journey to enable individuals and teams to identify their personal and business goals, explore and unleash their full potential and achieve set goals.

She is the founder of summits with a purpose, an initiative that has raised funds and built physical and digital libraries in disadvantages African schools. She believes that literacy and education has the power to change the narrative for the next generation.

PURPOSE

Becoming the first Black African woman to summit Mount Everest is an accolade that’s more than about her. It’s a legacy that people, especially Black women, around the world can draw strength from to summit their own mountains. And keep rising above the clouds.

It is for this reason that Saray uses a combination of mountaineering triumphs and her ability to steer businesses to partner with organisations that are on a transformational journey to enable individuals and teams to identify their personal and business goals, explore and unleash their full potential and achieve set goals, through Transformational Coaching.

She shares her story through motivational talks and as a keynote speaker to inspire individuals and groups, that it doesn’t matter what you look like or where you come from – you can still change the world.

Saray’s story does not begin nor end with Everest, it is part of her journey, to complete the Explorer’s Grand Slam, a challenge to reach the North Pole, South Pole and all the Seven Summits, in her quest to raise funds to go towards the education of an African child.

The story of Saray Khumalo is about being deliberate in breaking the shackles of convention, it is about triumph.

THE EXPLORER’S GRAND SLAM

Saray’s story does not end with Everest. In her quest to raise funds to go towards the education of an African child, Saray is on a journey to complete the Explorer’s Grand Slam – a challenge to reach the North Pole, the South Pole and all the Seven Summits.

THE SUMMITS

MT EVEREST
CARSTENSZ PYRAMID
MT KILIMANJARO
VINSON MASSIF
DENALI
MT ELBRUS
ACONCAGUA
MT KOSCIUSZKO

SARAY’S SUMMITS

THE SOUTH POLE

First African woman to reach the South Pole.
The last degree to the southernmost point on the surface of Earth

MOUNT EVEREST

First black African woman to summit Mount Everest (8848,86m).
The highest mountain in the world.

MOUNT ACONCAGUA

Summited Mount Aconcagua (6961m).
The highest mountain in South America.

MOUNT ELBRUS

Summited Mount Elbrus (5642m).
The highest mountain in Europe.

MOUNT KILIMANJARO

Summited Mount Kilimanjaro (5895m).
The highest freestanding mountain the world & also the highest mountain in Africa.

MORE ABOUT SARAY’S COMPLETED SUMMITS

THE SOUTH POLE

The South Pole is also known as the Geographic Pole or Terrestrial South Pole. It is situated on the continent of Antarctica and is the southernmost point on the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the North Pole. It is 1½ times the size of the USA, with an altitude of 2,835 metres (9,301 ft) above sea level and is located about 1,300 km (800 mi) from the nearest open sea at Bay of Whales.

Roald Amundsen a Norwegian explorer and his team of four were the first to reach the South pole on 14 December 1911. On the 1st of January 2020 Saray N’kusi Khumalo became the first black African woman to reach the South Pole.

MT EVEREST

Everest is in The Himalaya mountain range at the border between Nepal and Tibet (China). It is the highest mountain in the world and called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet. Everest is one of the 14 mountains over 8 000 meters in the world and also one of the 7 summits.

Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first pair to summit Mt. Everest with a British expedition in 1953. Sibusiso Vilane from South Africa is the first black man to summit Everest in 1996. On the 16th of May, Saray N’kusi Khumalo became the first black African woman to summit Everest at 8848,86m.

MT KILIMANJARO

Kilimanjaro has three peaks: Kibo, Shira and Mawenzi with Kibo being the summit. There are 5 main routes that meander from the jungle through five microclimates to join the three final ascent routes to Kibo. As one of the world’s highest volcanoes it was first summited in 1889 by Meyer and Purtscheller.

In 2012 Saray N’kusi Khumalo summited Kilimanjaro at 5896m.

MT ELBRUS

Elbrus is an extinct volcano in the Caucasus Main Range, the European border with Asia in southern Russia. Elbrus has two main summits – the western summit at 5642m and the eastern summit at 5621m. Mont Blanc is sometimes considered the highest in Europe but Elbrus technically holds that honour.

The first ascent of the west peak was in 1829 by a Russian army team and the east in 1874 by an English team. In 2014 Saray N’kusi Khumalo summited Elbrus at 5642m

ACONCAGUA

Aconcagua is the highest peak in South America, and also the highest in the Western Hemisphere, with the summit at 6,961 metres (22,841 ft). It is also the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas. It sits within Argentina near the border with Chile. The first recorded summit in modern history was in 1897, by a Swiss climber Matthias Zurbriggen.
Saray Khumalo summitted Aconcagua in December 2015 as her third of the 7 summits.