Meet our Experts: Spotlight on Lynelle Davids
At Vox, we value, support and actively engage people with the levels of expertise that we require to keep us moving forward as a company. In this edition of ‘Meet our Experts’, we find out more about Lynelle Davids, who works in the Marketing Department as a Social Media Specialist. She says her role includes content planning, social media scheduling, campaign management and ‘basically anything that lives on the internet with a Vox logo near it’…
The first thing you notice about Lynelle when you chat to her is how funny, warm and just downright sharp she is! The second thing that comes through, once you’ve had a chance to connect with her properly, is her genuine kindness (but more on that later). As for her dance moves: legendary!
Lynelle is based at the Johannesburg (Midrand) branch of Vox, and she came into social media and the marketing department by an interesting and definitely not very linear route. She was born in Pietermaritzburg and grew up in Johannesburg from her teenage years onward, clarifying: “I come from a mixed family with Indian and Coloured heritage, which gave me a wonderfully diverse upbringing and a very solid appreciation for both a good curry and pickled fish, sometimes simultaneously!”
Lynelle has been working at Vox since 2016, with a short break somewhere along the way that she doesn’t like to talk about, but which clearly still traumatises her.
She explains: “I had one brief, humbling intermission where I confidently decided the world had more to offer, and went to find out. It did not. What it had was different people, different problems and a very fast lesson in what I had taken for granted. I came back. Vox took me back. We don’t talk about it, but we both know I made the right call.”
[Editor’s note: 🤣]
Life before Vox, says Lynelle, was ‘a carefully curated mix of corporate ambition, hard lessons and the occasional questionable decision’. Stay with us as we dive deeper into her journey.
The Social Butterfly Becomes a Corporate Player
Lynelle clarifies that her ‘first proper big girl job’ was with EY South Africa (also known as Ernst & Young). It’s an impressive place to begin your career, being part of a global professional services network that manages its clients’ risk, improves performance and navigates complex business challenges. In South Africa, EY is one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms.
“I walked in at 20 years old to assist with some filing,” says Lynelle, “and somewhere between 2005 and 2011, this filing quietly turned into Procurement Officer and Travel Operations. I worked extensively across the EMEA region, welcoming and connecting with international employees from every corner of the globe.
“I loved engaging with the different faces, names, accents and stories passing through, and helping to make sure that every single one of them felt properly received. Looking back, it was the earliest version of something I’ve never stopped doing: making people feel like they belong somewhere.”
Lynelle says she left EY in 2011 “with more experience, more confidence, a global perspective that never left me, and some stories that will never see the inside of a LinkedIn post!”
From there, she moved into Discovery Health and later the Massmart/Walmart environment, collecting experience and skills. She says: “Each stop added something, and each industry demanded a different version of me.”
Arriving at the Big Green Machine
“I didn’t plan my way to Vox,” says Lynelle, “but instead, life did that part for me. What felt like an ending somewhere else turned out to be an entrance here, which is either a beautiful example of things working out exactly as they should, or proof that the universe has impeccable timing and absolutely no interest in consulting you first… possibly both!”
“I joined initially in a sales administration role, which taught me one very important thing about myself: I am constitutionally unfit for sales! About a year later, I was handed a new opportunity by Faizel Badat, who became an incredible mentor to me. This move took me into the Voice environment, and honestly, it made perfect sense, because I talk a lot, so why not monetise it?”
Lynelle notes that the Voice division at Vox became ‘the chapter that built me technically, professionally, and personally’. But it wasn’t always easy. She explains: “Voice was the most formative and initially the most humbling chapter of my journey. It was technically dense in a way I hadn’t anticipated, and included acronyms, complexity and conversations that assumed a level of knowledge I was still very much Googling under the table!
“But I leaned in and asked questions, and found in my mentor someone who championed me. Voice was the bridge between where I started and where I am now, and everything I learned there fed directly into the marketer I’ve become.”
Lynelle was also able to facilitate staff inductions and conduct training during this time, which she really enjoyed: “I care about people feeling comfortable, seen and welcomed, and so if I can make someone’s first day feel less like a job interview they forgot to prepare for and more like walking into a place they actually belong, that feels worth showing up for.”
And here’s something not all of her colleagues know: “Oh, and I was briefly the face of Uncapped Voice which, if you know me, was absolutely not a coincidence!” she laughs. “Someone at the office still calls me ‘Uncapped Voice’ to this day!”
Eventually Lynelle reached a point where she wanted a new creative challenge, which led her into the marketing team, and where she has been building ever since.
The Social Media Queen
Moving into marketing brought her an entirely different kind of challenge. She explains: “The digital space is loud and crowded and everyone is online, everyone wants attention, and the algorithm changes its mind more often than most people change their passwords.
“I had to learn that success wasn’t about competing with the entire internet, but instead was about understanding Vox’s vision and making our voice stand out in a way that actually meant something. The technical grounding I built in voice made me a sharper, more confident marketer. I understood the products and the complexity and more importantly, I learnt how to translate it.”
As well as social media scheduling, campaign management, content planning, some very brief copywriting, analytics and reporting (“If it’s been scheduled, analysed, or quietly panicked about at 9pm on a Tuesday, that was probably me”), Lynelle also runs all competitions across Vox, including internally, via social media and campaign related.
“It’s one of my favourite parts of the job,” she says buoyantly. “Getting to be the person who tells someone they’ve won something, and genuinely making someone’s day out of nowhere, is something I don’t take for granted.”
Lynelle is, without question, a team player: “Together with the team, we work toward the product vision while also collaborating across the business to make technical content feel less like a manual for a nuclear reactor and more like something a real human being might voluntarily read.”
This team spirit obviously also contributed to her being acknowledged for the company’s internal ‘Voscars’ employee recognition awards, created to celebrate the people who genuinely went above and beyond and lived the company values. “Winning two Voscars is without a doubt one of my favourite memories at Vox. There was even a cash prize involved, which I will neither confirm nor deny spending responsibly…”
Today, a large part of Lynelle’s time is also dedicated to Vox Weather’s social media and reporting.
“The incredible content itself is brought to life by Vox Weather Meteorologists Annette Botha and Michelle du Plessis,” she says, “and being part of that team and being the person who gets to sit with the stats is genuinely one of the highlights of my career.
“I’m the one behind the scenes refreshing analytic reports and treating engagement metrics like a personal vendetta. With our recent 10 million views in under a week, 600k followers, and a TikTok video that hit over 3.6 million views in one day: honestly, that’s a very good vendetta to have!”
Planning the Next Chapters
Lynelle continues to think big when she looks into the future: “I want to continue building things that actually matter, including campaigns that connect, content that resonates, and work that leaves a mark on how people experience the Vox brand digitally.
“I’d also love to keep mentoring and helping people grow wherever I can. People development has always been in my DNA: I was training and guiding people long before I ever came to Vox.
“Outside work, my greatest achievement in life, and far above any campaign or analytics report, is being a mother,” she says. “A mother to all, really. If I could, I would genuinely house every child in need and not think twice about it.
“I’ve volunteered at baby homes for years and cared for hundreds of babies, and I remain actively involved. Child safety, protection, and making children feel loved and supported is something I’m deeply passionate about.”
Lynelle remains enormously grateful to be working today within the social media arena. “The marketing team took a chance on me,” she says, “and I’m so aware of how different my story looks because of that one decision. I didn’t tick every conventional box and I didn’t arrive with a neat, linear background! But they opened a door to me anyway, and on the other side of it was work I love, a team I’m proud to be part of, and moments I’ll carry with me for the rest of my career.
“The juggle of urgent requests, constantly shifting platforms, and keeping the brand’s voice intact is no small thing, and anyone who says otherwise hasn’t done it. But there’s something that never loses its charm: watching an idea we brainstormed about and assumed would never work, somehow turn into a campaign that actually lands. And doing it at Vox? That’s not just a job: that’s the whole story!”
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