Some leaders strive for personal success and organisational growth, while others have a vision for the development of an entire community. Lisa Viola is just that type. Amassing upwards of 24+ years in print and digital marketing space, she has established herself as a leading figure in Africa’s business ecosystem. As Founder and CEO of South Africa’s premiere marketing agency Metrix Media House, she has guided numerous organisations in refining their communications, strengthening their brands, and accelerating sustainable growth.
Her approach goes beyond mere message amplification: she partners closely with clients to align marketing strategies with core business objectives, designs high-impact campaigns, and delivers measurable, lasting results that foster authentic audience connections.
Yet Lisa’s impact extends far beyond the boardroom. It was her deep commitment to social change that in 2013 drove her to establish the Healing Africa Foundation-a non-profit organization committed to sustainable development across South Africa. Under her guidance, the Foundation has evolved into a vital link between corporate partners and grassroots transformation, directing its resources toward initiatives that generate tangible social and economic impact. Its programmes focus on job creation, enterprise development, and community empowerment: producing quantifiable benefits for both beneficiaries and supporting businesses.
Lisa’s leadership fuses business insight with purpose. She deploys technology, data-driven marketing, and strategic partnerships to scale impact, proving that profitability can coexist with social good. In recognition of her outstanding leadership and dedication to meaningful change, Lisa was nominated for Women CEO of the Year 2025. Through her example, she inspires a new generation to understand leadership less as achievement and more as responsibility.
This is a story of a visionary, building businesses and sustainable futures, one community at a time, one project at a time, one life at a time.
Venturing in Digital Marketing
Lisa began her career during an era without online marketing. She started as an art director and graphic designer before transitioning into digital marketing, focusing on web and social media marketing as well as strategic marketing, approximately 15 years ago. The industry continues to evolve. “In the technology landscape, you’ve got to be on top of the new technologies and algorithms in the digital marketing space. But one of the things we focus on is strategic alignment for our clients in the online digital marketing space,” Lisa shares.
At Metrix Media House, the team begins by meeting with clients to understand their business strategies. They then identifies the clients’ objectives and determines what needs to be achieved. The business has grown rapidly over the past 15 years and now includes teams of young, creative graphic designers and copywriters.
The agency manages backend operations on Meta platforms for Facebook and Instagram. It also works across all social media channels, including TikTok—one of the fastest-growing platforms—and YouTube. The focus remains on optimizing clients’ online presence, with the ultimate goal of driving sales.
A significant part of the business involves running Google AdWords campaigns. Reporting, analytics, and statistics are used to track performance, monitor results, and measure conversions. “It’s very difficult to track brand awareness conversions, but through content marketing, we track how the brand awareness grows and then how, down the line, that converts into sales,” Lisa shares.
Leveraging Digital Expertise for Social Impact
Lisa volunteered at early childhood development centers in South Africa’s rural townships. She recognized the critical need to prioritize education and youth development. “So, I was then using my digital marketing skills to help the NGOs streamline their websites and look for donor funding. Funding is a big issue for a lot of these people that are doing really good work,” she shares.
This experience led her to register the Healing Africa Foundation and launch its own initiatives. The foundation focuses on directing funding to the right areas while ensuring accountability and credibility in how the money is spent.
Her team focus on creating a pipeline for long-term projects by ensuring each initiative generates its own income. This approach enables NGOs and entrepreneurs to sustain their efforts independently. The foundation addresses both social issues and enterprise development. Social priorities include poverty, hunger, abuse, and the lack of proper education in rural South Africa. Enterprise development supports previously disadvantaged individuals who want to start businesses, using proven models to help them grow.
The organization also invests heavily in early childhood development. It operates in the green economy through food production and farm development, and it partners with sports teams to drive community impact.
Supporting Aspiring Athletes
Lisa is deeply committed to providing funding for sportspersons, especially rugby players. These athletes demonstrate remarkable discipline by consistently attending training, despite facing challenging circumstances. Many lack the means to travel to practice or afford basic equipment such as boots, socks, and kits.
The foundation steps in to meet their essential social needs and enrolls them in a three-year learnership program. Upon completion, participants earn a degree. This qualification ensures that even if they do not advance to provincial or national teams, they gain valuable experience and employment opportunities. The model is circular: rather than simply issuing a diploma, the program guides athletes through education, skill development, and job placement to build sustainable careers.
Creating Self-Sustaining Ecosystems
Lisa commends her talented team for building projects that function as independent ecosystems. For instance, the foundation currently sponsors learnerships for 12 female rugby players in one program. This initiative generates its own revenue through ticket sales for games and paid marketing services offered to corporate donors and sponsors via the Sports Legacy Company.
Athletes complete a marketing coordination learnership and then secure salaried positions within the company. This eliminates reliance on constant donations. The same principle applies to food production and early childhood centers. In a crèche, the owner often lacks business skills, tax registration, or financial expertise. The foundation provides financial literacy training and helps them operate profitably.
This dual approach addresses social development—educating young children—while empowering the entrepreneur to earn income and sustain the business. It also ensures compliance with government regulations and tax obligations, resolving both a social issue and an economic challenge.
Project Closest to Her Heart
Lisa oversees numerous ventures, each designed with a sustainable mechanism for long-term success. Without this, she explains, the work merely replicates conventional efforts and checks boxes.
“I think what’s close to my heart is early childhood development. Watching young learners get a proper start to life,” Lisa expresses. She emphasizes that neglecting early childhood development in rural communities means losing the critical window—ages 7, 8, or 9—when children’s brains, skills, and cognitive abilities are most receptive.
She is equally passionate about sports as a vehicle for sustainable social change. Additionally, she champions the green industry, focusing on organic food production and teaching communities to sustain themselves through farming. The goal is to scale these initiatives into larger, impactful programs.
Importance of Technology in Building Businesses
Technology has played a pivotal role in Lisa’s work. “The reason I started the foundation was to connect as many NGOs, service providers, and people who want to collaborate. I got that knowledge through my digital marketing experience,” Lisa expresses.
She has applied the same technology and metrics used at Media House to the nonprofit foundation and several other businesses. The adoption of AI has streamlined operations. Digital marketing and SEO optimization have enhanced visibility, enabling donors to discover funding opportunities and helping clients generate leads to grow their enterprises.
Technology serves as the lifeline for all initiatives. Lisa stresses that success depends on effective marketing: projects cannot gain traction unless they are properly promoted and accessible online.
The Power of Strategic Partnerships
Lisa emphasizes that success in business hinges on people and partnerships. “I think in any business it’s about the people and the partnerships that you have. You have to have the same value systems and integrity, so you can’t partner with somebody who’s not going to be ethical.”
Fraud and mismanagement are common challenges in many organizations. From the perspective of Media House, strategic partnerships are essential to delivering results. These include technology partners and service providers who ensure effective capacity building and execution.
No single organization can offer every specialized service. Rather than being a jack of all trades, Media House collaborates with aligned partners who share the same values, deliver quality, and maintain accountability. Ultimately, everything rests on trust, integrity, and strong partnerships.
Leadership Through Mentorship and Resilience
Lisa credits her role as a mother of two for shaping her leadership philosophy. Managing the complexities of family life alongside the responsibilities of leading both a thriving agency and a impactful foundation has instilled in her a profound appreciation for structure, mentorship and the creation of enduring legacies. This perspective has shaped her core mission: to design resilient systems rather than mere organizations that provide reliable support, promote personal and professional growth and empower individuals to contribute meaningfully in return.
“I think as a woman we have to step into more of a masculine role when we’re working with business, which is not always the easiest thing to do,” she shares. “One moment you are mother, then you’re coming into the office and you’re the one that has to solve problems and make decisions.”
Team members naturally turn to her when crises arise, earning her the title of “chief fire extinguisher.” Yet effective leadership also means empowering others. She often asks, “How would you solve this problem?”—knowing the answers frequently lie within the team. Granting autonomy fosters experience, even when decisions falter. Failures become lessons: acknowledge the misstep, extract the insight, and move forward stronger.
Through the Healing Africa Foundation, Lisa actively mentors emerging changemakers, entrepreneurs, and young leaders. She is a firm believer that lasting impact extends far beyond traditional philanthropy; it lies in building sustainable economic pathways, creating meaningful jobs, viable enterprises, and genuine opportunities that empower individuals and families to thrive independently long after initial support has ended.
Lessons from Experience
Lisa identifies working with people as her greatest challenge. She maintains high standards, and handling unmet expectations constructively is critical.
The first four years of her career focused on human resources—understanding motivation, behavior, and team dynamics. She learned that clear processes, structure, and accountability, starting with herself, are essential.
Above all, employees must feel safe, supported, and confident that they can grow and learn within the organization.
Expanding Global Impact
Lisa envisions a broader global presence for her work. Media House already serves clients worldwide, yet she aims to deepen its international footprint. For the Healing Africa Foundation, Lisa’s vision is both ambitious and focused: to significantly expand the organisation’s reach, form stronger alliances with corporate partners who prioritise meaningful social returns, and further develop mentorship programmes that empower individuals toward lasting self-sufficiency and leadership.
“The driving force behind everything I do is that we have the opportunity to make a difference and to change people’s lives,” Lisa points out. Her legacy centers on collaboration and inspiration. With shared knowledge, individuals and organizations can unite to develop sustainable solutions. Governments cannot address all social and economic challenges alone: job creation, poverty, and systemic issues require collective action.
“The legacy would be to filter that message through and then hopefully people will be inspired and jump on board and create their own ecosystems that can facilitate change,” she concludes on a hopeful note.
Why Lisa Viola is a Leader to Watch in 2025 and Beyond
Depth of Experience: Over 24 years in print and digital marketing have made Lisa a master at crafting stories that resonate and deliver real results.
Social Entrepreneurship: Through the Healing Africa Foundation, she drives sustainable projects that uplift communities while creating value for corporate partners.
Mentorship-Driven Legacy: As a mother and active mentor, Lisa is committed to empowering the next generation — especially young women and entrepreneurs.
Recognition & Influence: Her 2025 nomination for Women CEO of the Year reflects her rare ability to blend sharp business strategy with genuine social impact.
Systems Thinker: Lisa builds lasting systems in marketing, social enterprise, and community development rather than short-term fixes.
Innovative: She has designed a fresh approach to modern marketing strategy, the ‘Overlay Principle’. Her book revealing this framework is set for release next year.
