Ramaili is a Marketer, Entrepreneur and Global Ambassador

Mosito Ramaili has traveled across the globe under a lot of titles. Most recently he was an advertising executive and senior vice president at BBDO Worldwide working with Facebook, FedEx and Starbucks. He is now the managing director of BoSabi Creative Club, a multinational strategic marketing company he created with headquarters in New York City and offices in Johannesburg, South Africa and Zurich, Switzerland.

“My practice focuses on partnerships with creatives and brands dedicated to serving underserved communities,” says Ramaili. “We leverage our unique perspectives to tell authentic stories at the intersection of community culture and creativity.”

Ramaili is also a social entrepreneur who recently spoke at Advertising Week New York with the likes of actor and comedian Keegan Michael Key, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Journalist Jemele Hill. 

Ramaili’s global journey began when he left his native Johannesburg, South Africa for Alabama A&M University in 2004. As a brand ambassador for South Africa, Ramaili was recently featured in Global South Africans Network. 

“I received an athletic scholarship to play men's soccer,” says Ramaili. “In my senior year I was a walk-on on the Tennis team thanks to Coach Colvin.”

After earning his marketing degree in 2008, Ramaili was hired as an assistant brand manager at Yum! where he worked with brands at KFC Africa based in Johannesburg, spearheading menu innovation as well as launching KFC Africa's social media channel. He then assumed the role of brand manager of local interest channels at Electronic Media (Mnet,) the largest pay-television content provider in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2015, Ramaili became a brand director for Nike Football overseeing five key markets on the African continent Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. In 2017, he moved to New York City as an account supervisor for Hennessy with leading creative advertising agency Droga5.

“I've had the fortune to spearhead some culturally disruptive work over the years," he said. "The ones that fill me up with the most pride was spearheading the relationship between Droga5 and Hennessy which culminated in the current brand partnership between NBA and Hennessy. This experience allowed me the privilege to oversee the first NBA TV commercial by Hennessy in 2020 which premiered at NBA All Star weekend.”

In 2020, Ramaili joined Goodby Silverstein & Partners and was the account director of Rockstar Energy Drink where he oversaw the integrated overhaul of Rockstar Energy Drink after being acquired by PepsiCo and produced a Super Bowl commercial in 2021 which featured the rapper Lil Baby.

It was last year that the social entrepreneur whose built a global network over 15 years in Africa, Western Europe and the US, started BoSabi Creative Club in New York. He says it’s his most important work.

“I work with and for underserved communities who are often marginalized due to the high costs in marketing, comms and advertising, so I'm using my deep experience and knowledge as a global citizen to serve communities that often get neglected,” he says. “We are led by a humanist philosophy from South Africa called Ubuntu which essentially means ‘I am because we are.’”

Ramaili named his company after his 12-year-old son BoKang and 6-year-old daughter Masabata.

“I want to leave a legacy that they can be proud that their father made significant strides and left this world in a better place than I found it.”

Ramaili’s current titles include culture consultant for the Brooklyn Nets, Tourism South Africa and the United Nations Development Programme and AAMU alumnus. He hasn’t returned to campus since he graduated in April 2008, but says he misses The Hill.

“I would love to go back and walk through the halls and be on that storied campus again,” says Ramaili. That is where I learned the principles of community and respect. That ethos carries me everywhere I go. I miss the camaraderie and the friendships I made on that campus; the heritage and sense of pride in self and our esteemed institution, but mostly importantly I'm grateful to A&M for having instilled curiosity within me. It is that curiosity to learn, to improve and to be a valuable contributor in every setting that drives me as a person.”

Asked if he would return, the entrepreneur says “In a heartbeat.”