Beyond the Connection: How Colleen Mac Namara Is Multiplying Opportunity Through ZelTec Telecoms

Through ZelTec Telecoms, Colleen Mac Namara is extending connectivity into underserved communities while creating employment, developing skills and showing what becomes possible when one entrepreneur’s growth creates opportunities for many more.

For the Innovator Trust, supporting a technology entrepreneur like Mac Namara is about more than strengthening one business. The greater opportunity lies in what happens next: when stronger businesses create jobs, knowledge is passed on, and access to technology begins opening doors far beyond the entrepreneur herself.

Mac Namara’s journey with ZelTec Telecoms brings that multiplier effect to life.

When she entered South Africa’s telecommunications sector, Mac Namara encountered the familiar doubts directed at women entering a largely male technical industry. Some questioned whether women would succeed in the field.

She chose to answer through the business she built. Founded in 2019, Zeltech Telecoms is a 100% Black woman-owned telecommunications company providing fibre-to-the-home and fibre-to-the-business installations and maintenance. The company also offers fibre and LTE packages as well as Voice over Internet Protocol solutions to households and businesses.

“We proved them wrong,” Mac Namara says, reflecting on the scepticism she encountered early in her career.

Today, fibre installations are the company’s strongest growth area, supported by technical expertise, network infrastructure and specialist equipment used to identify faults and signal loss across fibre networks. Yet Zeltech’s impact is perhaps clearest beyond the technology itself.

Over the past three years, the company has increasingly worked in townships and other underserved communities where affordable connectivity can change how people learn, work and build businesses. Areas once largely overlooked during the early expansion of fibre are becoming part of a much wider connected economy.

For Mac Namara, that matters. “There are kids that need connectivity for school, to do homework and research. SMMEs are working from home. Many businesses rely on connectivity,” she says. The divide remains particularly visible in rural communities. During a recent visit to a farm in KwaZulu-Natal, Mac Namara experienced an area where residents had only brief periods of reliable connectivity during the day.

“People forget about the very poor who also depend on connectivity,” she says. That belief in access has also shaped how Zeltech creates opportunities for young people. When unemployed youth in communities where the company operates have approached Mac Namara seeking work, some have received practical training before completing technical assessments and onboarding. A connection into a fibre network can therefore create another kind of connection: a young person entering employment, developing a technical skill and contributing income to a household. It is an extension of the opportunity Mac Namara herself once received.

When she moved from corporate employment into entrepreneurship, mentors helped her navigate legal requirements, SARS compliance and the realities of building a business. Female mentors in particular supported her through difficult stages of the journey and helped her recognise her own potential. Today, other women entrepreneurs approach Mac Namara for the same kind of guidance. She shares her experiences, including the setbacks, and encourages them to keep going.

Her development through Innovator Trust has further strengthened that journey. Through the programme, Zeltech received technology support, including a laptop and software licences, improving productivity, operational efficiency and service delivery. Mentorship also helped Mac Namara strengthen areas ranging from legal compliance and employment contracts to partnerships and her own development as a leader.

Technology is now enabling her to manage the multiple demands of entrepreneurship more efficiently. She uses tools including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Grammarly and Canva across research, communication, administration and decision-making.

“Looking ahead, I believe fibre, 5G, cloud services and AI will play a defining role in Africa’s connectivity future. The real opportunity is in using these technologies to develop locally relevant solutions that expand broadband access and connect communities that are still underserved,” explains Mac Namara.

Zeltech intends to be part of that future through automation, advanced fibre solutions and continued expansion.

For the Innovator Trust, this is where enterprise development becomes something bigger than the growth of a single company. Capability placed in the hands of an entrepreneur can travel: into the people she employs, the women she advises, the communities her business connects and the entrepreneurs who see her journey and begin imagining their own.

Mac Namara puts it more simply. “You are going to have challenges and setbacks, but you will also have your comeback. Don’t give up on your dream.”

Her seat at the table has been earned. The impact lies in how many more people can move forward because she took it.