There are leaders who make noise, and then there are those who make a difference. Cathleen Strong is the latter. A woman whose quiet mission is rewriting the script for what dignity, service, and real transformation look like in South Africa’s most forgotten corners.
Born and raised in the Northern Cape, Cathleen Strong is not just a founder. She is a force. Through her business, Strongs Company, she is turning sanitation and hygiene into tools of justice. This is not about ticking corporate boxes. It’s about standing in the gap for communities left behind. It’s about choosing impact over applause.
“I don’t want to be known for making a name for myself,” says Strong. “I want to be known for making life better for someone else. For showing up.”
Cathleen Strong grew up witnessing the daily struggle of living without basic hygiene infrastructure. She knows what it feels like when your environment tells you that you are invisible. And so she made a decision: to be the kind of leader her younger self needed.
Strongs Company isn’t just a cleaning company. It’s a healing company. From schools to clinics, government offices to informal settlements, her team brings more than mops and gloves. They bring order, safety, and the affirmation that people matter.
She does not romanticise hardship. She responds to it.
“We go where most people don’t want to go,” Strong shares. “It’s not glamorous work. But it’s sacred work. And someone has to do it.”
In South Africa, access to clean, safe public facilities is still a deep inequality. Cathleen Strong is changing that. She leads interventions that help prevent disease outbreaks, improve mental wellbeing, and give young children the dignity of a clean classroom or a working toilet. Her work quietly supports the very foundations of public health and social justice.
Strong doesn’t lead from behind a desk. She trains her own teams. She builds relationships with school principals, ward councillors, and clinic managers. She walks into communities not as a saviour, but as one of their own.
Ask anyone who’s worked with her — the response is the same: Cathleen Strong shows up. Fully. With heart. Without excuses.
In a country battling both inequality and despair, she reminds us that transformation doesn’t have to start big. It just has to start somewhere — and stay consistent.
Her story is a testament to what happens when purpose and proximity meet. When someone chooses to serve not because it’s easy, but because it’s needed. Because people deserve more.
“Every job we do is someone’s mother’s clinic. Someone’s child’s school. We take that seriously,” she says.
Cathleen Strong is building a legacy not of recognition, but of restoration. One community at a time. One cleaner space at a time. One act of dignity at a time.
South Africa is better because she leads.
