By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE-

SARAY N’kusi Khumalo is not a name that many people in Zambia are familiar with.
As the country sought some kind of consolation after losing the highly anticipated women’s Africa Cup of Nations final game to South Africa on Monday night, Khumalo was making history by becoming the first Black African woman to conquer Mount Denali in Alaska.
The news, which was widely shared on social media platforms on Tuesday, including on President Hakainde Hichilema’s Facebook page, was broken by the US Embassy in Zambia which published a congratulatory message for Khumalo accompanied by pictures of her flying the Zambian flag at the summit of Mount Denali.
‘Congratulations to Saray Khumalo, the first Zambian and first Black African woman to summit Mount Denali in Alaska!’ ran the message on the US Embassy Facebook page.
Mount Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America.
It has a summit elevation of 6,190 meters.
According to Wikipedia, Mount Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, has a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level.
With a topographic prominence of 20,194 feet and a topographic isolation of 4,621.1 miles, Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak on earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua.
This makes Khumalo’s feat quiet extraordinary.
Khumalo, a Zambia-born South African explorer and mountaineer, rose to prominence in May, 2019, when she became the first Black African woman to summit Mount Everest after three failed attempts.
She scaled the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) mountain after three failed attempts that were foiled by bad weather and a deadly earthquake in 2015.
Khumalo’s record breaking ascension to the summit of Mount Everest via the standard Southeast Ridge route followed three difficult, disappointing attempts in 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Before that, Khumalo, who uses her expeditions to raise funds for children’s education in Africa as well as to support women and girls on the continent, had previously scaled five mountains that include Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Aconcagua in Argentina and Mount Elbrus in Russia.
Even before conquering Mount Denali, Khumalo was already an award winning mountaineer, a Guinness World Record holder who provides world-class transformational coaching to entrepreneurs, executives, business professionals and sales teams all over the world.
As an experienced business executive, she has a solid track record in some of South Africa’s leading financial institutions as an eCommerce and loyalty specialist.
Her story is a stuff of legends.
Where many have given up, Khumalo has not only held on but gone the full distance to make history because to her, it is always more than climbing a mountain.
According to The Penguin Post, a magazine about books for book lovers from Penguin Random House in South Africa, it was in 2009 when the sudden death of her elder sister – Florence – forced Khumalo to take stock of her purpose.
“It was completely devastating, and it prompted deep reflection in me. I remembered my grandfather’s words: ‘If you don’t live a life of service, that’s a life wasted’,” she said in the story published in The Penguin Post after conquering Mount Everest.
Khumalo said once you know your purpose, you will do anything to fulfil it.
She said knowing your purpose helps bring clarity to life and drives you in that direction no
matter what might get in your way.
She wondered if her elder sister had actually lived her purpose and asked herself whether she was living hers.
She said if she was to be honest, the answer was no.
What followed was a reflective journey spent thinking about her youth and about what she had hoped for and dreamt about.
“I had wanted to make a big impact, somehow; to make a difference and have a sense of purpose. So that’s what I was going to do,” she said.
After many months of pushing for that, she worked with some of the best global behavioural economists and great minds who shared a common commitment to make South Africa great.
She had finally found the sense of excitement and purpose she had been looking for.
“I had wanted to make an impact, to make a difference and have a sense of purpose. We were encouraged within our departments to adopt charities and ours was Kids Haven. We organised fun outings for the children and, because this cost money, I would go around the office after pay day each month asking my colleagues for donations,” she said.
It was during this time that a colleague mentioned to her that she was going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with her friend and her sister.
“I’d the idea to do it myself ever since an American guy who’d done it had planted the seed in my mind in 1996. With no serious limitations holding me back, I knew my moment had come,” she said.
At the same time, she still had Kids Haven on her mind, and it struck her that she could combine the two in a fundraising effort.
Her Kilimanjaro climb in December 2012 was the early beginnings of Summits with a Purpose, a foundation she started in 2013 using her climbing expeditions to raise funds for literacy and educating young people, while uplifting economically marginalised communities in Africa.
She could not have imagined then how the cause would take off, particularly during her expeditions to Mount Everest.
“I had taken on Everest three times before summiting on my fourth attempt in 2019. I felt such a strong sense that we can all go further and higher than we imagine, a feeling I’ve retained and have wanted to impart to younger people — they can go above the clouds; in fact, that’s where they should be,” she said.
While she had not thought about what her achievement might have meant to others, when she returned to South Africa, she saw that people were listening to what she had to say.
In that instant, she realized she had the power to either build their confidence or break it down.
“I made it my mission to become the type of person to stretch out a hand to lift others up, to show them they could also do what I did, and more, becoming their own kind of superhero,” she said.
Would there be bad days, she wondered at the time?
Definitely. But she believed it is about waking up every day knowing it is another chance to try again.
Even if you take one step, she said, it is okay.
“If I could look up at Everest from Camp 4 on my third attempt, with tears in my eyes, thinking, so close, yet so far, and go back a fourth time to make history, then anything is possible. You just have to keep stepping,” she said.
Using her business acumen and coaching experience, Khumalo has chosen to make a difference and believes that regardless of how many steps one takes, not giving up is what matters.
Her resilience to hold on and keep trying has been highlighted in her book, ‘My Journey to the Top of the World.’