Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Well-known local PR expert and former business journalist Ruth Golembo has passed away unexpectedly in Cape Town on Thursday morning.
She was in the news last year when her Lange 360 Strategic Communications joined forces with Meropa Communications to form a national public relations consultancy under the Meropa brand. Golembo joined the Meropa board at the time. She took on a newly created strategic role in the combined business.
Before the merger, Lange was in operation for almost 30 years and offered PR services, including communications strategy, stakeholder relations, publicity, crisis communications, and investor relations and consultancy.
According to her colleagues at Meropa she was a hard-working, entrepreneurial communications professional who not only built up a successful public relations consultancy - creating many long-term jobs - but who gave unstintingly of her time and expertise to sector organisations such as the Cape Town Press Club.
She held two law degrees and a post-graduate qualification in financial management, and as a journalist worked as a senior investment columnist on Business Times, for the Financial Mail investment section and for the Sunday Times before joining Lange 360 over 25 years ago.
At the time of the merger, in June 2015, Meropa CEO Peter Mann said he greatly admired what Golembo and her team had achieved in the communications and public relations arena.
"Ruth was an often-quoted thought leader in the strategic communications arena. She was acknowledged by clients, team members and industry professionals for her unwavering commitment to the broader communications industry. She was incredibly generous in both sharing her knowledge and skills and inspired everyone with her enthusiasm and insights," according to the team at Meropa.
THe Cape Town Press Club said Golembo has been one of the its longest serving and most loyal committee members, and helped to arrange some of its most successful club events.
"Her commitment to the ideals for which the Club stood for, and her energy, work-ethic and talent will remain an inspiration to the rest of us. We will miss Ruth deeply, and send our condolences to her friends, family and colleagues,” according to the Cape Town Press Club.
Golembo leaves behind her husband Dr Bob Mesarcik and sons Paul, Misha and David. Her funeral service will take place on Sunday July 17 at 12:00 at the Pinelands Jewish Cemetry.
READ: PRO agencies join force
