Meet Our New Member: Coral Communications
Coral Communications is a Johannesburg-based, African-founded public relations, marketing and communications agency with a growing global footprint. Since 2015, the team has led strategy-driven campaigns for businesses, personal brands, government entities, NPOs and NGOs across Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, helping clients build visibility, trust and meaningful connections in diverse, fast-changing markets. IPREX is pleased to welcome Coral Communications to the network.
“The work we do is not about being everywhere. It is about being exactly right for the people you are trying to reach. IPREX gives our clients the global infrastructure to do that at scale, while allowing us to bring our strategic thinking, storytelling and market understanding into global conversations.”
- Tendai Rukwava, Founder and CEO, Coral Communications
Q: How would you describe your agency?
Tendai Rukwava (Founder and CEO of Coral Communications):
Coral Communications is a multi-award-winning public relations, marketing and communications agency founded in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2015. We work with businesses, personal brands, government entities, NPOs and NGOs to build strategy-led campaigns that drive visibility, trust, influence, reputation and meaningful audience connection.
Our services include public relations, media relations, corporate communications, digital marketing, social media, stakeholder engagement, reputation management, influencer marketing, brand partnerships, sponsorships, events, experiential marketing and thought leadership.
We support clients across sectors including healthcare, financial services, mining, infrastructure, sport, education, entrepreneurship, social impact, lifestyle and professional services. African-founded and globally focused, Coral Communications has experience across Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, and supports clients with communications strategies shaped around their goals, audiences, markets and growth ambitions.
Q: What challenges do you help clients solve?
Tendai Rukwava: We help clients turn business goals into communication strategies that people can understand, trust and act on. Our work often supports organisations that need to enter a new market, reposition a brand, build credibility, attract investment, strengthen stakeholder trust, improve public visibility, manage reputation, launch a campaign or position a founder, executive or public-facing leader as an authoritative voice.
We are particularly strong at helping clients move from activity-led communication to strategy-led communication. Before a message is shaped, we define what the client genuinely needs to achieve. The goal determines the story, the story shapes the channels, and the channels determine how the campaign earns its place in the audience’s attention.
For international clients looking at Africa, we also help solve a common challenge: understanding that Africa is not one audience. Each market has its own media landscape, cultural references, stakeholder dynamics and signals of trust. We help clients enter those conversations with relevance, respect and commercial clarity.
Q: What makes your team or culture distinctive?
Tendai Rukwava: Coral Communications is guided by one central belief: communication must move people before it can move markets. Our culture is strategic, commercially aware, human and deeply focused on audience connection.
We do not believe in publicity for the sake of being seen. We believe the strongest campaigns are built when strategy and storytelling work together. Our team starts with the client’s goal, then shapes the story, channels and partnerships around that outcome.
Our perspective is shaped by our African roots, global client experience and the founder-led nature of the agency. We bring senior thinking, cultural awareness and practical execution to every brief. Coral Communications is recognised as one of the Top 10 PR Agencies in South Africa, based on a 2026 independent poll of over 1,200 corporate clients. Founder and CEO Tendai Rukwava was named Leading Communications Expert of the Year 2024 at the Influential Business Woman Awards.
Q: Why are you excited to join IPREX?
Tendai Rukwava: Joining IPREX strengthens what Coral Communications can offer clients in practical terms. Our clients now have access to senior communications counsel in more than 100 markets worldwide, while IPREX partners gain a trusted, commercially minded partner for briefs that require cross-market thinking, stakeholder engagement, reputation management, market entry communications and culturally relevant storytelling.
We are excited to contribute our experience as an African-founded, globally focused agency and to collaborate with independent agencies that share our belief in senior counsel, local insight and high-quality execution. IPREX gives us the global infrastructure to support clients at scale, while allowing us to bring our strategic thinking, storytelling and market understanding into global conversations.
Q: How would you like to work with other IPREX partners?
Tendai Rukwava: We would like to work with IPREX partners on cross-border briefs, African market entry, reputation campaigns, stakeholder engagement, executive visibility, social impact programmes, public awareness campaigns, brand positioning, media strategy and culturally relevant storytelling.
For partners managing global accounts that include African audiences or markets, Coral Communications can provide strategic counsel, local context, stakeholder insight and campaign execution support. We can also collaborate on new business opportunities where clients need a partner that understands both global standards and local market realities.
Beyond Africa-facing work, we are interested in supporting and learning from partners across the network on international campaigns, content collaboration, sector-specific insights, training, events and shared client opportunities.
Q: Please share one client example, campaign, or case study.
Tendai Rukwava: One publishable example of Coral Communications’ work is a public awareness and education campaign supporting a recycling education programme aimed at young learners in South Africa. The programme reached 16,000 learners across 100 schools and required communication that could connect with educators, parents, industry stakeholders, media and the wider public.
The challenge was to communicate the value of recycling education in a way that felt practical, accessible and relevant, while also strengthening the credibility of the programme among key stakeholders. Coral Communications supported the campaign through media relations, storytelling, campaign messaging and publicity that highlighted both the educational and social impact of the initiative.
Our approach focused on making the programme’s impact easy to understand and easy to support. We shaped the story around early education, environmental responsibility and the role of young learners in building better recycling habits. The campaign secured media visibility and helped position the initiative as a meaningful contribution to environmental education and public awareness in South Africa.
Q: What are you excited about in the next 1-2 years?
Tendai Rukwava: Over the next one to two years, Coral Communications is focused on growing its work with brands, institutions, founders, development organisations and agency partners that need strategic communications support across borders.
We are especially excited about helping more international brands enter and grow in African markets with the right strategy, the right story and the right level of local understanding. At the same time, we are expanding our work in corporate reputation, stakeholder engagement, executive positioning, investor visibility, social impact communications, sponsorships and market-entry campaigns.
Through IPREX, we look forward to building deeper partnerships with independent agencies around the world, contributing African market intelligence to global briefs and supporting clients that need communication that is not only visible, but credible, human and commercially meaningful.