It Is About the Fruit

20 hours ago
2 min read

Zelmari Kern never wanted to be seen. She built something impossible to ignore instead.

WORKINGMAMA® MAGAZINE · August–October 2026 · 5 min read

Zelmari Kern, director of Kern Attorneys, seated in a white blazer for the WorkingMama Recognised cover story — *Zelmari Kern, director of Kern Attorneys, on the cover of the Recognised issue.*

There is a certain irony in placing Zelmari Kern on the cover of the Visibility & Leadership Issue: she would rather not be here. “I don’t enjoy it,” says the director of Kern Attorneys, with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. “I like to build. I don’t care who sees me. It is about the fruit.”

It is a simple statement. It also explains almost everything that follows.

Walking Away

Before there was Kern Attorneys, she walked away from law.

Zelmari finished her LLB and completed her articles, the long apprenticeship every attorney completes, and arrived at a conclusion that was quiet and, on paper, career-ending: she did not enjoy the law she was practising. She left and went to work for a marketing company where she practised almost no law at all. To anyone watching, the legal career was over.

She found her way back into law, corporate law this time, and the restlessness followed her. “Within five years I found myself bored in corporate law,” she says, “and I wanted to start my own company to truly have an impact on people and change lives.”

So, at 28, she jumped.

I took a leap of faith and started my own firm with very little, just faith and a network. That is why I say your network is your net worth.

The beginning was a small, rented office in Parkmore. No clients. No track record. And, in her own words, no support.

My first retainer was R3,000. I didn’t know how I was going to pay my rent or my car. But not one month went by that I didn’t make a profit.

Years later, Kern Attorneys acts for large banks, insurance companies and international clients. Supported by a team of 18 employees and two consultants, it has grown into a multimillion-rand firm with an annual turnover of approximately R22 million. Those achievements are the receipts, not the story.

Zelmari Kern smiling in a cream waistcoat, photographed at Kern Attorneys' Johannesburg offices — *“An entrepreneur, a pioneer and a builder of people and business.”*

Building People

Zelmari does not describe herself as an attorney first.

An entrepreneur, a pioneer and a builder of people and business.

Leadership, to her, is three words long: “To serve others.” What she is most proud of is not the firm. It is her friends, her community, and what she has built in herself and in others over the years. “To change other people’s lives is the biggest reward,” she says. “Blessed is the one who can give.”