Half of the 10 richest South African women either inherited their wealth from their fathers or built businesses together with their husbands. A few are standalone entrepreneurs, while some are renowned corporate executives.
<h3>Wendy Ackerman, $300 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Retail</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30774 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920-600x800.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shot-01-CF234920.jpg 750w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Wendy Ackerman’s husband, Raymond, founded Pick ‘n’ Pay, one of South Africa’s most dominant retail empires. She and her husband control the Ackerman Family Trust, the vehicle through which they own more than 40% of the retail giant. She has also served as a Non-Executive Director of the company since 2010. Pick ‘n’ Pay has outlets across Southern Africa and Australia.
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<h3>Wendy Appelbaum, $200 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Insurance</h3>
Wendy Appelbaum is the daughter of revered South African multi-millionaire insurance mogul Donald Gordon who co-founded Liberty Investors, an insurance and real estate company. She worked at Liberty before divesting her significant shareholding in the company. She used the proceeds to pursue other interests, most notably, DeMorgenzon, a wine estate in Stellenbosch. The philanthropist has donated millions of dollars to causes in education and health in South Africa.
<h3>Irene Charnley, $150 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Telecoms</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30776 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-276x300.jpg" alt="" width="276" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-276x300.jpg 276w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-300x326.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-600x652.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-768x835.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd-942x1024.jpg 942w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Irene-Charnley-15179-CEO-Smile-Telecoms-Holdings-Ltd.jpg 941w" sizes="(max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px" />
Charnley burst into the limelight as a trade unionist when she was a negotiator for the National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa. She subsequently left union politics and joined MTN as an Executive Director where she was instrumental in negotiating for a GSM license in Nigeria, MTN’s most profitable market. She earned hefty stock options which translated into more than R2 billion ($71 million) as far back as in 2006. She divested her shareholding in MTN and founded Smile Telecoms, an internet services provider active in West and East Africa. Smile Telecoms recently closed a $365 million funding round from international investors to expand its broadband network.
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<h3>Elisabeth Bradley, $100 million</h3>
<h3>Source: Investments</h3>
Elisabeth Bradley is the chairperson of Wesco Investments, an investment holding firm and Toyota South Africa, a company that has the lucrative distributorship of Toyota in South Africa. Her father, businessman Albert Wessels, had the foresight in 1961 to acquire the distribution rights of the automaker in South Africa. It has paid off handsomely for Bradley. In 2008, she sold off 25% of Toyota South Africa to Toyota Motor Corp of Japan for more than $300 million.
<h3>Judy Dlamini, $100 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Aspen Pharmacare</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30777" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-300x177.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="177" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-300x177.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-600x353.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-768x452.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini-1024x603.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Judy-Dlamini.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Dlamini, a medical doctor by profession, is the leading shareholder in Imithi Investments (Pty) Limited, a black economic empowerment vehicle that owns more than 4% of Aspen Pharmacare, Africa’s largest pharmaceuticals company. She is also the chairperson of a black women-owned and managed company with operations and investments in health, facilities management, tourism, fashion retail and retail property.
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<h3>Sharon Wapnick, $80 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Investments</h3>
Sharon’s father, Alec Wapnick, founded Octodec Investments and Premium Properties, both Real Estate Investment Trust companies. In 2014, both companies merged to become Octodec. Sharon is one of the largest shareholders in the company. She also serves as a partner at TWB Attorneys, a commercial law firm in Johannesburg.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30772" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-300x184.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="184" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-300x184.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX-600x368.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SharonWapnickXXX.jpg 680w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
<h3>Pam Golding, $60 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Real Estate</h3>
Pamela Golding is the founder of the Pam Golding Property Group, a real estate brokerage which she started in 1976 with one sales assistant and no capital. Five decades later, Pam Golding is one of the largest real estate agencies in Africa, closing more than $1 billion in deals in 2015 and employing a workforce of more than 3,000 professionals. Golding is the chairperson of the company while her son Andrew is CEO.
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<h3>Vanessa Gounden, $45 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Diversified</h3>
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Gounden serves as the CEO of the Holgoun Group, a conglomerate she co-founded with her husband, Sivandran Gounden, in 2005. Holgoun started out in the clean energy business, but after it flopped, she and her husband set out to buy platinum prospecting rights and developed platinum mining assets through which they made their first fortune. The company now has an asset base of $250 million and interests in mining, healthcare financial services, property, media and security among other sectors. Gounden is now attempting to make her mark in high fashion. In 2011 she launched her own fashion label named Vanessa Gounden, a luxury womenswear brand that has a pop-up shop on Beauchamp Place near Harrods in London.
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<h3>Bridgette Radebe, $25 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Mining</h3>
Radebe is one of the few females to have thrived in South Africa’s male-dominated mining industry. Mmakau mining, a Johannesburg-based junior mining company she founded, has lucrative mining assets in coal, gold, uranium and platinum. Radebe started out in the 1990s managing shafts for larger mining firms on a contract basis. She is elder sister to South Africa’s first black billionaire Patrice Motsepe.
<h3>Yolanda Cuba, $10 Million</h3>
<h3>Source: Diversified</h3>
Yolanda Cuba currently serves as Executive Director for strategy and business support for South Africa Breweries Limited, but in her former life, she was the CEO of Mvelaphanda Group, an investment company with interests in mining and natural resources. Mvelaphanda was previously listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, during which time Cuba was awarded stock options worth around $10 million.

South Africa’s 10 Wealthiest Women In Business

At the tail end of Women’s Month in August in South Africa, we catch up with Bongi Ngema-Zuma, President Jacob Zuma’s fourth wife, in her unassuming office at the Bongi Ngema Foundation in Sandton in Johannesburg. We notice that her staff, including her discreet bodyguards, are all women.
Ngema-Zuma has received her fair share of negative publicity. The media has always questioned her participation in a polygamous marriage whilst wanting to be respected as a valid voice for women’s empowerment. We ask her and she is quick to point out that culture and empowerment are not exclusive of each other.
“As a woman you need to understand that you have multiple roles to play.  You may be a chairman or CEO at work but remember that at home the man is the head and the woman is the heart. If you can understand this then you will understand that culture and empowerment are not different worlds,” she says.
The analogy suggests a certain degree of submission by women to their men in the family. But Ngema-Zuma is unequivocal women can and should take up more leadership positions in the workplace.
“We are just not fully represented at the corporate level. And even when we are, we still have to work at least 200% harder than a man in the same position to be seen as competent.”
Ngema-Zuma believes the journey to increase female representation in the boardroom is difficult because government is not tough enough on corporate South Africa. She borrows from Sheryl Sandberg’s best-seller Lean In lamenting that before we can talk about leaning in at the corporate table, we actually have to get into the room and into the circles where decisions are made.
“Women need to learn to open the door for each other. This is what mentorship is all about after all. Someone needs to show you the door and help you get the skills so when the opportunity comes for you to lean in, you’ve got what it takes to do the job well.”
As we wrap up our conversation, she reaches for a framed photograph of her son. She cautions about focusing on and investing in girl children at the expense of the boys.
“I need my son to grow up in a society where he understands that being a man means he too is responsible for the protection and advancement of gender issues,” she says.
Ngema-Zuma believes the ultimate goal for gender activists is to build balanced societies where men and women are pulling together.

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‘At Home The Man Is The Head And The Woman Is The Heart’

The brand is everything in today’s social media-driven environment. And to market it requires every gigabyte of data, strategy, tact, and not to mention, oodles of creativity.
Shireen Jaftha seems to have quite the talent for it, driving award-winning campaigns and strategies as Head of Content at Omnicom Group, a marketing and corporate communications holding company in Johannesburg.
She develops opinions on the future direction of a company and its brand, based on existing and predicted conditions, working with clients to identify unmet marketing and business needs, goals, opportunities and the challenges they may face.
Through branding and marketing, she creates and oversees the execution of a plan through specific initiatives that meet the objectives of the strategy.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30884 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Shereen-159x300.jpg" alt="" width="159" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shereen-159x300.jpg 159w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shereen-300x567.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shereen-768x1453.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Shereen.jpg 541w" sizes="(max-width: 159px) 100vw, 159px" />
She started her career in the advertising industry, and it was sheer luck by chance.
“I went for an office interview for a ‘girl Friday’ temp post at an advertising agency and after that interview, I was asked to join the media team. I think that they picked up my negotiation skills. That agency taught me this industry,” says Jaftha.
Of all the campaigns she has done, she rates the Standard Bank Access Banking case study as the one that stands out as it has proven the potential inherent in branded and interactive content.
The campaign made use of all media and introduced a new level of customer engagement by adding broadcasting and client-generated content to the mix.
“It was about being more consumer-centric – using traditional platforms in a non-traditional way to break through the clutter of advertising, as well as educating the market which made it strategically aligned to Standard Bank’s ‘Moving Forward’ brand promise.”
The campaign walked away with two industry awards.
Although social media strategies have the ability to help build successful businesses, it is not without its pitfalls.
“Due to different behavior patterns on social media, many people always assume the success of a campaign based on the likes or comment posted by consumers. Most people assume that 1,000 likes is a winning campaign. Unfortunately it is not – as it doesn’t prove tangible sales. With social media you create leads, but you cannot track sales,” she says.
She says behavior is constantly changing on social media and the solution is to follow the behaviour of the user and by constantly checking consumer insight.
According to Jaftha, it is vital to remain relevant. And the brands she follows for inspiration? Adam Morgan, Seth Gordon, Contagious magazine online, Trendwatching.com and Mike Street.

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‘1,000 Likes Is Not A Winning Campaign’

Maria Diamantopoulou, who has the distinction of being Greece’s first female ambassador in South Africa, is dressed in a pale lime green suit. It is an apt choice, immediately conjuring up the myriad of blue, teal and turquoise colors of the Mediterranean she is from.
Like the warm hues, her persona too is calm and placid. As Greece’s top-ranking representative to South Africa, she conducts high-level negotiations with the local government, and is responsible for her many countrymen resident in the Rainbow Nation.
We meet her in September, the month her two-year term comes to a close. It’s a crucial time to ask her some key questions pertaining to her stint, and her country’s recent economic crisis. She talks about how her Africa job was fulfilling in every way.
“I love this job because not every day is the same. I never know what to expect and it is always fun to meet people and engage on life-changing issues,” says Diamantopoulou.
And of course she is no stranger to random, or pointed, questions on the Greek financial crisis.
“The Greek people suffered for a long time,” she says painfully.
“Greece lost 25 percent of its GDP in such a short space of time.”
Diamantopoulou says most of the money in the new bailout package will be used to repay existing debt rather than rebuild the shattered Greek economy.
“Other countries in Africa can learn from this crisis to avoid similar problems. Countries should learn that challenges are the same around the world. I can see the first signs of [trouble, for example] unemployment in South Africa which is a very important issue. I always tell my South African friends and counterparts to try and learn from what we suffered,” she says.
Diamantopoulou encourages African countries to implement measures while there is still time to ensure the same crisis does not befall them.
“The public sector and bureaucracy are two of the main issues that any economy should focus on to improve and try to shrink so that there is more room for investment, growth of the private sector and small to medium businesses which are very important,” she says.
It has been a tough job at the helm.
“It is not easy being in such a position be it as a man or a woman because you have to prove who you are and what you can do,” she says.
Her main concern is the development of tourism, which contributes more than 15% of Greece’s annual Gross Domestic Product. She says tourism continues to grow despite the issues.
“Tourism is a big part of Greece’s economy just as it’s in South Africa and other countries on the continent. In Greece, there were 22 million visitors last year and this year, there has already been 26 million.”
And have South Africa’s own new tourism regulations affected the number of visitors coming from Greece? She says it hasn’t.
“Greeks are adventurous people. They like to travel the world,” she smiles.
Now heading back home, to Athens, Diamantopoulou says she will miss South Africa.
“I love this country and its potential. South Africans are beautiful people who smile all the time and I regret not having had enough time to travel while I was here. I will make sure to come back as a tourist and enjoy this beautiful nation.”
She says she relates to South Africa and always feels at home here because the people from both countries have suffered the effects of colonization.
“South Africans and the Greeks have a special relationship. We know the struggle for democracy and we defend human rights. We suffered the same way which makes me feel at home here,” she says.
For Diamantopoulou, it is good-bye for now but it seems not forever.

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Lessons From Greece

My entire life changed when I got pregnant, and my husband’s hardly changed at all,” says 30-year-old Lilly Jensen (name changed to protect identity).
In a few months, Jensen went from being a successful managing editor at a local magazine on a promising career track to a stay-at-home mom.
Her pregnancy, and the subsequent maternity leave, completely derailed her career. With her baby at home, little support structure, unreliable help and a husband not legally allowed to take paternity leave, she had little choice. After two months back in the office, she quit.
“I wouldn’t have felt so helpless if Jack had been allowed to take leave,” she says. “I might have made a different decision if I’d had the support. I felt I had no other option.”
Maternity leave is often treated as a punishment in the workplace, says Manisha Maganbhai-Mooloo, a partner at Adams &amp; Adams Attorneys, a South African law firm.
With no legal equivalent of maternity leave for new dads in South Africa – fathers may take three days of paid family responsibility leave around the birth of the baby, if it’s not used up on other events the leave was designed for – the bulk of the responsibility and burden of parenthood falls on the mother.
“Pregnancy is treated as a penalty and almost acts as a halt to promotional prospects,” says Maganbhai-Mooloo.
“Projects are halted and a women’s career is sent on a completely different trajectory.”
Anita Bosch, lead researcher at the Women in the Workplace Research Programme at the University of Johannesburg agrees, saying that pregnancy is treated as an anomaly. Keeping in mind that the workplace was developed with men as the model workers, maternity leave negatively impacts a woman’s career, says Bosch.
“You hear comments around the workplace about a ‘staffing problem’ when employees fall pregnant.”
The legal minimum for South African maternity leave is four months unpaid, and it only applies to women. There’s no paternity leave, no leave for adoption, or surrogacy.
“It’s left to companies to offer more generous policies to their employees,” says Maganbhai-Mooloo. And if companies don’t offer paid maternity leave, employees have to turn to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, a government-run organization, to pay them a monthly stipend. A year later, and Jensen is still waiting for her payout.
“I don’t know how single moms do it,” she says.
Maganbhai-Mooloo is frustrated by the inherently unfair maternity law in South Africa. Despite good labor laws, even by international standards, South Africa lags behind with legislature on maternity.
“The law needs to be amended to allow for paid paternity leave and paid maternity leave,” she says. “Not to mention surrogacy and adoption leave.”
However, in her opinion, the ideal should be shared parental leave that can be evenly divided between the two parents, to split the onus of parenthood and equally distribute the effect a baby has on both career paths. After a challenging birth, and a severe bout of post-partum depression, Maganbhai-Mooloo herself would have preferred her husband taking paternity leave soon after birth, with her maternity leave kicking in only after she’d dealt with the baby blues.
South Africa still has a long way to go. With mothers penalised for pregnancy, and fathers unable to step-up, paternity leave would help to equalize the playing ground. Unpaid maternity leave also places new mothers at a huge disadvantage. As a 2013 report by the Human Rights Watch discovered, unpaid maternity leave can lead to serious consequences for health, finances and career paths.
“I felt like a deadweight when I was pregnant,” says Jensen. “And I shouldn’t have to feel like that.”

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Is Becoming A New Mom Career-Limiting?

Michelle Krastanov, head of the sponsor team at Arbor Capital headquartered in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, greets us with a firm handshake and a warm smile, and we soon get talking about how she got to lead the business responsible for 60% of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) AltX listings last year.
Krastanov started her career in 1987 at a time the word ‘businesswoman’ was still gaining currency, as just one of three female article clerks of more than 30 at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
“I was told by a female manager I was lucky to have been employed because I am female. When I went out to meetings, I was often asked by men, ‘what’s a pretty little thing like you doing here?’, so as soon as I said anything intelligent they would be mightily impressed,” says Krastanov.
The firm’s auditing contract with one of its clients was coming to a close. That year, Krastanov’s manager made her assistant manager, leading the client’s audit. She worked hard. PwC eventually tendered for the audit again because the whole dynamic had changed with Krastanov at the helm.
“Over the years, they have changed their hiring to over 50% women, and it’s a job very well-suited to a woman – there’s a lot of attention to detail.”
In 1994, after seven years at PwC, Krastanov became part of a joint venture and following a restructuring, she and another partner decided to take over the business where she acted as a corporate advisor. In 2001, the JSE changed its listing requirements, which the business was not able to meet, and being pregnant with her eldest son at the time, Krastanov chose to hand over her clients.
“I decided to be responsible and get a job. Arcay gave me a call because they were wanting to become sponsors and they needed a documentation specialist. Within three weeks we had our JSE sponsor license… And most of the clients I handed over found me,” she says.
Krastanov’s greatest challenge, like many women, has been finding a balance between her personal and work life. Most difficult for her was when in 2013, shortly after Arcay Capital, now Arbor, was bought out by Krastanov and her partners, her youngest son, Matthew, had a brain haemorrhage – the result of a condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM). After hours researching AVM, Krastanov found local treatment and an MRI earlier this year revealed Matthew’s condition is improving.
Krastanov is dedicated to her roles, both as a mother and manager, however, she suffered a major setback to her health when she was diagnosed with breast cancer after an abnormal cyst became inflamed.
Earlier this year, she underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction. The operation was a success.
On her cancer experience, she says: “I didn’t get angry and I didn’t get upset… my interest was in surviving for my kids. When you’ve got kids, you take different decisions and if I compare it to what happened with Matthew, this was easy – this was controllable because it was my decision.”
Krastanov concludes that if being a woman in business has taught her anything, it is that you have to consistently work hard and prove yourself.

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‘I Didn’t Get Angry At Cancer’

A woman in a boardroom often needs to work twice as hard as a man; and it also means conveying the right intent and tone, and paying attention to the finer details, body language being one of them.
“Within our very patriarchal history, the boardroom is still very much a man-cave, where the few women who have dared to ‘trespass’ constantly navigate both the written and unwritten man-cave code,” says Khosi Jiyane, a clinical psychologist and corporate training facilitator in Johannesburg.
In order to survive, some women have felt the need to man-up, as currency for being seen and treated as one of the boys, which she says has resulted in some men feeling threatened, while some fellow women see it as a “betrayal of femininity”.
Thrown into this mix are gender and cultural pitfalls that can be effectively countered if the female executive is aware of her body language.
Being attentive is a key aspect according to Durban psychologist Claire Newton who says: “Be sure to sit right up at the table and lean in over the edge slightly. Put your hands and arms on the table. Have a notebook and pen to take notes, but never fiddle with your pen. Don’t take notes on your lap if there’s a table in front of you, this forces you to move away from the action. Women tend to do this a lot. Men don’t.”
“Also ensure you have an open posture, meaning you don’t block the front of your body in any way. Blocking off the front of your body makes you feel safer (which is why you do it), but other people get the message you are insecure and unapproachable,” says industrial psychologist Brian Jude who has been in the communication training industry for 35 years. He says it’s important to stay true to your own personality in the boardroom.
“More aggressive people tend to take up space, with quieter people taking up less space. With any kind of boardroom activity, stay in your comfort zone,” says Jude, adding that women generally feel more comfortable crossing their legs or ankles, but that the ‘figure four cross’ or loose leg cross should be avoided as it is perceived to be aggressive.
“Keep your hands and arms parallel to the body as much as possible. You can use your hands in natural gestures, such as open palms, but avoid any form of finger pointing, which is seen as aggressive.”
He adds that the ‘match and mirror’ technique in body language must be subtle.
“As the other person changes body position, count to four and then change your own position to match. If there is gentle eye contact, maintain the same behavior. This can create an enormous connection, but not if it’s overdone. If you do it too quickly, it is interpreted as mocking behavior,” says Jude.
And while it may be daunting to enter the man cave, never use flirtatious techniques.
“Women are used to flirting and may tend to try and use this in what is still a predominantly male environment. Clothes must be conservative and neutral, with no overt jewelry. Maintaining a professional demeanour says ‘take me seriously’,” says Jude.
Carry handbags, tablets, or files at your side and not in front of your body;
Be aware of nervous habits – don’t fiddle with hands or hair;
Good eye contact shows you are listening, but do not hold eye contact to the point of being either uncomfortable or threatening;
Avoid sitting in the chair next to the door – if you are speaking when someone enters, you lose your message;
Pushing your sleeves up slightly and putting your arms on the table shows you are serious about what is happening in a meeting;
Be aware of your facial expression at all times.

Khosi-Jiyane

Body Of Work

Two years ago, Uber was unheard of. Today it’s a buzzword. You could argue that Rudolf Makopole Malaka has been on the same fast track. From humble township beginnings to a property on an estate; with three Uber cars and three companies – he owes it all to the mobile app.
Uber gives drivers the opportunity to be the CEO of their own company – they own their own cars and set their hours. Connecting riders with drivers through a smartphone app, users submit a trip request, which is then routed to Uber drivers. Since 2013, the online ride-hailing service has taken off in South Africa.
“People lack jobs. We decided to join Uber – not just to make money but to create job opportunities for our fellow brothers who don’t have jobs because we know how hard it is not to have a job. We’ve been there,” he says.
“I spent weeks eating only Weet-Bix. You go to school on an empty stomach, you walk long distances. I don’t want my kids to go through that, I don’t want kids from the location to go through that,” he says.
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After getting his degree in IT, he was unemployed and disheartened.
“I’ve been jobless and I’m a qualified auditor and qualified in IT. You go to school, you get the qualification but you don’t get the job. You wait, you go to interviews, they say they’ll call you but they don’t call you. You can’t just sit around and wait,” he says.
He brainstormed new opportunities. He started his first company in property development which grew into construction and image consulting – styling people, homes and their businesses. Riding on the momentum of his success, he started an IT company and became an Uber partner. A far cry from scouring through the classifieds and being rejected at interviews, he now makes about R150,000 (around $11,000) a month. With a fleet of three cars and looking to expand to 15 by next year, business is booming.
“Uber is a platform to make a change. We will have five cars by the end of the month. That’s five families we’re feeding. We’re making a change,” he says.
It should be so simple but Uber has faced its fair share of challenges. In June, cab drivers in Paris locked down the city in protest; operations were banned in Germany after a court ruled that Uber violated transport laws; in South Korea employees linked to the company were charged with running an illegal taxi firm; and in South Africa, metered-taxis are demanding a clampdown on the new kid on the block. They claim it’s operating illegally, flouting regulations and putting passengers at risk.
“A meter taxi attacked me. I was protecting the client. I said ‘you can smash my car, you can do whatever you do, but not to my client’. He was trying to pull my client. The problem is that they don’t understand competition. They say they’re taking our customers but what about other public transport? It’s a client preference to use us. We don’t scout for clients, we’re requested.”
Malaka sets himself apart from the rest by putting his drivers through his image consulting business. Putting professionalism at the fore, his drivers are dressed to impress, paying attention to every detail from the cut of the suit to the color of the tie; the radio station and temperature are adjusted for the customer; and a charger and auxiliary cable are always made available. His drivers go through training every month to ensure that their Uber ratings stay high.
“We want to empower them – they work for us for only two years. We want our Uber drivers to buy their own cars. We give them advice, we make sure that they know how to save. Then we hire other people. It’s a chain – we’re empowering you, we want you to empower someone else.”
“I moved up. I go back to where I came from because I know I left people there who helped me to get where I am. You can’t forget where you come from. I employ people from the townships because I know the struggles,” he says.
He’s driven and he’s making it, one Uber ride at a time.

From Down  On His Luck  To Uber Bucks

Vusi Thembekwayo loves to talk. He says he will do for talking what Muhammad Ali did for boxing. Ali told the world he was “The greatest”. So does Thembekwayo.
To him, great public speakers, like boxers, are not trained, they are born. His wit is the glue that binds his diverse audiences. John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia called him the “rock star of public speaking”; global strategist and scenario-planning guru Clem Sunter said he was “simply riveting”; Sir Bob Geldof said “Vusi is a f*cken great speaker,” according to Thembekwayo.
Thembekwayo has always been an overachiever. At 21, he ran a successful consulting firm, then South Africa’s only black-owned Forensic Marketing agency. At 25, he was the youngest director of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, a bourse turning over $1.3 billion a year. At 29, he delivered 214 presentations, in 21 countries charging up to $8,000 a time. At 30, he influences over $300 million in seven companies he holds shares in. His companies operate in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Nigeria.
As a child, Thembekwayo studied by candlelight and used to wake up before dawn to prepare for school. His father had started a business with their house as collateral.
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“The bank was about to repossess our house so my mother and my siblings had to move in with relatives. We stayed in a small backroom and had to wake up very early, make fire and make porridge to eat,” he says.
“One minute we had a home and were being dropped off at school in our father’s car and the next we were suffering commuting kilometers in taxis to school. That experience shapes how I look at the world and my understanding of risk. I understand that whatever it is you have, tomorrow it could be all gone.”
His father resolved the debt situation but couldn’t escape tragedy. Thieves shot him nine times leaving him to bleed to death at the side.
“This was a very difficult time in my life. My dad and I were best friends. We did everything together and went everywhere together. The only reason I wasn’t with him that day is because my mum was ill and I stayed with her at home when my dad was shot for his cell phone.”
At this moment, a tear forms in Thembekwayo’s eye. “South Africa has a violent past and that narrative continues to find expression in modern South Africa, we condone violence because we find reason to defend why it’s ok to do it and we have a justice system that isn’t sufficiently punitive for people who perpetrate the act. We need to come together as a society to say no matter the reason it is not ok to take a life.”
Left with a single mother, at the age of 15, his big mouth got him into trouble long before it became his fortune. He was forced to take up public speaking as punishment for misbehavior in high school. He was booed off the stage for what everyone thought was a male chauvinistic speech titled: What Women Want.
“The best way to get me to do something is telling me I can’t do it. When they booed me off stage I started working harder to get to where I am,” he says.
Thembekwayo studied for a BCom degree at the University of the Witwatersrand but dropped out because of money. He believes entrepreneurship is practice more than theory.
“Some of the people who get the education are the people who will not move the dial in any meaningful way. The education system in South Africa is and continues to be archaic. I also did a course at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) which was supposed to be a year but took me three years because they didn’t understand how I think. South African business schools are behind on how you educate a Vusi.”
“You don’t need too many things to start a business. Start where you are. South African young people are really challenged. They have access to DSTV and they see the world in a particular way but the reality doesn’t reflect the world they see. You must recognize what’s around you and build with what you have. If you have a vision for the future, it is important to know nobody starts where they end up.”
This is not just advice for him. It is exactly how he started building his fortune after receiving a standing ovation for a speech for which he was paid a mere R35 (less than $3).
“Former president Thabo Mbeki was the keynote speaker at the event and he gave me a hug and endorsed me at that event telling people to give me more work,” he says.
He used the R35 to make phone calls to all the people he met at that event. He says entrepreneurship is starting something that other people don’t see and getting them to see it, believe in it, buy in it and help you build it.
Even when he became a well-known figure, life has not always been milk and honey. When he decided to start his company, My Growth Fund (MGF), it ushered in six of his worst months as an entrepreneur.
Thembekwayo failed to acquire funding for the company. When he had money, in the 2011-2012 financial year, he invested $274,000 in a steel company. Excited, he neglected to do proper due diligence. The investment went into a black hole. There were neither contracts nor legal documents to save him.
“I wasn’t thorough. I didn’t check if the company I was buying into had legacy liability or legacy issues. I was over eager. The entrepreneur convinced me that everything was going to go well, only to find out my money was used to pay off her debts. She had creditors and suppliers who she owed and she did not disclose this to me. She also had the South African Revenue Services coming after her.”
Part of this $274,000 was supposed to pay his own staff.
“I didn’t know what to do. All that I had was gone. What was I going to tell my staff? They also had their own lives and bills. But this situation taught me that if you are honest with people they understand. I told my staff the truth about what had happened and they worked hard, booked me for more speaking jobs and I was able to pay them,” he says.
“I learned an important lesson to take my time. Where you are going is guaranteed. There is no doubt, so don’t rush, follow the process.”
Thembekwayo started over.
“No matter how much you trust the other person when doing an investment, make sure the numbers support it, make sure you cover your basics, and the legal side holds water,” he says.
Today if he buys into a business he moves all the capital and operating capital into a separate business to make sure there is no history to infect the investment.  Public speaking is one of the ways he makes money as an entrepreneur.
“Vusi is a very funny guy when he gives his talks. He is always well informed on the subjects he talks about such as business and investment opportunities. I always watch his YouTube videos and follow his advice,” says Thato Mokoena, a South African small business entrepreneur.
Thembekwayo studied by candlelight, his father was brutally killed, business schools didn’t understand him, he was booed off stage, he lost millions, but survived to tell the tale from the stage where he was once scorned.

He survived failure, tragedy and lost millions

The first thing you notice when you step onto Tesla Motors’ production floor are the robots. Eight-foot-tall bright-red bots that look like Transformers, huddling over each Model S sedan as it makes its way through the factory in Fremont, Calif., on the eastern, shaggier side of Silicon Valley. Up to eight robots at a time work on a single Model S in a choreographed routine, each performing up to five tasks: welding, riveting, gripping and moving materials, bending metal, and installing components. Henry Ford and the generations of auto industry experts who have followed would dismiss this setup as inefficient – each robot should do one task only before moving the car on to the next Transformer.
The first thing you notice when you step onto Tesla Motors’ production floor are the robots. Eight-foot-tall bright-red bots that look like Transformers, huddling over each Model S sedan as it makes its way through the factory in Fremont, Calif., on the eastern, shaggier side of Silicon Valley. Up to eight robots at a time work on a single Model S in a choreographed routine, each performing up to five tasks: welding, riveting, gripping and moving materials, bending metal, and installing components. Henry Ford and the generations of auto industry experts who have followed would dismiss this setup as inefficient – each robot should do one task only before moving the car on to the next Transformer.
It’s a $3 billion criticism, to be specific. That was the amount shaved off the company’s market value in early August after Tesla cut its sales forecasts for the year by 10% to 50,000 vehicles, citing delays in teaching the robots to make both the Model S and the new crossover SUV Model X. “The Model X is a particularly challenging car to build. Maybe the hardest car to build in the world. I’m not sure what would be harder,” admitted Elon Musk, Tesla’s billionaire founder and visionary CEO, who also serves in those same roles at SpaceX.
But neither delays nor the cash burn ($1.5 billion in the past 12 months) particularly fazes Musk. He just wants to focus on making the world’s best car, and the $90,000 Model S, by all rights, can claim that prize. An all-electric vehicle, it offers a week’s worth of driving on a single charge from any one of a nationwide network of free solar-powered charging stations. It goes from 0-60 in under three seconds in “ludicrous” mode, the fastest of any four-door production car on the planet, and is also the safest car in its class. When it collides with the crash-test machine, the crash-test machine breaks. You can order it online and have it delivered to your door, get software updates beamed wirelessly and receive maintenance alerts before bad stuff happens. Plus, it’s beautiful. The door handles reach out to be opened as you approach, then fold flat for better aerodynamics. Don’t believe us: Consumer Reports called it the best overall car on the market for the past two years.
These are the kinds of superlatives that shoot Tesla Motors to the top of FORBES’ World’s Most Innovative Companies list in the first year we’ve had enough financial data to consider the company. The word “disruptor” gets attached to Tesla all the time. For several years we’ve closely studied the phenomenon of disruptive innovation, identified in the late 1990s by Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen. We quantify it, based on the difference between a public company’s market value and the measurable intrinsic value of its existing business – an innovation bonus, if you will. Despite all the buzz – and that’s something we try to factor out when measuring the premium – we were initially puzzled by Tesla’s growing success. Unlike classic disruptive innovations such as steel mini-mills, personal computers and, in the car business, cheap Japanese imports, Tesla never pursued the classic route of going after low-end, price-sensitive customers first with cheaper, inferior technology. It doesn’t pursue nonconsumption, or customers who don’t currently drive cars. Tesla automobiles look and drive much like other cars, use established infrastructure like roads and confine much of their product innovation to only one aspect: the power system.
These facts don’t fit the required mold for successful low-end disruption – a traditional case study would point to Tesla hitting a wall. Even Musk wasn’t sure at the beginning. “I didn’t ask for outside money for Tesla, and SpaceX, because I thought they would fail,” he says. But Tesla has instead proved to be a different kind of disruptor, a high-end version that can be just as troublesome for the incumbents.
High-end disruptors produce innovations that are leapfrog in nature, making them difficult to imitate rapidly. They outperform existing products on critical attributes on their debut; they sell for a premium price rather than a discount; and they target incumbents’ most profitable customers, going after the most discriminating and least price-sensitive buyers before spreading to the mainstream. If you look within some large companies, you can flesh out previous examples: Apple’s iPod outplayed the Sony Walkman; Starbucks’ high-end coffee drinks and atmosphere drowned out local coffee shops; Dyson’s vacuum cleaners now have solid market share; Garmin’s GPS golf ­watches have taken much of the business from range finders. The incumbents didn’t react fast enough, and the high-end disruptors took over their market.
Tesla has built its entire company around this idea. The Model S and X will be followed in 2017 by a cheaper Model 3, a $35,000 Tesla for the masses, if all goes according to plan. And despite the fact that Tesla abandoned its forecast of turning a profit this year (even with its unusual and pro-company lease accounting), investors can’t get enough of it: Musk has raised $5.3 billion in equity and debt for Tesla since 2010, with each round increasingly oversubscribed by investors, including a $650 million secondary offering in mid-August, partly to complete its giant battery-making Gigafactory in the Nevada desert. “The willingness of the markets to support the company with various financing structures leads me to believe that everything will probably be okay, assuming the model proves viable,” said Jacob Cohen, senior associate dean at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
That viability moment should come around 2017, say analysts at Credit Suisse, when Tesla is expected to show its first significant dose of free cash flow, or operating income after capital expenditures (see charts, p. 28). The other metrics look golden: It is on track to gross $5.5 billion this year, up 54% over 2014. Its shares have soared 15-fold since its 2010 IPO to a recent $33 billion market capitalization.
Meanwhile, incumbent automakers face the same challenge now and long term: If much of the auto business ends up going electric (and that’s a big if right now with sub-$3 gas and sales falling overall for electrics and hybrids) Tesla will be miles ahead at the high-end and coming down-market to eat away at the $1 trillion industry. Detroit finds it easy to dismiss Tesla as a moneylosing startup, but it has changed the industry. “[In 2001] GM crushed all of its electric models in a junkyard,” Musk says. “When we came along and made the Roadster, it got GM to make the Volt and then Nissan felt confident enough to go with the Leaf. We basically got the whole ball rolling with electrification of cars. The ball is rolling slowly, but it is rolling.”
Peel back the aluminum skin of a Tesla Model S and you will see what high-end disruption looks like. The motor and gearbox are a fraction of the size of a combustion engine drivetrain, mounted low between the wheels to create a larger crumple zone for passenger safety. The chassis is like a giant skateboard built to accommodate lots of battery wattage.
To create a car that looks this different, Musk has engineered a team and process that look different. Call it the Musk Way. Most car companies try to capture value with an established product. Laboring under radical uncertainty, Tesla has a process that is centered on a single purpose: speed. Like the big automakers, Tesla stamps its own body panels in-house, but it also makes its own battery packs and motors in the Fremont assembly plant. It even makes its own plastic steering wheel casings – a part easily and usually outsourced – because suppliers (much to their regret) tried sending their B teams and took months to turn around designs.
Tesla cannot wait – it updates designs continuously, borrowing ideas freely from its sibling SpaceX, including its extensive use of aluminum in both the body and the chassis of the Model S, as well as drawing and casting techniques used to produce the aluminum bodies of SpaceX’s Falcon rocket and Dragon capsules. “It’s very helpful to cross-fertilize ideas from different industries,” says Musk.
You’ll rarely find someone at Tesla who worked at GM, Ford or Chrysler or an automotive supplier (Aston Martin is one notable exception). Sterling Anderson, a former McKinsey associate and MIT-trained expert in self-driving cars, was hired in the summer of 2014 to work on Tesla’s autopilot systems. Now he’s the program manager of the Model X. The reason Tesla will occasionally put someone in a position without prior industry experience is that Musk is known for selecting people based upon their ability to solve complex problems—not based upon experience. Says Tesla Chief Information Officer Jay Vijayan, “Elon doesn’t settle for good or very good. He wants the best. So he asks job candidates what kinds of complex problems they’ve solved before … and he wants details.”
Musk’s team screens job applicants for their ability to learn under uncertain conditions. Every new employee, no matter which department, has to have proven some kind of ability to solve hard problems. “We always probe deeply into achievement on the résumé,” says Musk. “Success has many parents, so we look to find out who really did it. I don’t care if they graduated from university or even high school.”
Promotions and bonuses at both Tesla (and SpaceX) are built around a 1-to-5 rating system, with 4 and 5 being “great” and “phenomenal”, respectively. “You don’t get the two highest ratings,” says Musk, “unless you have done something innovative. It has to be significant in the case of phenomenal, something that makes the company better or the product better. Anyone can be an improver: HR, finance, production, they can all figure out how to improve things.”
When Tesla first called Vijayan to ask him to consider the CIO job, he said maybe but then pulled himself out of contention. He had a cushy CIO job at Silicon Valley blue-chip software firm VMWare and wasn’t looking to step out on any ledges. Tesla appeared to be taking huge risks, and Elon Musk had a reputation of making monumental demands of the leadership team. But 18 months later he got a call back and was asked to reconsider. During his interview with Musk he became convinced this company could change the world.
Vijayan’s first major task? Build all the software to run the business, from scratch, in three months, for one-fifth the cost. Typically big companies spend millions of dollars on enterprise resource planning software – which handles product planning, finance, manufacturing, supply chain and sales – from large vendors like SAP and Oracle. When Vijayan told him such a task wasn’t possible, Musk simply stated, with a Steve Jobs-like confidence: “Let me know what you need from my side to make this happen.” Says Vijayan, “He doesn’t accept constraints as ‘givens’ the way most people do.”
Vijayan and his team implemented a basic but functioning homegrown system in four months, and with steady improvements it now gives Tesla a lightning-fast feedback loop. “We have a seamlessly integrated information system that gives us speed and agility like no other automaker,” says Vijayan. By comparison, GM outsourced its entire IT function after spinning out EDS in 1996, and only since exiting bankruptcy has it rebuilt its IT strength, but at huge cost.
After hiring folks with a demonstrated ability to solve complex problems, Tesla deploys them in small teams that sit cheek-by-jowl to hasten the solutions. “Our communication allows us to move incredibly fast,” says chief designer Franz von Holzhausen. “That is an element that isn’t happening in the rest of the automotive world. They are siloed organizations that take a long time to communicate.” Von Holzhausen was able to design the award-winning Tesla S with a team of just three designers sitting next to their engineering counterparts. Bigger automakers typically have 10 to 12 designers working on each new model.
Even the car itself is designed for speed of learning. Customers are continuously connected to Tesla via their car’s 4G wireless connection and 17-inch touchscreen control panel, which sends usage data to the manufacturer in real time. Tesla will release fixes via overnight software download or make physical ­changes at a moment’s notice. That ludicrous mode that shaves the zero-to-60mph time by 10% on the top-of-the-line P85D Model S sedan is available as an over-the-air $10,000 software upgrade. And in 2013, after receiving feedback that the back seats in the Tesla S were uncomfortable, Tesla service workers changed every owner’s seats in a matter of weeks, midyear.
Learning in an environment of uncertainty requires a willingness to admit mistakes and move quickly rather than digging in and doing nothing for fear of admitting failure. In fact, obsessively attempting to avoid failure can lead to the greater failure of missing the big opportunity.
When the Model S was introduced in June 2012 it came with a “smart” air suspension system that automatically lowered the car at highway speed for better aerodynamics and range. One day a Model S owner was zooming down the highway and ran over a three-ball trailer hitch. It punctured the underbody’s ballistics-grade armor and the battery pack above it with incredible force. No one was hurt; the car’s warning system told the passengers to exit the vehicle before a fire started in the front compartment. Tesla quickly added a titanium underbody shield to the existing armor on all new cars and made it a free upgrade on existing ones, and it updated the software so the car doesn’t automatically lower at highway speed.
Most automakers lay out their shop floor once to minimize costs and plan model lines that will remain unchanged for several years. Tesla’s production engineers are continually changing the layout of the factory to learn as much as possible. Over time, as Tesla wrings out the uncertainty in the development and manufacturing process, it will transition to a more familiar arrangement, a process that is already starting to happen in the second and third production lines for the Model S and Model X. Tesla learned the benefits of staying nimble early on with the Roadster when, in an effort to reduce costs, it tried to establish a global supply chain similar to a giant carmaker’s. Tesla wasn’t ready for that setup, and having manufacturing spread out over the world led to massive coordination problems. “We definitely don’t get it perfect on the first try, not even close,” says cofounder and chief technical officer J.B. Straubel. “But that’s how we learn.” The stakes will go way up when Tesla adds the future Model 3 on another production line. If one part isn’t right, the whole factory can grind to a halt. FiatChrysler, for example, delayed the launch of the popular Jeep Cherokee by about six months because of problems with its new nine-speed transmission.
Tesla’s innovation process is neither easy nor comfortable. A recent Musk
biography tells the story of the time when, after asking already overworked employees to continue pulling overtime before the launch of the original Tesla Roadster, one employee said, “But we haven’t seen our family in weeks.” Musk’s response: “You will have plenty of time to see your family when we go bankrupt.” Musk also looks down on holidays, having nearly died from malaria following a trip to Brazil and South Africa in 2000. “That’s my lesson for taking a vacation: Vacation will kill you.”
The Tesla team is successful at achieving seemingly impossible goals not just because they work harder than anyone else. It has a process for solving complex problems that is effective. “I operate on the physics approach to analysis,” says Musk. “You boil things down to the first principles or fundamental truths in a particular area and then you reason up from there. Then you apply your reasoning to those axiomatic principles to assess what is really possible and what is simply perceived to be possible.” This method leads to innovative solutions that even Tesla executives didn’t think were possible.
Says Straubel: “Musk challenges everyone to work incredibly hard.  I know that sounds stereotypical, but I think he does it to a degree that is pretty unusual, and it is highly uncomfortable for most people, but the results are fairly undeniable. If you challenge people to work hard, they achieve more than they think they can. Most leaders don’t want to do that.” Adds Doug Fields, vice president of engineering: “We take leaps of faith that are like jumping out of an airplane and designing and building the parachute on the way down.”
That’s the necessary approach when you’re making the transition from a one-car company to a multi-car company, and doing it at scale, while simultaneously building a giant indoor energy-storage business. That’s the Musk Way.

Tesla’s secret formula

Alonely dirt road leads to a rustic farmhouse with old-fashioned shutters, wooden beams and creeping vines. By the entrance are a few ageing oak barrels, still sturdy and red from years of storing wine.
It is a fitting prelude to the man you are about to meet.
We are at Vriesenhof, a farm nestled between the Stellenbosch and Helderberg mountains in the Paradyskloof Valley of South Africa’s Western Cape. These winelands are rife with grapes and gossip, and boast a colorful cast of characters, mostly wine farmers who relate the valley’s stories, and often are stories themselves.
This is a world where wine and winning are spoken of in the same breath.
And in this cavernous house, a remodeled 18th century cellar, Jan Boland Coetzee, the renowned Springbok rugby player and venerable vintner, exemplifies both.
Within seconds of meeting him on this impromptu visit, Coetzee shows he is a true son of the soil. It is a warm April. Barefoot and brisk, in beige shorts, he darts from the living room, to the kitchen, to the backyard – where his elder daughter Hanle, who lives close by, is earnestly laying out tables for an evening do at the house.
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In the kitchen – shelves laden with wine bottles – there are sizzling sounds on the stove, followed by the aroma of – possibly – deep-fried fish cakes. Coetzee is issuing instructions to a few laborers at the back. He soon returns to sit at the large yellowwood dining table, decked with flowers in vases set like a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Originally Dutch, Coetzee says his ancestors came to the Cape in 1679. It is here, in this valley at the foot of the Stellenbosch mountains, that he learned the game of rugby and the art of making wine.
Coetzee purchased Vriesenhof in 1980 – “for its south-facing slopes on the cooler side of the foothills” – and has been here since, cultivating plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, pinotage and pinot noir, sold under the labels of Vriesenhof and Paradyskloof.
“I love to take pride in what is ours, what is South African,” says the valley’s doyen of pinotage.
“I focused on pinotage when I was young, as it is the only grape variety since its birth that has really taken on a commercial collective in the world of wine. And if it is doing well, it means we are proud of it, because it is born under the African sun, it is performing under the African sun, and we take pride because we believe it is ours.”
Coetzee pauses between words and sentences, but when he speaks, he makes you feel the earth around you: the air, the sun, the soil. Clearly, it is his territory – and terroir.
“Wine is a mirror of the environment first and foremost, because it is a product of the soil. In that, lies our future. Man needs to understand the soil, the plant, to put it in its right place in the right environment to give it its best. And the more you care, the better it gets,” he says.
The man has a deep love for the farm, and is happy just to be in it – with his glass of chardonnay.
“I love what I am doing, I love the farm, and I love drinking good wine. It’s as simple as that,” says the sprightly 70-year-old whose days on the 85-hectare farm begin at 4AM.
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Coetzee studied oenology and viticulture at Stellenbosch University.
“I didn’t become a vet so I became a viticulturist. It’s amazing how many winemakers wanted to become vets,”
he laughs.
“I still have the record for writing the most exams before I passed. So I have a very broad knowledge. Like the wooden barrel, it’s [like] the un-opening of old wine.”
While still a student, Coetzee became captain of the university’s Under-18 rugby team.
“Everyone in South Africa plays rugby from a young age,” he says.
He played for his provincial team, Western Province, from 1967 to 1979, and played flank for the national team, the Springboks, from 1974 to 1976.
He stopped playing when a tour was cancelled in 1979 on account of apartheid when South African sport also took a hit.
“From a South Africa point of view, things were bad in terms of international rugby because of apartheid. We were isolated… When the tour was cancelled, I stopped playing and went to France in 1981 to work in a wine house in Burgundy for a year,” says Coetzee.
That was the tipping point. He returned wiser, and helped lift the profile of wine in Stellenbosch. Today, he sells his wine all over the world; Scandinavia is his biggest market.
Coetzee may have stopped playing rugby, but he uses it well in his wine analogies.
“We used to export 74 percent of our crop, but now try and get as close as possible. We do 50:50 local and export. Rugby has taught me to have two legs. If you kick [with] one leg, one can hopefully stand on the other,” he says.
Coetzee vividly remembers that tear-jerking moment when Nelson Mandela handed the trophy to Springbok captain François Pienaar during the 1995 World Cup final. Coetzee was present, as a spectator.
“It was a special day, not only for sport but also for mankind. I remember that moment clearly. I can still see it.”
Coetzee has ensured his legacy – in both rugby and wine – lives on.
“My grandsons [between the ages of five to 10] all play rugby. They also made their first wine in 2015. Each of them has a barrel from the vintage of the year they were born in,” says Coetzee.
Divorced, Coetzee lives by himself. Fortunately, his four children are all into farming in some way, and visit frequently. His daughter Hanle says the most remarkable thing about her father is his humility.
“He has 40 years plus of experience of harvests and climates in the wine industry. He has seen good vintages, and bad. The new, younger winemakers are well-traveled, whereas in his time, the exposure and material were limited. He has old-world knowledge. If he drops dead tomorrow, it’s all gone, I don’t know how to capture it,” she says.
How much is he worth? Coetzee thinks long and hard, before answering: “I actually can’t put a number to it; we are not [into] numbers. We want to be loving and caring people, and that you can’t measure in currency. Money is an evil necessity. I am a big believer of the barter system – milk farmers and cheese farmers must drink wine, and I must eat cheese. They must produce meat, and they must drink wine. I try to convince all my farming colleagues in the mutton, beef, cheese, fish and lobster businesses to [barter].”
And are they listening? For sure, he says with certainty.
Coetzee has many admirers in the valley, across generations. About three kilometers from his Vriesenhof farmhouse, at the Kleine Zalze estate, its owner Kobus Basson, another Stellenbosch success, says Coetzee was instrumental in exposing him to the lifestyle around the wine business. He turned the rugby-playing lawyer into one of the region’s top wine farmers.
“Jan Coetzee is one of the characters of Stellenbosch, you can’t tell a wine story without him,” says the 57-year-old Basson of the senior entrepreneur.
“He is the type of guy [who] if there is snow in the mountains, would still walk in his short pants, with muscles like he has. He is a Stellenbosch legend, one of the five wine personalities that built this industry.”
Basson’s father was a figurehead in the local rugby club and that was his first connection with Coetzee. Plus, Basson’s initial 10-year legal practice ensured he interacted with most of the wine farmers.
“When you work with them, it’s like a friendship. Jan was the guy who spent a lot of time in France, and knew all the wine areas well. In 1996, I went with him and a few other prominent guys – while I was still a legal guy – on a trip to Argentina, and that gave me a completely different perspective of the industry. They were much ahead of us.”
Basson says South Africa’s wine industry matured only in the last 20 years. After he finished his law degree at Stellenbosch University, Basson took a year off to go to central Europe to be a rugby coach.
“I went there to play and coach and work on relationships, in what they called the European B-League rugby countries. It actually exposed me to other things – to wine, food and the lifestyle around it… I understood how the Germans, Dutch and French work in a different way with wine… I immediately got this idea about lifestyle and food and wine combinations.”
Returning to Stellenbosch, he practiced as a lawyer, and got into the wine business more by default than design.
“My wife came from a wine family, and told me she wanted to live on a farm. I said ‘forget it, I am not farming’. Eventually, in 1996, her brother was running the family farm, and was looking for an opportunity with a winery, and I told him about Kleine Zalze [that I had heard] was on the market. He asked me for money to pay the deposit, and that’s how I got involved. He said ‘in the meantime, you can have 50 percent share of it’, and before I realized, I was sucked into it, because this is a business that sucks in money, in terms of capital investment.”
They bought the 40-hectare farm and after the first harvest, signed up with importers from Britain, who had high expectations.
“I thought, ‘either you do it properly or bail out’. In retrospect, I can see how the year in Germany helped, how my friendship with Jan Coetzee formed me,” says Basson.
During the nineties in South Africa, golf and wine tourism was just starting, so he thought: “Why do we go to Tuscany and Provence, when we actually have everything here? Why can’t we create it here?”
It was hard work. Every day, for a decade, Basson woke up at 3AM.
“I had no choice. It was crazy and difficult years, the interest rates went up between 1998 and 2002. I had to invest my shares and everything I had. Cash flow was the challenge during those years; we had to slowly and steadily build this up.”
Today, Kleine Zalze is 280 hectares, including the wine estate, an 18-hole golf course, a 47-bedroom lodge and the award-winning Terroir restaurant with chef Michael Broughton. Basson says all the businesses are doing very well.
“We are doing well in terms of exports [too]; I would say we do more than 200,000 cases of Kleine Zalze wines a year. And we have won several awards,” he says.
Chenin blanc is the brand’s specialty.
The last season for wine tourism in Stellenbosch was wonderful, adds Basson, who is also a director of the Stellenbosch Wine Route.
“If we stay calm and focused, it’s a very exciting period ahead… We have done research and the interesting thing is they compared different regions, and Stellenbosch has by far the highest visitor return rate. We have guys who have come to Stellenbosch 18 years in a row. You won’t find [a place] more beautiful. You have no idea how sexy Stellenbosch is.”
And like any good sportsman, he says his greatest asset is his team.
“You need strong players in your team… [The wine industry] is a little bit like top-end sport. It’s so competitive, if you don’t play with your best team, you are not going to win.”
What is it they say about wine and winning in the valley? It’s the same thing. And Coetzee agrees.

Long Days Of  Sun, Rugby And Wine

The journey to a million dollars can start in Ikot-Ekpene, a town in southern Nigeria famous for its palm oil, kernels, yams, cassava, taro, corn and raffia. As a child, Mark Essien watched his father, a graduate of the social sciences with no vocational training, build makeshift machines for communal use, such as excavators to pump sand out of the river. A proclivity to build was sown in Essien. It bore fruit decades later and thousands of miles away, in Germany, where he was attending university.
Essien got a job as a night watchman. He had to closely observe the bodily movements of a paralyzed man, which could possibly be fatal. During these long nights, Essien taught himself computer programing. He soon developed a file-sharing software that was bought by Bertelsmann Media, a German multinational mass media corporation. Essien was also hired by the company. Soon, his skills were in high demand. He made a living, and financed his university studies, by selling software to Orange SA (then known as France Telecom), Walt Disney and the United States Armed Forces. Soon, he got bored.
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“I wanted to get out of buying and selling software products and move into start-ups. Start-ups are a different beast,” Essien says placidly while sitting in his office, a recently remodeled colonial building in Yaba, a suburb in Lagos.
This time, in between wrapping up his Bachelor’s degree and waiting to begin his Masters’, Essien, in collaboration with friends, launched a start-up based on iPhone apps. This was around the time when the iPhone was first introduced to the world. The business performed fairly well, but Essien sought a new challenge and handed the reins of the start-up to his co-founders.
He was looking for a bigger challenge – one that would allow him to play a role in the technology space on the continent. In January 2012, Hotels.ng became this challenge. The online business was formed as the infant tech industry was taking off in Nigeria, and in Africa. In a few years, a content streaming service, a flight booking platform, online malls, car dealerships, real estate directories and more have sprung up in Nigeria. Hotels.ng joined their ranks, providing online solutions for people in need of temporary accommodation in Nigeria, from Ikot-Ekpene in the south, to Sabon Gari in the north.
Hotels.ng was started with financial contributions from family and friends, as well as Essien’s personal money. Starting the business was easy, making it a success would be more difficult.
“We were very lucky that we had some capital available and we were able to raise it pretty quickly. We were able to raise $75,000 after three months of operations,” says Essien.
Usually, start-ups are not this fortunate. It is believed Essien had an unnamed investor when he launched. However, in the tech ecosystem, local investors are still hard to find. Essien thinks this is because they are not seeing other investors make massive returns. He also doesn’t think much of those running start-ups in the country today.
“Investors don’t invest in ideas, especially in Nigeria when there’s so much execution risk. Every start-up has been done somewhere else successfully so the idea is good but can the person build it? I don’t think enough smart and resourceful people are in the start-up space.”
It would seem Essien doesn’t belong in this category. A few months after launching, he was made an offer by Jason Njoku, founder of successful content streaming service, iROKOtv, and start-up incubator, SPARK. He turned it down, stating he wouldn’t need investment for the next six to twelve months as he had enough from his first seed round.
“There’s a philosophy I have that every start-up should follow. You must be able to build a business with what you have. If you are dependent, your business will be vulnerable. I’d rather take no money than take bad money,” says Essien.
Hotels.ng managed to grow independently and, in 2013, Essien decided to sell 35% to SPARK for $225,000. This year, Hotels.ng raised $1.2 million from the Omidyar Network, the investment vehicle of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and EchoVC Pan-Africa Fund, a seed-stage technology fund.
The investment was a result of a six-month search, involving 60 to 70 investors who were interested in Africa. Essien insists, however, that the investment is not a magic wand and while some problems will disappear, bigger ones will take their place.
“Scaling a company up is extremely difficult. I have gone from me and one guy, to me and 49 people. You have to build structures, management. We need to understand what it means to have regional offices across Africa. We are going to start in Ghana. The stage we are in the market is still early. We have a bit of leeway to be slow on things. When you are faster than the market, it’s the quickest way to kill your business.”
Essien makes an interesting comparison. Before YouTube, there had been a number of video file-sharing platforms that were just as innovative. However, there was no global internet penetration to support their success. There were not enough people online, or even aware, to enjoy these sites. YouTube came at just the right time. Essien believes Hotels.ng must perfect such impeccable timing.
Although Essien’s journey, and that of his start-up, has only just begun, he knows where he is going.

Millions  That Came To The Entrepreneur Who Waited

President Museveni: We had to persuade our parliament to prioritize infrastructure instead of other areas like increasing public servants salaries. We restrained them and we put up money for the roads, for the electricity, the schools, social infrastructure, for the hospitals, so I have no complaints. I am together now with our leadership. Because in the past they would be not so clear as to what comes first.
Forbes Africa: Almost every country is struggling with electricity. How big is the infrastructure deficit in Uganda?
President Museveni: It was a big problem in the past but we have now caught up with the demand and remain ahead of demand all the time. We are building new dams now, Karuma, 600-700MWs, Isimba almost 200MWs and there are new ones which are on the way. And then there are power sources which can be put up quickly like the ones using heavy fuel oil..
Forbes Africa: What about renewable energy? How far is Uganda into geothermal, solar and wind?
President Museveni: The issue about solar has been the cost, the cost per unit. For us we think that a unit cost of 4c, 5c, American cents, is the one we need for industry. So if the solar costs can go down then we can take it up. But it has been high up to now, I think it is about 16c now, it used to be 40c. It was therefore not suitable for industries, maybe it was suitable for lighting but not for industries yet.
Forbes Africa: Rwanda has had a very good track record of bringing back its skilled people. How do you plan on doing that for Uganda?
President Museveni: It is simple, just pay them better salaries, that’s all. There’s no other problem because they prefer to be near their families, so the only issue is payment of good salaries.
Forbes Africa: There’s been much talk about the oil industry in Uganda, how is that progressing?
President Museveni: Around 2018, that’s when the first oil will be coming out of the ground. So there’s no problem. The oil price has gone down globally, however we shall make money out of the petroleum. It is additional income. We are already getting money from other sectors, it will be additional and it will be useful for infrastructure building. We will not have to borrow anymore, we will just use that oil money to build the power dams, to build some of the roads, to pay the debt of the Chinese on the railway. That’s what we shall use that oil money for.
Forbes Africa: What are you doing to try and get foreign investors coming into Uganda and putting their money in?
President Museveni: Foreign investors follow profits. If the profits are good, if the investment atmosphere is stable, they come. And they are coming, especially the Chinese, they’re coming in big numbers, the Indians to some extent, the people from the Gulf, the Arabs. The western investors are fewer but they’re also there and then we have our own indigenous people both African and Indian… many of them look at the mineral sector, phosphates and steel where the Chinese are active. We’ve got another big project of copper. We’ve got another one of cement, again the Chinese are involved.
Forbes Africa: Your view on the Ugandan economy, how do you see it going?
President Museveni: Well the way I would like to summarize it for you is that in the last 30 years the economy of Uganda has been growing at a rate of 5 to 6% per annum in spite of no electricity, in spite of high transport costs and in spite of other bottlenecks.

“Just Pay Them Better Salaries”

When Henri Nyakarundi shut down his trucking business in the United States, he decided to return home to Rwanda. Back on the continent, his entrepreneurial instincts drove him to a novel business venture – solar-powered mobile phone charging kiosks.
Rwandans that return home with dollars in their pocket usually venture into businesses with a degree of comfort. Others prefer white-collar, eight-to-five jobs that the rapidly expanding Rwandan economy offers the western-educated young professionals.
Despite the pitfalls that start-ups face in Africa, Nyakarundi chose a different path. He is at the forefront of developing an energy business that few of his fellow Rwandans understand.
The light-bulb moment that gave birth to his latest venture occurred at an unlikely place for the 37-year-old metropolitan entrepreneur. In 2011, he noticed the difficulties that people in rural areas faced while trying to charge their mobile phones. The supply of electricity is expensive and often unreliable.
“Not only did it hit me that charging mobile phones in places that were not served by the national electricity grid offered me a unique opportunity to serve our people, I also realized that the lucky ones  to be connected to the national grid were finding the power supply to be expensive,” he says.
In Rwanda, electricity consumers are charged $0.22 per kilowatt hour (KWh). This is one of the highest electricity tariffs in the East African region where tariffs are usually between $0.08 and $0.10, according to the World Bank.
Rwanda’s high energy costs are partly attributed to the country’s dependency on expensive thermal resources. Experts say that Rwanda depends on diesel and heavy fuel oils for approximately 40% of the country’s 110MW installed energy capacity. The country imports 14.5MW. Hydropower accounts for 59% and methane gas 1%.
Armed with the statistics of the challenging energy situation in his country, Nyakarundi’s instincts told him that something needed to be done to help rural businesses.
After visiting family in rural areas, he decided to start the green energy company African Renewable Energy Distribution Co Ltd, otherwise known as ARED.
“My company seeks to offer stable and reliable energy solutions, using innovative solutions such as mobile solar cell chargers,” he says while sitting in his office in Kiyovu, a leafy suburb in Kigali.
His belief in his new venture was so strong that he invested more than $120,000 of his hard-earned cash into developing four prototypes of his solar-powered mobile phone charging kiosk.
“My solution serves as a one-stop kiosk for people who want to start a business but are unable to,” he says as he leads FORBES AFRICA to one of ARED’s latest prototypes, recently brought from the company’s contracting manufacturer in China.
To drive sales, ARED developed a cheap franchise model for its clients, who are largely low-income earners.
“The franchise model seeks to empower those languishing at the bottom of the economic pyramid using a technology that is simple, cost effective and has a flexible acquisition plan,” he says.
The mobile kiosk generates its own power, enabling a franchisee to sell airtime as well as provide other telecoms services such as the transfer of mobile money. The charging of phones or other electronic items is done for a minimal fee.
With the success that ARED has had so far, the next prototype will introduce extra features such as internet Wi-Fi technology. ARED charges franchisees $1,000 for the business unit. This includes the mobile kiosk, a point-of-sale system, phone charging accessories and a branded overall.
Franchisees are also given hands-on business training and offered transport. After acquisition of the kiosk, franchisees are expected to pay ARED a $50 monthly fee for after-sales services.
Although breaking into the market was not easy for Nyakarundi, he stuck to his guns. He knew he had something unique and vital to offer Rwandans.
His tenacity is paying off. ARED signed its first commercial deal with pan-African telecom operator Airtel. This will allow ARED to spread across Africa.
Nyakarundi expects to sell more than 500 units of his product over the next three years.
“Though the model has a social component attached to it, the business aspect was designed to be scaled for the entire continent,” he says.
Nyakarundi is part of a growing army of entrepreneurs emerging on the continent.
“Entrepreneurship is gaining momentum in Africa. Innovation is being scaled up and advances in ICT, and what telecoms operators are offering, is testimony that Africa’s enterprise culture is improving.”
He is fortunate that Rwanda is able to offer him a favorable launch pad for his business. Nyakarundi hopes to increase his mobile kiosks from 20 to more than 100 by next year.
Nyakarundi has grand visions for ARED. With the telecom sector booming in Africa, he is set on selling over 50,000 units over the next five years. South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya are his key target markets.
Like the sun shining over Africa’s plains, Nyakarundi’s future looks bright.

Charged With An Idea  To Make A Fortune

Aschool bag that doubles as a solar-powered light? You could expect the inventor to be a scientist.
Think again. Thato Kgatlhanye is a 22-year-old who studied art in high school and obtained a brand management degree at Vega School of Brand Leadership without studying a day of science. Kgatlhanye’s company, Repurpose Schoolbags, has won about $40,000 in competitions.
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“The start-up capital came from a business grant of $23,433 that I won in the first competition. I entered the business into the South African Breweries Foundation Innovation Awards and we came second. I’ve recently been selected as a sub-Saharan Africa finalist for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, so in September I’ll be in Paris to attend that,” she says.
Kgatlhanye grew up in Mogwase, one of the townships near the mining town of Rustenburg, in South Africa’s North West province. Her father is a taxi owner and her mother is a nurse.
The idea for her bag came in the second year of college when her class was tasked to find ways of doing more with nothing. She decided to make a bag out of recycled plastic bags. The solar-powered light idea only came after a conversation she had with her mother where she was told to channel her creativity towards helping others.
“My mother told me about how she grew up and used candles to study. If she had one candle for the week and it burned out on Wednesday, she wouldn’t be able to study on Thursday and Friday. That inspired the idea,” says Kgatlhanye.
Her company in Rustenburg, which employs 17 people, designs schoolbags out of recycled plastic and integrates a solar cell which can be charged during the day and used as a study lamplight in the evening.
They make these bags for banks and companies who give them to schools. She doesn’t make more than 500 bags at a time, with one bag costing $20.
“Some of our giving partners include Red Bull, Standard bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAB, ABSA/Barclays, MTN Foundation and CPSI,” says Kgatlhanye.
At a time when power cuts, so-called load shedding, loom in South Africa, Kgatlhanye’s company is well timed.
“Thank heavens for what’s playing out,” chuckles Kgatlhanye.
“Load shedding has made the business an easier sell. The big guys that sign the cheques that didn’t understand before the kind of environment we were talking about, now understand because guess what, their child gets affected by load shedding. They’ll be like ‘oh because of load shedding’ and I’m like, almost, except they don’t have electricity at all,” says Kgatlhanye.
Kgatlhanye is looking to shed light in 24 African countries.
<h4>A Spark In The Nick Of Time</h4>
The flow of renewable energy from the REIPPP couldn’t’ve come at a better time, says energy expert Chris Yelland. Eskom’s aging fleet of power stations, many built more than 30 years ago, cannot meet the demand. They have also been burdened by delays in other power generating projects in South Africa, like the Medupi and Kusile coal-powered plants.
“When Medupi and Kusile are online they will add 25% capacity to the grid. This is great. The only trouble is it should have happened 10 years ago. Between 1999 and 2004, there was a delay as a result of policy decision. Construction started in 2007 and 2008,” says Yelland.
When Medupi’s first unit came online, it was four years late. The cost keeps growing; initially it was expected to cost $2.5 billion, but is now forecasted at more than $23 billion. Kusile (4,800MW) has also failed to escape. Its first unit was expected in 2013, but has been pushed to 2017, and will cost around $92 billion, excluding the interest on delays.
Yelland is a Johannesburg-based electrical engineer turned energy journalist and entrepreneur. He has had a lot to talk about over the last 10 years, but his favorite story is the work of renewable energy dreamers.
“That’s the only success story we have to tell. The success stories are not government success stories, they are private: private capital, private technology – built, owned and operated privately, and generated into the grid,” he says.
Yelland warns that renewables should not be South Africa’s only solution.
“It costs less to produce coal-fired electricity than renewable if you compare apples with apples. If you look at the existing fleet of power stations, the cost per kilowatt hour is certainly lower than the cost to produce renewable energy. But the cost of electricity from a new power station, like Medupi, is a lot higher than the average costs. Because that capital cost is higher.”
For Africa, energy at any price is welcome.

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