For 96 years, Richard Maponya has been battering down barriers of prejudice and proving that a black man can do anything.
His journey began in the dusty streets of Lenyenye, a township in the Limpopo province of northern South Africa, where he was born. He moved to Polokwane, where missionaries trained him as a teacher. With a qualification under his belt, he moved to Johannesburg, in 1948, in search of a teaching post and greener pastures. This was during the early days of apartheid and it wasn’t easy for a black man to do anything.
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“Back in those days, you had to register your presence if you moved to a new area. I had moved to Alexandra township and I went to the pass office to register,” says Maponya.
There, he found an Afrikaner man looking for people to work at his potato farm in Delmas, 65 kilometers north east of Johannesburg. Little did he know he was going out of the frying pan into the fire.
“He asked for my documents, looked at my pass and all my documents and said ‘this boy would fit in well with the group I am looking for’. I told him I was there to just register in the new area but he took my pass, paged it and he spoke in Afrikaans with another gentlemen with him and said ‘this man is 28 years old’… He took my pass and altered my birth year from 1920 to 1926. He also took my birth certificate and never brought it back to me. I think he wanted a group of people who were about 20 to 22 years old or so.”
On that day, Maponya lost his identity forever.
“I have employed lawyers to fix that but even in the archives of our government, they don’t have any records, so I walk as a man everyone thinks was born in 1926 yet I was born in 1920. This is one thing I never talk about, you are the first journalist I’ve ever disclosed this to,” he says as he reveals the pain of his past.
Like the bags of potatoes they were going to carry, Maponya and a group of young black men were loaded in a truck and taken to the fields to work.
“During those days, black people were terribly ill-treated. We had no rights whatsoever; I was lucky my uncle worked for a liberal Englishman who rescued me from being abused while digging and loading potatoes. They gave me a small job of washing dishes and my uncle’s boss came to pick me up a week later… I stayed with him for a few days and then went back to Alexandra.”
As we meet, 69 years later, Maponya has swapped his matchbox room in Alexandra for five mansions in Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton. When we compliment his beautiful Victorian-style home, he says, “Have you ever been to my other homes?”
It is hard work, smart decisions and some laughs, like this, that have helped him make millions. Even though he is suffering from flu, he talks to us.
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Maponya’s journey into entrepreneurship began 70 years ago when South Africa was no country for budding black entrepreneurs. The tough times steeled him for his long journey to become a legendary businessman.
Rattling along in the back of the potato truck, he never thought of a life in retail but then came an interview for a job in a department store.
“They were offering me more money than a teaching post would and the gentleman who interviewed me liked me from the word go,” he says.
Even more money was coming his way. Within months, he was promoted to a fashion buyer for the store. His boss, Mr Bolton, a kind and intelligent businessman, he says, taught him about fabrics, how to select clothes, and customer service. The two worked hand-in-glove for three years; turnover increased and Bolton was promoted to CEO of the group in 1951. Maponya thought he had struck gold.
“When he got promoted, he called me to his office and thanked me for helping him reach that point. He said ‘unfortunately I can’t promote you because you have a ceiling over your head, you cannot oversee white people. All I can do is maybe make you baas boy but that doesn’t really help you with anything,’” says Maponya.
The dapper looking 31-year-old Maponya nodded his head and muttered a courteous response, expecting little else to follow.
“I was very surprised because Mr Bolton continued to speak. He said ‘I am going to let you buy clothing samples here so that you can sell them after hours and on weekends so you can make a bit of money’.”
And he did. Before long, Maponya began to recognize the budding businessman in himself. His after hours hustle paid off.
“I realized people didn’t have money to buy upfront and I started a wear and pay system and it worked so well. People would take clothes and pay for them at month end and I was making a lot of money,” he says.
After a year of good business, Bolton was diagnosed with a brain tumour and was forced to retire. With him, he took Maponya’s business.
“The person who took over from him didn’t want to hear anything about it. He redirected the stock they gave me and gave it to Indian hawkers.”
It was a blessing in disguise. Maponya was angry. To be big, Maponya thought he had to risk big. He resigned from his job to pursue the uncertain world of entrepreneurship. He started buying clothing from wholesalers. The business flourished.
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Maponya applied for a trading license for a shop in one of South Africa’s biggest townships, Soweto, but was turned down. He went to Mandela and Tambo, a law firm run by South Africa’s struggle heroes Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. At the time, it was the only black-owned law firm in the country.
“Nelson was still a very powerful speaker. He was so powerful that, I would say, he could say to a mountain, move and it would move. They fought for my license but we didn’t succeed in getting a clothing store. But, they got me a license to trade daily necessities,” says Maponya.
At the time, there was no milk delivery in Soweto. There was also no electricity for fridges, so people bought milk for the day. Maponya saw a gap.
“I was shocked. People ate breakfast with milk everyday but had no place to buy close to them. I opened a little dairy there. I started with 10 boys cycling the neighborhood on bicycles everyday selling milk, cash, door to door.”
It was from these humble beginnings that his empire grew. The business moved extremely fast from 10 to 100 men cycling and selling for him; then, big business woke up.
“Clover saw the potential of selling milk in the townships and they started coming with big trucks to sell. They took the bulk of my clients and I realized I couldn’t compete with them,” says Maponya.
With the wisdom of knowing when to let go, Maponya gave up the milk-selling business for Maponya’s Supply Stores, a backstreet store that grew into a massive retail empire that was to make him a household name.
“I started with a butchery, then a fruit and vegetable store, and then a grocery store with two tables inside where we sold cooked food,” he says.
Maponya’s Supply Stores expanded across Soweto.  Growth meant problems.
“I struggled with getting the right people to manage the stores. The only stores where people were making profit are the ones where my wife and I were operating. The other stores would break even or run at a loss.”
It became frustrating, again, he knew he had to let go.
He closed the stores he and his wife couldn’t manage. This encouraged him to look for other opportunities. There was a long list because there were no services in the township. So, he built Mountain Motors, the second black-owned garage in Soweto.
“It surprised everybody. Some say it was the biggest in the southern hemisphere. We were selling petrol in an unbelievable manner. We were getting support from every black person in Soweto. We were selling over a million liters per month,” he says with a smile.
Mountain Motors became the first black-owned garage to have a motor vehicle dealership. Like all his other businesses, it took off.
“Later on, I was invited by BMW to take over a dealership in Soweto. That made history. I would get orders from people from America. It was history that a black man would sell cars those days… I would get an allocation of about 30 cars per month and I would sell all of them in a week… I would borrow cars from other dealers and sell three times my allocation per month,” he says.
It meant, when new stock arrived, he would return the cars he borrowed and would spend two months without stock. He tried and failed to get his allocation of cars increased. Paying staff, when there were no cars to sell, was hard.
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“As an entrepreneur, you should always know when you have made money and the business won’t be worth your energy anymore. It doesn’t mean it has failed, it means you have dug everything you can from it and it is time for something new that may make you more money,” says Maponya.
Again, following his own advice, he closed down the motor business and went on the hunt for a new venture. It ushered in some of his worst days in business.
“I applied for a casino license. I qualified for everything they required [besides the skin color] because it was still during apartheid. When we went for an interview, they asked me if I have R10 million, a lot of money at the time, and I told them I don’t have it in my pocket but I can make means… they said its either you give it now or lose the license… the licence was awarded to white brothers. This is a frustrating and terrible thing I chased and never succeeded.”
As painful as it was, Maponya used his canny and shrewd characteristics to go after his lifelong dream – a world-class shopping mall in the heart of Soweto. It took him 27 years of sweat, court applications and fundraising.
“You won’t believe it if I tell you I started building it on the 28th year… I even went to Parliament to make a presentation but I kept being turned down… They said the people of Soweto would never support a mall in Soweto because they want to shop in the city where there are brighter lights and I told them it’s not true… I have been fighting and fighting but I said as long as they don’t put a bullet on my forehead I won’t stop,” he says closing his eyes to emphasize his point.
In 1979, Maponya acquired land for the mall, in Soweto, on  a 100-year lease and, in 1994, the year South Africa got its independence, after several attempts, he acquired it outright. But the battle was only just beginning.
Various attempts to finance construction failed, until Maponya’s holding company entered into a joint venture with Zenprop Property Holdings. The sweat and pain paid off and on September 27, 2007, Nelson Mandela, the man who had been in prison for as long as it took Maponya to build the mall, cut the red ribbon to open Maponya Mall.
“It was the highlight of my entire life. It was a tough exercise to get money. I could have met about half of that but I needed help. To see this come to life made all the pain I have ever gone through in business worth it,” he says.
Today, the R650-million ($48.7-million) mall has more than 200 stores and a cinema; it is also one of the largest shopping centers in South Africa and one of the growing Johannesburg attractions.
“I am very proud of the mall. It can stand anywhere in the world and compete. I am proud I have built something for the people of Soweto because I have always wanted it to be an economic hub.”
A world-class mall was not the end, merely a milestone. The Maponya Group is also in the poultry industry. They count Pick n Pay and 24 hospitals, in Gauteng, the province of Johannesburg, among their customers for eggs. They also grow vegetables.
Maponya still has filling stations. He also intends to build another mall in Soweto. Maponya Group’s ventures also include property development, horse racing, retail, automotive sales and liquor.
“I wasn’t born to be an entrepreneur, I learned to be one. I don’t think anyone is born to be an entrepreneur, you learn. I looked at the young boys of my age, when I was young, managing their father’s businesses and I had to go and say ‘baas’ to small boys like that? No, I was not going to allow it. I told myself I am going to create a business for myself and also create jobs like they do,” says Maponya.
While this unfair advantage inspired him, he was also inspired by many black small businessmen; among them was the late Richard Baloyi.
“When I was staying in Alexandra, Baloyi was the only richest black man I had ever known. He owned buses. That man inspired me, he was my role model. When I looked at him, I said ‘I want to be rich like that man, one day I will be richer than that man and indeed I did it. If he was still alive, he would shake my hand and say ‘boy you have done it’.”
Maponya’s success has earned him many friends. Apart from being married to Mandela’s cousin, Marina, he calls Mandela, his lawyer back in the early 1950s, his greatest friend.
“Mandela asked me to pick him up at the airport when he was released from prison because he knew I owned a car dealership. I picked him up at the airport and that was the most frightening time of my life. We were chased by people on foot, helicopters, motorbikes and cars. Everyone just wanted to touch Mandela. They could kill him just trying to touch him,” he says.
According to Maponya, Mandela was scheduled to sleep at one of Maponya’s houses in Sandton but there wasn’t enough security. They booked a place to sleep for the night. He says the most frightening part was when he drove Mandela to FNB Stadium, in Soweto, the next day. People were streaming from all areas for a chance to meet him. The stadium was packed.
“We managed to go in but coming out was a nightmare. There were more people outside than inside. We realized they will squash us and never allow the car to move.”
Mandela was picked up by a helicopter bound for Orlando Stadium, where there was another crowd waiting.
“When we were on our way to Orlando Stadium, we could see all the people from FNB Stadium running to Orlando Stadium.”
“I drove him after that to a few meetings but I realized I can’t cope with his schedule… I gave him a BMW 7 Series as a gift and a driver who drove Mandela from that time until he died,” he says.
To top that, Maponya has dined with the Queen and calls Bill Clinton and the Oppenheimers friends.
At this time of his life, Maponya has a lot to be proud of but still has more up his sleeve.
“I am 96 years old now and I am not going to retire. The day I retire would be the day you say to me ‘lala kahle’ (rest in peace), then that would be my retirement. I would know I have done my piece. People who retire are lazy people. You retire and do what? Bask in the sun? I am not that type of a man,” he says.
Mentoring young people is a big part of Maponya’s life. Monalisa Sam says she was lucky to be mentored by Maponya. The two crossed paths when Sam was a general manager for Maponya Mall Property Trust in 2007. A friendship was forged in the two years she worked there, before she left to co-found Tungwa Retail Holdings in 2011, a company run by black women.
“Mr Maponya has been such a big part of my journey. I think he is probably one of the most underrated elders in business in the sense that young people don’t know the lessons they can learn from him. There is so much pressure on achievement and success that we forget to build a legacy which is what Maponya did. His life story is so important for young people in business,” says Sam.
You have to admire Maponya for doing what many can’t. He could have chosen the easier path instead of pushing his way into business in a white man’s world. Easier still would have been to stick with what he was trained to do – and teach.
Maponya has been the first in many things, but this is not the last we will hear of him.

‘As Long As They Don’t Put A Bullet On My Forehead  I Won’t Stop’

These are the words from the chorus of Uber dadi, a hip-hop song written for Uber by Fuzile Nhlapo, one of thousands of Uber drivers across Africa.
On a hot afternoon in Johannesburg, Nhlapo walks into our offices in Sandton and, like most taxi drivers, he’s talkative and has many stories to tell.
He grew up singing in a boys’ choir in high school, in Tweeling, in eastern Free State. His love for music grew. After matriculating he moved to the Vaal to seek greener pastures.
“I had to hustle. My first job when I came to Vaal was as a storeman at a supermarket, then I became a merchandiser and then got a modelling job in Bloemfontein,” says Nhlapo.
The 30-year-old rapper did a series of studies, eventually earning a certificate in media studies, marketing and sports administration, before working for the South African Football Association (Safa).
In 2008, luck was on his side, when a friend didn’t pitch for work at Safa. The company offered him the job instead.
“I did sports administration and coaching courses. I was responsible for the Northern Cape regions until after the World Cup in 2010 and then I was without a job again,” he says.
Nhlapo desperately wanted to be an entrepreneur in music. He got his foot in the door by landing a job as a marketer at South African producer, Arthur Mafokate’s production company. Here, he got to learn the music industry.
“I was searching for a job but I was ready to go for my passion. It happened that I met Chomee, Arthur’s artist and we exchanged contacts. I then got Arthur’s number from his website and called him, I approached him as a groupie, but I knew I had a mission to work for him. But then one day Chomee called me and said Arthur was looking for a marketer.”
He applied and got the job.
“What I can tell you about Arthur is that he’s a great mentor. He hired me for a marketing job but taught me the ins and outs of entertainment. He played a big role in my entertainment career,” says Nhlapo.
He left to start his company, Black Excellence, with the aim to produce his own music. This wasn’t easy.
“I decided to open my own company, thinking that now I’m groomed enough, I can do this. I obviously made a premature decision and money was wasted because there were other aspects of business I didn’t take into consideration. I ended up getting deep into debt.”
He had to sell his car to pay off his debts.
“I was penniless and unemployed. A friend then got me a job as a merchandiser again, [but] I was not making enough money, I decided to quit.”
He ended up washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant for a small pay. Here, he met his future wife, from Zambia, who worked as a cashier.
Because life was hard in Johannesburg they returned to Tweeling.
“I was at home and someone called me and asked if I had a professional driving permit and license, and she said there’s a job for a shuttle driver and host at Emerald Resort &amp; Casino.”
He had to use his last penny to return to Johannesburg. While working at the casino, he heard, by word of mouth, about Uber, a technology company connecting riders with drivers, through a smartphone app. Nhlapo says being a part of the Uber network gives him the opportunity to be the CEO of his own cab.
“I started to research Uber and after a few weeks a cousin called to tell me about a guy who wants a driver. Since then, I have never been this happy and financially secure,” he says.
Nhlapo says he joined Uber because he could work according to his own schedule. It has also afforded him the chance to connect with people in a way that neither of his other jobs really had.
“There is more to Uber than transporting people from A to B. It gives us the chance to network and acknowledge other cultures because as black people we only know of our culture,” he says.
He jokingly says his communication skills have also improved, especially his English. He’s planning to release three songs; a hip-hop song for Uber and others, Kwaito and house.
“I’m mostly gonna play the songs in the car because I also want our riders to enjoy it,” he says.
This ambitious lad believes his songs will top the charts.
He says Oliver Mtukudzi is his favorite African musician. Like Mtukudzi, Nhlapo loves playing the guitar.
Unlike Mtukudzi, you can summon Nhlapo with an app.

Rapping On A Rough Road

In the English countryside, Jody Scheckter is an entrepreneur, organic farmer and a millionaire. No matter how many chickens he raises, his name will always be known for Formula One (F1) motor racing. The African racing legend won 10 Grand Prix.
Scheckter is a direct, likeable, deeply understated man with a dry wit. Life has taken the 64-year-old on a long journey from South Africa and motor racing. But racing forged his personality and battles on the track steeled him for building two businesses from scratch.
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For most, winning the F1 world championship with Ferrari in 1979 would be a highlight of their lives. Not for Scheckter.
“It was really an anti-climax,” he says.
“You have spent eight years dedicated completely to winning and then nothing seemed to change much. I think it has changed more in the latter years of my life, where being World Champion means something to some people.”
He does look back at his achievements with satisfaction however. As he puts it, he earned good bucks for the time and is the only South African to win a Grand Prix and remains the only South African to win the F1 World Championship.
So, what does he make of the sale of Kyalami, where he won a grand prix on home soil?
“Kyalami is not what it was. It was a wonderful circuit and has already had the heart taken out of it, which is a great shame. Kyalami means racing and was an icon in Formula One.”
Scheckter rode his luck at Kyalami.
“I crashed my car in practice and it was written off. We rebuilt the car, had a warm up in the morning and the engine blew up after one lap. I was on the front row, I got into the lead after the second lap and then won the race,” he says.
Several drivers died at Kyalami and Scheckter says he is grateful to be alive. Racing in the 1970s could hardly have been more dangerous.
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“Each year, one or two drivers from the starting 25 were killed.”
By drivers, he means his contemporaries. Scheckter raced against legendary racers of the 1970s; Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Alain Prost.
Glamour a million miles from where Scheckter grew up in East London in the Eastern Cape, repairing motorbikes and cars.
“It’s a little coastal town, my dad had several garages there and I wasn’t very good at school.”
East London had a famous racing track, the Prince George Circuit, where Scheckter’s uncle raced and his father invited the racing drivers to his garage.
“Racing was all around me growing up. Racing drivers even used to stay over at our house.”
Life after motor racing meant a move away from the sport. Scheckter went to the United States and became a successful entrepreneur, setting up a business called FATS, Inc. in 1984.
“We sold simulators and trained police and then military on how to use guns safely.”
“In 12 years, we went from the kitchen table to sales in 35 countries and 95% of the world market. We turned over $100 million in sales the year we sold,” he says.
Then his life took a handbrake turn. Thirteen years ago, Scheckter put some of his earnings from selling FATS, Inc. into starting an organic farm in Hampshire.
He bought 500 acres at Laverstoke Park Farm, 40 miles west of London. It started as a hobby, to make the healthiest and tastiest food for himself and his six children. His racing driver son, Tomas, has recently joined the business.
Today, Scheckter owns 2,500 acres and farms a further 2,000. He says it has all got out of hand.
“It’s a monster, but a lovely monster.”
Now, Scheckter is championing biodiversity as he competes to make the finest organic products in the world.
“I don’t mind not winning, but I hate to lose,” he says.
With two of Britain’s most upmarket food suppliers, Ocado and Waitrose, as their biggest customers, the Laverstoke Park Farm brand is on the way up.
The farm has seven small factories clustered around a farm house from which the operation is run from. It employs 166 people and turns over $23.7 million a year.
Despite winning countless awards and being run as a model of organic farming techniques, Laverstoke Park Farm doesn’t yet make money. Scheckter has given himself a year to make the business profitable. For a born winner, this feels like losing.
Scheckter is refreshingly honest and feels like a man who knows he has reached his limitations.
“Meat is fiendishly complicated and I’ve just hired an expert from one of the top meat companies to run that side of the business for me. Profitability is all in the cut, and although we’re getting better we haven’t quite got there yet. I’ve learned the hard way. ”
It’s a long way from the track.
“With a car factory, you bring in a thousand pieces, you make one and you sell it. We bring in one, cut it into a thousand pieces and you have got to sell them all. And remember, some of it goes bad within three days.”
“We have too many products and we have to rationalize.”
He sells 120 items to Ocado and produces a range of products from organic beef, lamb and chicken to champagne grapes and cooked pies. One of the stranger animals on his farm is water buffalo, from which come mozzarella cheese and ice cream. Almost everything that comes from the farm is award winning. It just doesn’t all make money.
Scheckter follows traditional biodynamic farming techniques and sows according to the moon cycles.
“It’s very, very powerful. It makes seas go up and down and it makes the liquids in plants go up and down. We use modern versions of those techniques,” he says.
“After all my research, we follow nature very strictly and we have two main keys. One is slow growing animals and plants are generally healthy and taste better, and secondly, biodiversity is key to a natural, healthy environment.”
He believes that to produce great food you have got to have great soil, which comes from farming naturally and means no chemicals are used. To study the soil, Laverstoke has its own laboratory run by a doctor in microbiology and a doctor in chemistry.
Scheckter is a bit of a soil expert himself, with a library of over 500 books on soil types going back through the centuries.
“The animals at Laverstock don’t eat grass but a mix of 31 herbs, clovers and grasses in the fields. Our animals are eating salad!”
As he gives us a tour of the farm, it’s hard not to smile at his enthusiasm.
“My ice-cream is made from buffalo milk and I genuinely believe it’s the best in the world and my mozzarella tastes better than Italian mozzarella because it’s fresher.”
From fast cars to slow food, with an emphasis on the best farming techniques, Scheckter may not yet have found a successful business model for his enterprise, but you know he wants to win.

Tag: Driver

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘As Long As They Don’t Put A Bullet On My Forehead I Won’t Stop’

Rapping On A Rough Road

From Racing Car To A Tractor