The world’s most powerful woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has a lot on her mind these days: Mediterranean migrants, Russian sanctions, homegrown spying scandals, Eurozone stability and the Germanwings crash, to name a few pressing issues. One thing she surely isn’t thinking about — but we are — is that come next year’s U.S. elections, she could lose her title for the first time since 2010 to the one person with a credible and mathematical chance of “leading” the world.
Hillary Clinton has appeared on this FORBES ranking every year since it launched in 2004 as, in order, a senator, secretary of state and influential personality. In 2015, Clinton is No. 2, just a breath and a ballot away from the Most Powerful Woman crown.
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This is FORBES’ definitive annual audit of the foremost heads of state, iconic entrepreneurs and CEOS, celebrity role models, billionaire activists, and pioneer philanthropists, all ranked by money, media momentum, spheres of influence and impact.
This year’s top 10: Merkel and Clinton followed by Melinda Gates, Janet Yellen, Mary Barra, Christine Lagarde, Dilma Rousseff, Sheryl Sandberg, Susan Wojcicki and Michelle Obama.
The most powerful women in politics, philanthropy, business and tech are Merkel, Gates, Barra and Sandberg, respectively. Our top ranking billionaire this year is Oprah Winfrey at No. 12, who has a personal net worth of $3 billion. Ana Patricia Botin, the newly installed chair of Banco Santander, is the top woman in finance at No. 18. Beyoncé Knowles leads in the entertainment field at No. 21, while Anna Wintour, Conde Nast artistic director, reigns over the media sector at No. 28.
The concept of power can be nebulous – especially when it comes to gender. As of January 2015, 10 women served as heads of state and 14 as heads of government. Women currently hold 23 (4.6%) of CEO positions at S&amp;P 500 companies. Of a total 1,826 global billionaires, 197 are women – 11% of the total. Only 9% of executive officers in Silicon Valley are women.
That these wretched stats continue year after year is a serious and pressing issue. But there’s hardly a void of powerful women – and the numbers are growing. That is, if we enlarge our focus from only those who possess the greatest wealth or the heaviest corporate hammer to include the women whose influence and impact may be greater than the sum of their titles.
The headlines remind us whenever another woman gets the top job. Examples: GM’s Mary Barra, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, IMF head Christine Lagarde. But the fact that a great many of the women on this list are not the pointy head of the pyramid –such as Facebook’s Sandberg and Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, or Gwynne Shotwell, COO of SpaceX, and Apple’s Angela Ahrendts – doesn’t dim their enormous clout. They appear on this list because they illustrate a new math– it turns out you don’t need to be No. 1 to be a Most Powerful.
The 2015 power women list features eight heads of state (plus one monarch) who run nations with a combined GDP of $9.1 trillion with over 600 million citizens –including the newly elected Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz. The 24 corporate CEOs control nearly $1 trillion in annual revenues, and 18 of the women here founded their own companies or foundations, including our youngest self-made billionaire, Elizabeth Holmes, 31. Speaking of, this year’s class has 15 billionaires with cumulative net worth of nearly $75 billion. The total social media footprint (Twitter, YouTube) of all 100 Power Women is nearly 475 million followers and fans.
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Newcomers: Nineteen are new to the list in 2015. Ana Patricia Botin, the new chair of Banco Santander, makes a strong showing at No. 18. Other names to know: Google CFO Ruth Porat, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, power pop star Taylor Swift, and top venture capitalist Jenny Lee of GGV Capital.
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Hall of Fame: Seven women who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 are still here today: Melinda Gates, Christine Lagarde, Hillary Clinton and Indra Nooyi. Also, of course, Oprah, Queen Elizabeth II, and Ho Ching.
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She’s the first: Nearly half the women featured here are “female firsts”, such as GM’s Barra, the most world’s most powerful businesswoman, and Fed Chair Janet Yellen, the top global state banker. Drew Gilpin Faust is the first female president of Harvard, Folorunsho Alakija is the first self-made African billionaire, and Sara Blakely was the first female self-made billionaire to sign The Giving Pledge, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s bid to encourage the world’s richest to give at least half their wealth to charity. And then there’s Hillary Clinton. Her CV is chock full of firsts: The only first lady to become a U.S. senator turned secretary of state turned presidential candidate x 2. Now a 2016 candidate, bets are on that she may be the first woman elected to the Oval Office.
Women in tech: Technology takes a fourth turn as a category on the Power Women list. Out of 18 in total, seven tech women made the top 25 this year, including Sandberg, YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, HP’s Meg Whitman and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
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The rising tide of female entrepreneurs: A remarkable number of women are founders or owners of their own enterprises, not a few of whose eponymous companies are synonymous with high fashion. Consider Miuccia Prada, Tory Burch and Diane von Furstenberg. Other self-made self-starters include Winfrey, Alibaba’s cofounder Lucy Peng, billionaire founder-CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Chinese real estate tycoon Zhang Xin, and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India’s first biotech entrepreneur.
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Geographic diversity: More than half of the women (59) on the list are American, including immigrants such as von Furstenberg (Belgium), Ambassador Samantha Power (Ireland), Weili Dai (China), Donna Langley (UK), and Padmasree Warrior (India). Asia-Pacific citizens make the second strongest showing at 18. Latin America and the Middle East have four regionals on the list, and there are 12 Europeans and three Africans with a slot.
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The new celebrity role models: Sure, they’re famous but they deserve special attention outside their day job. Oprah founded both Harpo Productions and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa. Joining the efforts of the U.N. are Angelina Jolie, Shakira and Yao Chen, the Refugee Agency’s Goodwill Ambassador in China. Taylor Swift donated five figures to the New York City Department of Education from sales of “Welcome to New York”, and promises to continue to give as long as the song sells. Entertainers making a mint as entrepreneurs include Beyoncé and Sofia Vergara.
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Notable drop-offs: The surge in newcomers means 19 women are off the list from last year, among them Margaret Hamburg, Amy Pascal, Maria as Gracas Silva Foster, Gail Kelly, Helene Gayle, Patricia Woertz and Joyce Banda, all out of their former jobs. Celebrities Lady Gaga and Gisele Bundchen are gone, having fallen in influence/impact below the 100 line. The same is true for Chua Sock Koong, Sun Yafang, Jennifer Li, Hu Shuli and Fatima Al Jaber.

MALAWI-POLITICS-ELECTION

The Women who Lead the World

The sharpest minds in world business are in Africa to take stock of the last quarter of a century and help unravel the great knot of economic problems of the continent. The future of our grandchildren depends upon it.
At the heart of the issue is how the continent is going to get Africa’s fast growing working population to work. The World Economic Forum estimates that working population will double to one billion strong – that’s more than three times the population of the United States – by 2040.
Many of these young workers will be young, restless and savvy; they will be plugged into social media and will know what they are missing out on. Few in Africa will need a reminder that the devil makes work for idle hands; those who remember the death and violence of the Arab Spring in North Africa or the xenophobia in South Africa.
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The only way to mop up this growing lake of unemployment is through economic growth. Regional growth in Africa has remained steady at around 5% – at a time when most of the world has struggled with poor growth.
But double-digit growth is needed now to help draw the young, bright and talented into the workforce. Given Africa’s fight for foreign investment, with the rest of the world’s emerging economies, this growth rate, is likely to prove a mountain to climb.
“Even the world’s fastest growing economies are struggling to grow at 7.5%, so the chances of double digit growth for Africa are almost zero. I think the continent is more likely to be looking at 4.5% to 5%,” says George Glynos, an economist with ETM Analytics in Johannesburg.
For growth to happen, infrastructure is needed in Africa like a drink in the desert. Broadband, rails, roads and ports; a list that trips off the tongue, but the reality is more complicated.
In May 2013, all of us in Cape Town for WEF Africa heard how the World Bank estimated Africa needs $93 billion a year worth of infrastructure. Even at the time, most people in Cape Town thought this figure was a drop in the ocean and they were probably right.
Raising that kind of money may prove difficult with a shallow investment pool and institutions short of money. The Development Bank of Southern Africa admitted in Cape Town that it could only hope to raise 5% of the infrastructure bill, even though it predicted the BRICS nations would invest $50-75 billion over the next decade.
Furthermore, African states have to compete with nations around the world, who are also suffering from crumbling infrastructure, for investors. The exception may be the Chinese who are prepared to pour money into African infrastructure in return for resources and business.
The three magic letters to bring in the necessary billions, according to the experts, are PPP. In English, that is Public-Private Partnership, marrying investor’s money with state coffers to build the infrastructure that economies need. It sounds easier than it is. Many have the romantic idea that governments can sit down with private business, shake hands and agree. Not so. Governments and private business tend to work at different speeds. Governments in Africa can take many months to pay bills and their approach to business can differ.
“Private enterprise always needs to make sure the financing is sound before going into a project with government. If you look at the attempt in South Africa to boost the electricity grid by using PPPs it has proved difficult because the pricing is low. With all the will in the world, nothing will happen until you get the pricing right,” says Glynos.
Most agree that the governments of Africa have to work harder.
First, transparency in processes enables swifter decisions and execution; second, shared value and clear understanding of incentives across the value chain drives buy-in; and third, building a culture of trust between stakeholders is paramount, enabling bottle-necks to be addressed as they arise,” says Euvin Naidoo, a South African banker and strategist who is a WEF Global Young Leader.
Power, or the lack of it, is likely to be one of the big issues at WEF. South Africa, the largest power generator, has been struggling through the winter because of maintenance and breakdowns.
Linda Olagunju, the CEO of DLO Energy Resources who will be a speaker at WEF, believes it is time to integrate Africa’s power business by region.
“It is time for us to stop thinking about what each country is doing individually and start thinking of the progress of investment in power as a region,” she says.
Olagunju believes this could be helped by a legal framework for each region to ease cross-border power transactions and set up uniform bidding processes to help attract private money. She also believes renewable energy should be encouraged.
One of the big issues to be discussed at WEF Africa, is the pledge that the continent’s regions would agree to integrate infrastructure by region. That is, one country has the best airport; while its neighbors have good ports and roads so, between them, they can move trade through. This makes sense but it could be fraught with conflict as each country, naturally, wishes to have the best of everything. At WEF Africa 2013, leaders agreed to negotiate; this year’s gathering will hear back from them, I am sure many people can’t wait.

The Devil  In The Detail

Within minutes of driving out the parking lot at the Kathmandu airport, the first earthquake struck. Our vehicles rocked from side to side, like boats on a choppy ocean. At first, we didn’t realize what was going on. When the shaking continued and we saw people screaming and running from the airport – we realized we were amid the worst earthquake Nepal had ever seen.
In 2013, I took 15 middle management executives from the ABN Group to the top of Kilimanjaro. Soon after our return, we started planning the next adventure – Everest Base Camp (EBC). The earthquake changed everything.
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When the tremors stopped, we had a chance to assess the situation. From the airport in Kathmandu, we could see black dust billowing from the city. The magnitude of the tremors was more than I had ever experienced in my life. We were told that the airport was closed and the runway had cracked. The intensity of the earthquake and the damage was not clear. It became so as we made our way to our hotel.
By this time, all the residents of the city had moved into the streets. Dharahara Tower, the tallest building in the city, had collapsed. Icons, like the Dharahara Tower, are pillars of pride. When they fall, it makes people desolate and uncertain, particularly when most of the buildings are old and poorly maintained.
The tremors continued at frequent intervals and in the frenzy our vehicles were separated. Our driver was young and seemed to have lost his nerve. He took us into a built-up area in the city, parked the car in an enclosed parking lot and without saying a word deserted us. We never saw him again. I was with Gary Fernandes and Biju Vetil who are both senior members of the Transnational Education (TNE) management. By this time, the network was clogged and we were unable to contact Chris Pilgrim and other members of our team in Kathmandu. We were, however, able to connect intermittently with our HR Manager, Bidisha Sen, in Dubai. The most important thing was to let everyone’s families know we were safe.
By 1PM, my son Sidharth, who is based in Johannesburg, started providing me with information based on what he was able to pick up from news reports. We were told that there was another severe quake expected at 3PM. Since we were stranded, the three of us decided to go towards a canal in an open area until the next wave of tremors. By 4PM, we asked a person in the garage to drive us to our hotel;  he reluctantly agreed. The journey was eventful as most roads were blocked by fallen buildings and debris. Kathmandu is an old city and the streets are extremely narrow. Another death trap was the low hanging power cables that are part of a dilapidated grid. While most of the city had lost power, there were still some main cables that burst at the nodes as we were passing by. By this time, everyone had evacuated their homes and moved into the streets. By 5PM, we regrouped with the team at our hotel.
The hotel was in disarray. All the guests had moved into the lobby and the small courtyard outside. It was getting cold and people went to their rooms hesitantly to collect sleeping bags and blankets for the night ahead. I assembled the team and my first goal was to make sure that everyone was calm. I stressed that we had to stay together and the safety of our team was paramount. We agreed that we had to abandon the trek and plan an exit strategy.
The airport was closed. Our next option was to get transport to the Indian border and cross to Delhi to fly to Dubai. This needed visas from the Indian embassy as we had four other nationalities: Canadian, Chinese, Filipino and Egyptian.
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We were told that the Indian Air Force had deployed C-130 aircraft to evacuate Indian nationals. The team agreed that we were not going to evacuate piecemeal until there was a proper plan for each member. It was clear to me that I would be the last to leave. I also realized, rather than listening to rumours, a physical recce of the airport was needed so that I could decide whether it was going to be an air evacuation or by road.
The news from social media and family came in. The extent of the damage was not clear but by this time we knew about the avalanche at EBC, the devastation at the epicentre and the rising casualties. We could hear the sirens of ambulances and rescue workers moving around trying to help people trapped in the rubble.
My team was tired and emotionally drained but never showed a moment of weakness nor despair. I wanted to make sure that we found a place to eat. The city had shut down; nothing was open other than small grocery stores selling water and basic food. People had left their place of work and returned home to care for their families. We found a small restaurant and were told the only dish they could serve was chow mein. The half cooked and barely warm dish was perhaps the tastiest chow we had ever eaten.
After dinner, Chris and Biju went on a mission to find a taxi to go on a recce. They found a broken-down vintage taxi that Gary and I rode to the airport. It had started drizzling and it was heartrending to see families, particularly children, sleeping on the streets. Some people were keeping a vigil to make sure that their groups were safe. To our delight, we found lines of tourists and expatriates lined up to fly out. The only operational flights were by the Indian Air Force which gave me the comfort that commercial airlines would soon start flying in. This is the information that I needed to have a proper plan for the next day.
My wife Saloni had been in touch with all the airlines flying out from the UAE and had made tentative bookings for us on Air Arabia. By 3AM, our seats were secured on the 10.55PM flight from Kathmandu to Sharjah on Sunday.
We had a sleepless night which saw several tremors, including a severe one at 5AM. It rained and was freezing cold. We had to move into the dining area where the guests were crammed like sardines. People were edgy, every time a chair moved they darted to the open courtyard.
At 7AM, we received a princely breakfast of tea, slices of bread and jam. It was a blessing. At 9AM, the hotel owner came to meet us and offered us a lift in his van. The only problem was it was the team or the luggage; not both. Since we had over 12 hours until our flight, I asked him to take the baggage. Our travel agent assured us it would get to the airport.
We decided not to walk through the built-up areas as a lot of the buildings were unstable. We found a map and planned our more than 20 kilometer route along the canal and then finally on to the wide main road to the airport. The extent of the damage and the displacement of people we saw while walking was an eye opener. The open areas were packed and temporary shelters, of tarpaulin and plastic, were everywhere. Rescuers pulled dead bodies from the wreckage. We were full of remorse and knew it could have been us.
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After a six-hour march, that included the second-most severe earthquake at 1PM, we finally made it to the airport. We joined long lines of people waiting to board commercial planes. The airport had been shut down once again and we had no idea if we would fly out. My wife stayed in close contact with the airline and at 6.30PM told us that the flight had taken off from Sharjah. Hope was revived. We checked in at 9PM and the way the baggage was piled up in the airport, and the lack of any tracking and staff, made it evident that the luggage was not going anywhere. We boarded at 1AM and took off an hour later to the cheers of relieved and exhausted passengers. The ordeal, for us, was over. Our families and the hot coffee and muffins at the airport more than compensated for our lost baggage that we have no hope of getting back. I only hope the contents make it to the needy people of Nepal and not into the hands of thieves.
This experience was a reality check. We often believe we are infallible; the truth is we are far from it. I was just happy that I could bring all members of my team back safely. I would not have been able to live with myself if anything untoward had happened. Our team members in Dubai and families stepped up and played a crucial role in lifting our morale. We went there for a team building exercise. Nothing prepared the team for a real life catastrophe that brought out the best in each of them and brought them together as a family and inspired them to contribute to the suffering people of Nepal.

IMG_2301

Remorse And  Rubble In  Nepal

It was chaos in the sun. Hundreds of students ran taunting and hurling stones at lines of police armed to the teeth, with tear gas and batons. All of this at a seat of learning, the University of Zimbabwe, in the quiet, green suburbs of Harare, which we filmed for the evening bulletins of South African network television.
“How many O-levels do you have?” shouts one cheeky student, to a distant line of police, before ducking and running.
The reply from the police: a broadside of tear gas that sends us scattering and choking; the cheeky student waits a few seconds before running back with a quip.
“I didn’t think so!”
The issue, in May 1995, was student grants, or the paucity of them, as the government of Zimbabwe tightened its belt.
Day after day, the future lawyers, politicians and financial managers threw stones and held never ending open air meetings to berate the university’s chancellor, the late and avuncular Gordon Chavunduka. Everyone knew he was a sangoma – or traditional healer – known for their spiritual powers.
“Surely he, of all people, should have seen this coming!” says one orator, to the laughter of hundreds.
In those sunlit days this was truly an ice cream war. The lads on their tricycles, with ice boxes fixed to the front, used to gather a safe distance from the fighting. It meant you could dodge a police baton, run across to the ice cream sellers for a cooling cone, then charge back into the tear gas and mayhem.
It got worse as the winter of 1995 wore on. The police were reluctant to ill-treat the students, a number of whom were the sons and daughters of powerful people, when the TV cameras were about. So, one evening, they waited until our crew had left to feed their pictures to Johannesburg, before attacking the students with a vengeance. Riot police clattered through doors, broke bones and cut heads, flailing their way through campus. I can’t forget the image of one of the student leaders, Brian Kagoro, who is now a lawyer working for the UNDP, with several meters of bandage wrapped around his broken head.
This upping of the stakes provoked revenge. When the police sent a patrol car to the campus the students chased off the drivers and battered the vehicle onto its side. Worse still, one of the students opened the fuel tank,  screwed up a newspaper, stuck it inside and set fire to one end – a large petrol bomb was about to go off.
The seconds ticked by as everyone watched the flames lick their way towards the fuel tank. Then an unwitting saviour strode in from nowhere. An English lecturer, who looked the part with a scruffy brown jacket, thick beard and a pipe, strolled through the scene of trepidation without noticing the chaos around him. As he drew level with the burning newspaper, he stopped, did a double take, before pulling the burning paper out of what was about to blow. The rest of us looked through our fingers and laughed in knowing relief. The lecturer walked off, puffing on his pipe, as if nothing had happened.
Fast forward to three years later and the riot police of Zimbabwe were finding their feet. On this sticky November day in 1997, I saw two helmeted riot police standing in the tree-lined Africa Unity square in the heart of Harare.
An old man approached the two riot police and must have asked them a question politely because I saw him clapping his hands as he spoke, a sign of respect in Zimbabwe. One smacked the old man to the ground with his baton while his fellow policeman kicked him in the guts. I ran over to help the old man up.
“Leave him alone,” I screamed knowing they could take me next.
One of the policemen looked me in the eye and threw a spitting, Israeli-made gas grenade, sending me coughing and wheezing out onto the street where thousands were running in anger. I kicked the gas grenade 30 meters across the road; to throw it back was to risk arrest. I never saw the old man again. Troops were on the streets weeks later.

Ice Cream, Gas And Thugs In Uniform

When Moruti Mthalane started boxing as an amateur at the age of 13, he always showed commitment and was destined for bigger things.
‘Baby Face’, as he is affectionately known, is from a family of seven that is heavily involved in boxing. His father, Michael, used to train him and his older brother, Innocent, was a national champion. He grew up in Durban, in the KwaZulu Natal province, and just like most kids in his neighborhood he was an avid football fan and supported Orlando Pirates. However, his passion for boxing took over and he is now the current IBO flyweight champion and former IBF flyweight champion.
<div id="attachment_3749" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3749" class="size-medium wp-image-3749" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/121706512-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; AUGUST 21: Aaron Mokoena and Baby Jake Matlala during the SA Sports Awards from Sun City Superbowl on August 21, 2011 in Rustenburg, South Africa. (Photo by Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images/Getty Images)</div>
“Sport has always been part of my life. I remember back in the days as a youngster I used to play soccer with other kids in Durban. I preferred to be around the brilliant players who were capable of dribbling and scoring goals. Pirates were my favorite team and I used to admire Steve Lekoelea because he was such an exciting player, a good passer of the ball and he used to create scoring opportunities. However my passion for boxing took control and I concentrated on spending more of my time in the ring,” he says.
“I have always been focused as a boxer and I had ambition to make it to the top level. I was confident that I would make it because whenever I went to the gym I gave my best.”
When Mthalane turned professional at the age of 19, he realized he had to take his boxing more seriously. Throughout his career, he has had many tough bouts and fought all over the world. Now, at the age of 32, he feels there is still a lot he can offer in the ring. One of Mthalane’s biggest highlights was when he won the IBF world flyweight title against Julio Miranda of Mexico in 2009.
“I always make sure that I prepare well for my fights. I respect my job as a professional boxer and I arrive on time at the gym. It is very important to work hard in the gym and give all the necessary effort in whatever I do. I have the winning mentality and I am always determined to give everything that I can against whoever I face. I like to attack, even when it is tough in the ring. I just need to remain optimistic that I can do it. My victory against Julio Miranda was fantastic, I was very happy with my achievement when I won, you could just see the way how I celebrated that it really meant a lot to me.”
He has not looked back since that fight and feels that under his manager and trainer, Nick Durandt, his reign as a world champion will continue.
“It is good that I am working with Durandt as my trainer because he is the best. He has always guided me well when we are preparing for the fight. I have been working with Nick for a very long time and we have had a very good relationship,” he says.
Mthalane was stripped of his IBF belt when he pulled out of his mandatory defence against Thailand’s Amnat Ruenroeng last year. That fight was set to earn him R120,000. He was instead offered R1 million to fight Filipino Jether Oliva for the vacant IBO title – he won the fight and has since defended the title.
<div id="attachment_3748" style="width: 175px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3748" class="size-medium wp-image-3748" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000044455-165x300.jpg" alt="" width="165" height="300" />October 2006. 40-year-old South African boxer Dingaan Thobela, &#8220;The Rose of Soweto&#8221;, makes his comeback in the boxing ring later this month in Johannesburg. Feature text available.</div>
Mthalane is inspired by the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who recently fought in the highest-paid boxing match the sport has ever seen. What does the South African think of the huge sums these superstars were paid?
“It is very encouraging when some top boxers in the world get paid well. It is very good for the sport.”
“I have always been interested in watching other top boxers around the world. I used to enjoy watching the heavyweights, the likes of Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. Whenever there was a big heavyweight fight, I woke up early in the morning to watch the fight. I really enjoyed watching Bowe, his style really impressed me.”
Though he is disappointed that boxing does not get the television coverage it deserves in South Africa, Mthalane is determined to emulate past South African heroes such as ‘Baby Jake’ Matlala and Dingaan Thobela.
“Here in South Africa we have also produced many top professional boxers. I admired the late Baby Jake’s fighting style. He was very short but he used to give the taller fighters a tough time. It was really exciting watching him fight, his movements in the ring and the way he used to throw punches impressed me. There is a lot that I gained and learned from watching how him fight. I am the type of fighter that likes to attack. Even when it is really tough in the ring, I am always determined to give my best.”
Many boxers around the world have fallen victim to bankruptcy when their careers come to an end. Most did not make wise decisions with the money they earned. However, it seems to be a different story with Mthalane.
He is aware that boxing careers are short and has invested his money while he is earning it. Many up and coming boxers look up to him and he is always prepared to give them advice.
“I am so thankful that I got an opportunity to be a professional boxer and through what I earn I am able to look after myself well.”
“I believe I will still have a good life after I retire from boxing because I am not just thinking about now. I have invested a lot for my future. I live a clean lifestyle and I always make sure that I hang around the good people. It is very important for youngsters to follow their dreams and do the right things in life. Discipline is very important in boxing. One has to be focused inside and outside the ring. I encourage the young boxers to be very committed and work very hard in the gym. In order to be ready for the fight, one has to take the right steps during the preparations,” he says.
Mthalane is a religious man and a huge R&amp;B fan. In his downtime he listens to R. Kelly and Brandy.
He has proven his worth in the ring and is determined that there is a lot more he can offer. It is now up to boxing administrators and promoters to ensure that boxing is followed by millions in Africa and the boxers get rewarded for their hard work.

The Baby-Faced Assassin

A few weeks before Floyd Mayweather swaggered into the ring in Las Vegas, a forgotten centenary slipped by that lends context to the struggle of the black man.
On April 5, 1915, the first ever black heavyweight champion of the world lost his title after 26 brutal rounds at a racetrack in Havana, Cuba. It was the end of a remarkable story of pride, skill and refusal to back down in the face of cruel and repulsive racism. Each of his stirring fights was punctuated by a torrent of vile abuse – mostly in the United States, the self-proclaimed land of the free – that would have made a neo-Nazi blush.
They called Jack Johnson, the son of a slave from Texas, the Galveston Giant, for he was every inch so. He was over six foot, with a broad chest that looked chiselled out of mahogany; he bowed for no man and boxed into his 60s. Out of the ring, Johnson was a flamboyant man about town who smoked huge cigars, drank champagne, dressed in the finest suits and drove expensive cars at a time when most of the world was walking.
In the ring, Johnson was a supreme mover and technical genius that few could lay a glove on. He started each fight with beguiling ease, as if he was kidding his opponent to death, in the words of his biographer Geoffrey C. Ward in his book Unforgivable Blackness. As the rounds went by the punching power would grow steadily, with lurking devastating uppercuts that threatened to rip off a boxer’s head.
This was how Johnson won his world title in Sydney, Australia, the day after Christmas in 1908. The fact there was an unofficial color bar in boxing makes the title win ever more remarkable. For two years, Johnson haunted the corner of the heavyweight title holder Canadian Tommy Burns. As corner men towelled Burns down, after another victory, Johnson shouted from ringside that Burns was no champion until he had fought him. Yes, these things happened before Don King was even thought of.
Money twisted the arm of Burns, who said many times he would never fight a black man. Greed and money had always ruled boxing.
Round after round, in Sydney, Burns, who had power but little sense, insulted Johnson’s race and called him a coward as he charged. Johnson smiled and taunted back.
“Poor little Tommy, who told you you were a fighter?” joked Johnson.
“This is what is known as a left hook, Tommy,” before stepping and letting fly with a bone-shuddering left.
In the 14th round, as Johnson hammered Burns to the floor, there came press censorship. Legend has it that the police ordered the camera to stop filming during the knockout. Certainly, the edited footage cuts out the moment when Burns hit the canvas; it was deemed unseemly to show a black man victorious over a white.
Despite this, Johnson landed a resounding blow for the black man in Sydney. Sadly, in the United States (US), angry lynch mobs murdered more than 20 innocent black men, in racial retribution.
Johnson defended his title eight times in six and a half years. The tirade against him grew as the newspapers made a meal of his lavish lifestyle and relationships with white women. The man himself, one of the greatest boxers ever to lace up a pair of gloves, didn’t give a damn.
The great man’s reign also gave rise to the phrase: the ‘great white hope’ for any boxer attempting to wrest the title back from black hands. One of them, former heavyweight champion James J Jeffries, came out of retirement on US Independence Day, July 4, 1910. Trains carried thousands to the fight, in Reno, Nevada, that could have doubled as a Nuremburg rally. Guns weren’t allowed because the organizers thought someone was going to shoot Johnson. The crowd satisfied itself by firing racist insults throughout.
Johnson had the last laugh, pummelling Jeffries to the floor, earning $121,000, in modern money a sum near the amount for the Mayweather fight. He drove to pick up the money, in cash, from a nearby diner on the way home.
The end came in Havana just over 100 years ago. A hard right hand from Jess Willard, the Pottawatomie Giant, in the 26th round knocked Johnson to the canvas. Age, heat and exhaustion had caught up; there were whispers Johnson had thrown the fight for money. Maybe, maybe not?
Either way, Johnson never wore the crown again and his life ended on a sad note of bathos; the Galveston Giant died, aged 67, when his car hit a telegraph pole. He had driven away angrily from a North Carolina diner after yet more discrimination against the color of his skin.
The centenary is maybe time to pause and think. One hundred years on, from Johnson to Mayweather, the world of boxing may have cleaned up its act, but has the world?

The Giant  Who Laughed  In The Face Of Racism

So, ‘The Fight of the Century’ has come and gone. Normally after a fight of this magnitude, the loser is left wondering what might have been. He has to pick himself up, dust himself off and go back to the drawing board. But, in this case, it was the poor fans that wondered what could have been. Some, especially the non-boxing fans who were caught up in the hype, asked, “Is that it?”
Was that really the fight of the century?
What is a fight of the century anyway? To the hardcore boxing fan, such a fight is one where there are knockouts and knock downs; where there’s blood and tears, where there is drama. Fights that deserve that label are: Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman in 1974; Ali vs Joe Frazier in 1975; Sugar Ray Leonard vs Roberto Duran in 1980; Leonard vs Thomas Hearns in 1981; and Marvin Hagler vs Hearns in 1985.
With the much-awaited Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao fight, it was always going to depend on what the Filipino was going to bring to the table. In other words, it was up to Pacquiao to make or break the fight. As the famous ring announcer, Michael Buffer, said before the fight, “Pacman is going to have to come out like a Tasmanian devil if he hopes to upset Mayweather.” After Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach said that his fighter was ready to go 25 rounds, expectation was high, despite many believing the fight happened five years too late. When the fight started, fans were on the edge of their seats. Not because of what was happening in the ring, because of what they hoped could happen.
What was happening was that Pacquiao, a slugger, was trying to outbox a boxer in Mayweather. After 12 not so exciting rounds, Mayweather ran away with a unanimous decision. The result seemed to surprise Pacquiao who said after the fight that he thought he did enough to be awarded a decision. Mayweather will march into his reported 49th and final bout in September still undefeated. When the dust settles, this fight will only be remembered for its financial records. It became the highest selling pay-per-view sporting event of all time with a staggering 5.65 million buys. The previous record in terms of pure sales was the 2007 fight between Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya at 2.48 million.
The fight generated well in excess of $400 million, much more than the Super Bowl.
The big question on everybody’s lips is whether there will be a rematch? Given that Pacquiao revealed he fought with an injured shoulder, chances are that a rematch could be on the cards. But it is doubtful that a second fight will generate even half as much interest.
Fans will remember the principle of once bitten twice shy. Simply put, most in the boxing fraternity were left underwhelmed.
<h2>Rich But Disappointing</h2>
The so-called Fight of the Century between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao was indeed the most expensive, but fell short of the high expectations.
“Mayweather did what he usually does – running away from his opponent. I expected a lot from them but they didn’t live up to my expectations. It was not a fight of the century; it could be one of the popular fights in the last 15 years. Mayweather should have knocked out Pacquiao but he fought like a coward,” says Alan Toweel, a boxing trainer in South Africa.
Toweel says what happened in Las Vegas was not good for boxing. He believes the knockout Pacquiaa suffered at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012 finished him.
Ron Jackson, a boxing historian and journalist, agrees the fight was not a classic.
“I thought Pacquiao won the fight. It was very disappointing to see Mayweather running around. At least it could have been a draw,” he says.
A few days after Mayweather won his 48th fight and kept his unbeaten record, the American announced that his next fight will be in September and will be his last. Amir Khan, from Britain, is being touted as his next opponent. But this is yet to be confirmed.
“Hopefully it does happen. If it does, it will be an interesting fight because Khan is very good boxer. I don’t look forward to another Mayweather’s fight. He past his time,” says Toweel.

The $400-Million  Flop Of The Century

Eric Lawson portrayed the Marlboro Man – the iconic strong rugged man, with cowboy hat, piercing eyes and chiseled jaw, who was always holding a cigarette. This year, Lawson  became the third Marlboro actor to die of a smoking-related disease. The world has changed since smoking was advertised as the cool thing to do. Today, there is an increase in healthy options, even in fast food restaurants. Coffee shops are filled with the ‘athletic mum’ and her ‘workout friends’; healthy living is now a booming multibillion-dollar industry.
Companies realize the importance and profitability in marketing a healthy lifestyle. This lifestyle has become synonymous with strength, responsibility, sacrifice, and success. Companies sponsor athletes who embody these values to attract consumers to their products.
As with any partnership, sponsorship should be mutually beneficial. The athlete must be able to focus on training and competition, and sponsorship can provide the security they need. This ensures that their living costs are covered, including buying training equipment or travelling to competitions. In return, the sponsor receives brand enhancement and product awareness that could develop new or niche markets. It differentiates themselves from their competitors, increases overall sales and even contributes to goodwill in the community.
These are all valuable, but there are also pitfalls to sponsorships from both perspectives.
&nbsp;
Sponsor’s Perspective
<ol>
<li>Athlete integrity: With increased social media, athletes are under the microscope more off the field than on it. Without integrity, the potential for a negative image created by an athlete’s behavior is increased.</li>
<li>Athlete effort: An athlete has to put work into marketing their sponsor. An idle athlete (or athlete’s manager/agent) can create high costs for the company with little return.</li>
<li>Lack of control: With injury, illness, or a sudden lack of performance or drop in rankings, a once high profile athlete may no longer be an effective marketing tool. However, a good role model can continue representing a company even after they have retired from playing sport.</li>
<li>Brand diffusion: Do other companies or individuals sponsor your athlete? Are they reputable? Are there too many sponsors involved that limit the effectiveness of your athlete’s brand? Are you the main sponsor that receives the most benefits?</li>
</ol>
&nbsp;
Athlete’s Perspective
<ol>
<li>Sponsor’s integrity: Just as important as an athlete’s integrity and as with many of these points, it works both ways. As an example, if an athlete is endorsing a company that is found to be using child labor, the athlete will be seen as promoting it.</li>
<li>Sponsor’s demands: These must be realistic and allow the athlete to focus on what they are supposed to do – train and compete. The athlete must also learn to manage their time to accommodate their obligations to the sponsor.</li>
<li>Sponsor’s technology: I was under contract to swim for a swimsuit company because they had the best product at the time. My contract stated that should my rankings drop, so would my income. The sponsor failed to keep up with technology and its competitors came out with a better suit. Despite that, I remained loyal and went on to break the world record.</li>
<li>Other athletes: The sponsor may have five other athletes and choose to market them more than you. Due to your exclusive relationship with the sponsor your branding could take a back seat. It is important that the athlete does not solely rely on the sponsor for marketing, but builds marketing campaigns and branding efforts to increase their own visibility and value.</li>
</ol>
Great sponsorships are the result of strong relationships backed by good communications. A clear contract should be developed with the above considerations taken into account, including exit strategies for ‘what if’ scenarios.
The increasing trend for active and healthy lifestyles places greater importance for athletes to endorse products. Companies need to find an athlete that fits with their philosophy and shares their values. Companies can find these athletes by looking for those with a winning record or great potential, but companies should choose these athletes based on personality, uniqueness, being a good role model, and their relationship with fans.
This will avoid any potential pitfalls and allow the magic of sport to keep us entertained.

The Good And Bad Of Being An Ad

Before money was invented, before the word entrepreneurship was formulated, people in ancient times traded by offering value. As far back as the Stone Age, people had to transact by exchanging goods that were of equivalent value to what was  to be received.
Today, this concept can be described by two words: value proposition. This has gained currency over time, but some entrepreneurs still miss the mark.
Business is based on the following basic principles; you are either saving your clients time and money, or making them more money. In supply and demand, distribution comes as a value-added product.
Geographic proximity to a product does not mean others have the same advantage. Cocoa is a good example. The product is largely found in West Africa. Any entrepreneur setting up a distribution channel to Singapore will be adding value on two fronts; firstly that area of Asia doesn’t have in the same abundance of cocoa as West Africa, and secondly from the logistics front.
In the knowledge economy, access to rare information elevates the value of those who have it. This is why companies call in consultants and advisors at an inflated cost. It is also why we keep going to conferences, paying international speakers large amounts of money to speak for 30 minutes. It’s all about the value one can bring to the table, and that comes from experience or study.
Scarce skills, like firewall experts, are rewarded handsomely, as cyber security threats rise. A shortage of something increases its value; art collectors can attest to that.
Marketers use this strategy to create a craving for a product and service. You are unlikely to see a Bugatti advertised on billboards and in newspapers. People who can afford the supercar know where to find it.
Entrepreneurs need to reprogram themselves to create value, rather than looking for money. Money chases value. No one holds a monopoly on cash; if you offer customers value, they will gladly give you their money.
Even Albert Einstein, a man of science rather than business, said, “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
There are survivalist entrepreneurs who keep complaining as if money repels them. We need to be innovative in how we sell our products and services. The market will pay for the value you provide.
Jannie Mouton is well known for creating value. He did something unique through Capitec Bank. They entered a market which had gigantic financial institutions; they added value through two things in particular. They lowered bank charges and demystified the banking system. This related to the general population, most of whom were clients of other banks. Today, Capitec is one of the largest retail banks with four million clients, and they claim to be registering around 100,000 new clients every month.
Adding value is reliant on the industry that the entrepreneurs find themselves in. You need to make promises to clients that differentiate yourself from your competitors. You have to appeal to what they want. The successful execution of this can convert prospects into new customers.
While you are trying to make millions, never forget that at some point almost everyone in Zimbabwe was once a billionaire. It’s not really about the money, it’s about the value that you add through your company. Align yourself with a sense of value, then all these others things will fall in place

Forget Money  Create Value

South Africa has a history of underperforming state-owned enterprises, including the ‘big four’: Denel, Transnet, Telkom and Eskom. According to the National Planning Committee on the National Development Plan, these companies account for approximately 77% of employees in state-owned enterprises and make up about 91% of the asset base of the top 30 state-owned entities.
These entities have evoked discontent from the public, Eskom in particular. They have accumulated large losses, always ready to ask for a helping hand from the government. Like an absentee father who spoils his son to make up for the time he does not spend with him, our national treasury is only too pleased to support these enterprises in the form of bailout packages.
This has led to a call from certain factions for these state-owned enterprises to be privatized. A paper titled Privatisation and Nationalisation Cycles by Roberto Chang and others looks at a model built around a basic trade-off between equality and efficiency. It argues that greater equality is attained under public ownership of a natural resource or state assets, while more efficiency is achieved when the ownership and administration of the resource or company are in private hands.
The connection between ownership and the equality-efficiency trade-off is given by the set of incentives for the efforts that each regime provides to economic agents. However, it should be noted that greater equality does not necessarily translate into greater welfare. Imagine a situation where national income would be distributed equally among all South Africans. Equality would leave many worse off. Greater efficiency is required. The reality is that there are greater sets of incentives at play which drive efficiency when operating a privately-owned company, among them maximizing the profits and equity of the shareholders. The sets of incentives are not as strong in state-owned enterprises.
One source, who asked to be unnamed, says that during her time as HR Manager at the state parastatal, South African Airways (SAA), she had to deal with numerous high-level government officials dumping their family and friends résumés on her desk and instructing her to find positions for them within the organization. She says that most did not have the required skills and qualifications. It comes as no surprise that SAA is one of the most inefficient state-owned enterprises. Unfortunately for South Africans who pay taxes on their hard earned incomes, the government continues to bail out the airline with no regard for its dismal performance. These are some of the pressing issues that make privatization of state-owned enterprises attractive.
On the other hand, the breaking up of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of Russian oligarchs in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when state firms were privatized particularly in the oil, gas and mining sectors. These oligarchs emerged under Mikhail Gorbachev’s political movement for the reformation of communism, which is widely thought to be the proponent that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Today, post-Soviet oligarchs usually include relatives and close associates of government officials and are among some of the wealthiest people in the world. David Satter, author of Darkness at Dawn, asserts that “what drove the process was not the determination to create a system based on universal values but rather the will to introduce a system of private ownership, which, in the absence of law, opened the way for the criminal pursuit of money and power.”
Privatization has challenges and opportunities, which if implemented properly would go a long way to correcting the inefficient operation of state-owned enterprises.
There needs to be a conversation surrounding the viability of privatizing state-owned enterprises and possible partnerships with privately-owned companies. If privatization is proven to be viable, it will go a long way to optimizing productivity and reducing costs, but perhaps more importantly it could reduce government bailouts and save taxpayers money.

Will Privatization  save us money?

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are one of the greatest financial innovations in recent years. ETFs, which are essentially investment funds traded like other securities on securities exchange, much like stocks, have enjoyed remarkable success since being introduced in the 1980s. The global ETF industry, and its related products, is now estimated to have assets worth $2.6 trillion listed on 61 exchanges. Not to be left behind, Africa has steadily been growing its share in this burgeoning industry. Currently, there are six nations offering ETFs: South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt and Namibia. South Africa, a long-time leader in this area, has 34 ETFs ranging from those based on indexes to those based on commodities.
Kenya, through the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), is seeking to become the latest entrant. In a bid to raise its profile, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) of Kenya has been planning to launch the new product since July 2013. Partly aimed at attracting foreign investors, the expected launch comes at a time when the local equity market is increasingly attracting international investor interest. As the global markets become increasingly correlated, forcing portfolio managers around the world to become more familiar with frontier markets such as Kenya’s, it appears the new product is set to meet ready demand.
NSE’s Head of Market and Product Development, Donald Ouma, says that ETFs will be an affordable form of investment for retail investors as they give broad exposure to equities without having to spend a huge amount of cash. The new product promises to give investors the ability to track indices of various stocks spread out in various countries that would otherwise have been expensive or tricky to come by before.
Furthermore, ETFs are expected to improve liquidity of the overall market which currently spots turnover rates lower than 10%. The low fee structure also means benefits from the relatively lower expense ratios are passed to the investor. Locally, the average mutual fund charges an advertised management fee of 2%. The new product is also set to give easy access to alternative assets such as oil, gold and currencies. The latter could have come handy this year as the local currency lost nearly 5% of its value against the US dollar.
However, limited available exposure could leave potential growth opportunities out of reach of ETF investors. Since the NSE’s main index is still limited to a small number of stocks, ETF promoters may find it challenging to achieve a respectable scale. Another potential roadblock could be slow retail acceptance. According to the Ernst &amp; Young, EY Global ETF Survey: 2015 and beyond, outside the US, the ETF industry’s biggest long-term challenge is low retail adoption. With no way around this, acceptance by retail investors will certainly take time to realize despite huge potential for retail growth. Nevertheless, the benefits outweigh the challenges.
In the initial years, I see Kenya’s ETF industry dominated by very large funds and issuers such as the FTSE Group. The latter, which already has two off-shore NSE-based tradable indexes; FTSE NSE Kenya 15 Index and FTSE NSE 25 Index, plans to list its FTSE-based indexes. South African group, Absa Capital, is said to be in talks with CMA and NSE to list its gold-backed ETF, the New Gold ETF. More large-scale issuers are likely to enter the market. Ultimately, this will strengthen the industry’s outlook by giving investors a broader choice of ETF promoters and product range.
Moving forward, as the growing wave of international interest continues to focus on markets like Kenya, certain key factors will be crucial to ensure the success of the new industry; price transparency, education, investor engagement, patience, liquidity and technology. If ETFs are to fulfil their undoubted potential for long-term growth, all the stakeholders need to ensure that these building blocks are in place. If this happens, then NSE-listed ETFs could easily revolutionize the securities markets in the region.

Revolutionary  And Rewarding

Winning the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections will turn out to be the easiest task for Nigeria’s new leaders. Governing Africa’s most populous country will prove more arduous.
Now that the polls have come and gone, Nigerians and the newly inaugurated government of President Muhammadu Buhari must now turn their sights on the hard, serious work ahead: fixing their economy, and the ethical fibers of their multi-cultural society.
This will be no easy task, considering that all eyes (local and global) will be on the retired army general as he seeks to resolve the country’s innumerable social, economic and cultural dilemmas.
“This country has to be fixed&#8230; with the engine running,” Buhari’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, told a gathering of media and business folks in Lagos last April.
No doubt the Nigerian nation continues to be a “disappointing case” despite its crowning as Africa’s leading economy, and despite its abundant resources.
Now, when I say “disappointing case” I do not mean to belittle this GDP badge of honor. I merely want to remind you that (most) Nigerians lack access to potable water, electricity, internet access, affordable housing, quality healthcare, quality education and efficient public transportation, just to list a few things on the development agenda.
“We are actually bleeding on many fronts,” a friend working in the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to President Jonathan admitted to FORBES AFRICA. “Yet we keep behaving as if we are a Saudi Arabia, which has a bigger economy several times the size of Nigeria’s.”
Nigeria is a classic case of the Dutch Disease syndrome, a term coined in 1977 by The Economist to describe the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands after the discovery of the large Groningen natural gas field in 1959. This was around the same time Nigeria also began to export oil from its Oloibiri oil fields, in the creeks of the Niger Delta. Sadly, instead of growing in significance and wealth, Nigeria’s Niger Delta communities have become desolate and impoverished.
In recent times, declining oil prices have had a debilitating effect on the country’s earnings. Nigeria however continues to behave like a wealthy czar, overspending, undersaving and underinvesting.
Revamping the ethos of business and governance should be top priority for Nigeria’s new economic and political managers. Under the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, the country’s petroleum sector became synonymous with corruption and murky corporate governance.
Crude oil prices ($115 per barrel in June 2014) now stand around $60. National revenues have declined by 29% over the last nine months. Decades of not saving enough and not investing enough in the economy have now caught up with the nation.
The IMF has called for a further devaluation of the naira, the national currency, which had already depreciated by 23% between November and March. Citizens at the bottom of the pyramid and small business owners across the country disagreed with this advice. Nigerians would prefer a peaceful nation; productive refineries and infrastructure; reforms that restore the professional dignity of the civil service, the police and other public service providers; pragmatic housing programs; deeper financial and economic inclusion and a drastic reduction in the size of government.
In a nutshell, this is the broad agenda for Nigeria’s new government. Nigerians can however be impatient. It will certainly take more than one election cycle (four years) to fix all of the nation’s economic and social woes. A few months is all we need to gauge if the change Nigerians desire will begin to happen under the old general.
Known as a frugal man with little penchant for frivolities and material acquisitions, it will be interesting to see how he attenuates Nigeria’s widespread culture of nepotism. Which brings me to another matter: state sponsorship of religious activities, events and pilgrimages.
Saudi Arabia made $18.6 billion and $213 billion from pilgrimages and oil exports, respectively, in 2014. Israel recorded 3.54 million tourist arrivals in 2013. The statistics for Nigeria’s tourism sector are nowhere near these levels. Which begs the question: who benefits more from religious tourism – is it the citizen, the state or religious institutions?
The agenda for Buhari’s team is certainly not a boring one.

the general must stop  The bleeding

It takes only seconds to change your life. You can push the boundaries of classic style with a modern edge. Your style can become modern, casual and you can become the consummate gentleman.
All in the time it takes to spray on a fragrance of iced mango, Spanish sage, tonka bean and black patchouli.
That’s what the advert promises in the duty free magazine on the 10 hour flight from OR Tambo in Johannesburg to Singapore. After a brain numbing lack of sleep I am prepared to believe it. In fact, I’m even starting to believe in the concept of duty free prices! Surely one of mankind’s biggest myths.
But here is a true story – my life did change in 4.5 seconds. Not with a whiff of fragrance, but with a glorious gaggle of exhaust notes as I was whiplashed to the proverbial ‘ton’ while ensconced in a tiny carbon-fiber tub.
In those few seconds I became an anemic and radically lengthened version of Lewis Hamilton. I instantly shed three decades as the dynamite 1.7 turbo seemed to anticipate the whims and wishes of my right foot.
Now supercar owners are a touchy lot and it only takes three letters to get them into a tailspin. GT-R. The Nissan is faster than the latest California T and just shades the Ferrari F12 Berlinetta&#8230; at about a quarter of the price.
And now they have a new low cost rival&#8230; possibly not in terms of performance figures but certainly in relation to ABS. Otherwise known as Adrenalin Boost per Second.
Welcome to the blurry world of the Alfa Romeo 4C.
At the very core of this brave new world is the much vaunted tub which really embodies the racing ethic of the first model to light the fires of the Alfisti in decades.
It weighs less than Floyd Mayweather, is just as tough and probably took his bank balance to develop.
Everything, including the seats, is bolted to that painstakingly crafted 65 kilograms of carbon fiber. Apparently you could take off the panels and drive the tub!
In fact the whole beautiful bang shoot weighs in at a mere 925 kilograms. And Alfa claim that the 4C has a power-to-weight ratio of 10 pounds per horse power. Even if you excuse the mixed measurement systems, it doesn’t mean a lot to me – except that I no doubt upset the equation with my personal displacement.
Propelling this featherweight frame (I’m referring to the car) is the over zealous all-aluminum, direct-injection four-cylinder 1750cc turbo engine which had also shed 22 kilograms. Apologies if this review is starting to sound like a catalogue of Weight Watchers success stories.
And just to complete the obsession, the heavy boot lid is propped up with a thin aluminum rod. A blast from yesteryear.
From the days when engines were smelly, oil leaking affairs, this terrific turbo is part of the passenger list, nestled just behind you with its own sun roof and even open to the odd shower through the open grille.
I read recently that the average height of an NBA star is around 6’7” or two meters in metric terms. Whichever way you measure it, the first mass-produced Alfa to enter the United States market is not going to score points with their basketball players.
Although I’m a tad shorter than the NBA average, I had to perform a limbo dance to get behind the wheel (that dates me for a start) and I defy anybody, especially Britney Spears, to clamber aboard with any degree of elegance.
This is not a complaint by the way. I don’t expect supercars to be tailored for my lanky limbs any more than they are tailored for my bank balance! And although I have been talking about the 4C as a supercar, it probably lives on the edge of that elitist description, coming in at around $100,000.
Motoring writers can sometimes wax lyrical about car interiors and a Mercedes S Class Coupe can actually test your descriptive talents. But the 4C is as basic as the name. I never managed to find a nook for my cellphone and got excited about what looked like a glove compartment but turned out to be the passenger air bag cover. My big find was a string net underneath the dash for my understocked wallet.
Alfa make no apologies for the stark cabin. Product planner Michael Berube echoes the famous words of controversial South African singer, Steve Hofmeyr. “It is what it is,” he says. “We have kept ornamentation down for the power-to-weight ratio. You just don’t get that in this price range.”
And you don’t need Newton’s second law of motion to know that the applied force of that energetic turbo and minimal mass is going to produce some butt-kicking acceleration.
But, over undulating surfaces (that is most roads in Africa) the lightness of being and the stiff suspension can leave you wondering who is in charge.
The gearbox can be irrational in auto and clunky using paddle shift and this car does not do poodling to the shops for a pint of milk. It is born to be wild and snarl at onlookers with an array of roars, whistles and crackles.
And you can rest assured that they are gasping in awe of the stupendous styling of this pocket rocket.
The man firmly in charge of Alfa, in fact the whole Fiat S.p.A group, is the man with the magical motoring touch, Italian-Canadian Sergio Marchionne.
He’s got some iconic brands in that stable, like Ferrari and Maserati, along with Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep.
Marchionne gained loads of executive cred for turning around the Fiat group in less than two years at the helm and then marched on to form a strategic alliance with Chrysler which pulled the Americans out of a deep financial crisis.
But the Alfa part of the family have been the renegades – failing to produce a profit during his decorous decade and global sales falling to levels not seen since the sixties.
Marchionne has hatched many a plan for Alfa and is certainly not throwing in the green, white and red towel. The idea now is for Alfa to go it alone with a declared balance sheet supported by a host of upscaled new models.
The 4C is a key element of the Alfa revival.
You may argue that it is a cramped, minimalist weekend street racer. But there is no doubt that it has sparked a new strain of Alfa fever around the world.
To the extent that the South African media liaison folks laughed when I asked about a waiting list. It is seemingly all about strict allocations and only the chosen few shall drive 4Cs in the near future.
With it being built at the Maserati factory in Modena, there is a limit of around 3,500 units a year depending on the output from the Adler Plastic company who make those special tubs.
The 4C alone is not going to bring Alfa back into the black. The real question is whether it will herald the resurgence of the Alfa brand, the passion for performance.
With a touch more attention to refinement there is no doubt it could. And the good Sergio can retire with a happy heart knowing that he has been one of the most successful auto executives of this era.

4C The Future

As the third-generation owner of Zippo Manufacturing Co., one question always dogs George Blaisdell Duke: “You guys are still in business?” It’s not that people want to be nasty, he says. It’s just that America doesn’t light up as much as it used to, so it’s a reasonable question for the most famous maker of cigarette lighters in the world. And he has a well-worn answer handy. “Well, of course we are,” he says, reaching across his office desk for Marlboros and his own personal Zippo, a silver one with waves engraved on it. “Business is doing very, very well.”
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Never better, actually. Despite the 50% downturn in the number of U.S. smokers since the heyday of cigarettes in the 1950s, Zippo booked more than $200 million in sales last year – a record – and had the best May and June sales in its history in 2014. FORBES estimates revenue has increased by a compounded 14% in the past three years, thanks to a new, non-smoking CEO, Greg Booth, who pushed the 82-year-old manufacturer’s legendary lighters at a younger audience and expanded business in China. New products – a (legitimately appealing) clothing line and camping gear – and its first retail stores added fuel to the fire. “Zippo has maintained its iconicness,” says Timothy Donahue, an industry observer and editor at Tobacco Reporter, “and it has diversified quite well.” It’s a long way from the first Zippo, created by George Blaisdell after watching a friend struggle to light a cigarette on a windy day in 1932 in Bradford, Pa., a small town in the Allegheny Mountains where Zippo is still based.
He came up with a windproof chimney and the distinctive hinged lid – and guaranteed the lighter for life, meaning Zippo would continue to fix the lighter as long as its owner sent it to the factory. After soldiers received the lighters in WWII, Zippo successfully marketed itself with a utilitarian, made-in-America image for the following half-century.
Nonfamily CEOs ran it after the 1978 death of Blaisdell, who left Zippo to his family. By the 1990s his daughter Sarah Dorn and her son, Duke, had bought out the rest of the clan. “The more family members that are owners, the more directions that they think the company should go. Sometimes the privately owned companies don’t make it,” says Duke, who has since acquired his mother’s stake, too. “Sometimes people get impatient with the lack of temporary success, shall we say.”
Zippo hit just that kind of a rough patch in the 2000s. Duke won’t comment on how far sales plummeted, but his displeasure with Zippo’s  performance can be felt in his decision to make Booth CEO in 2001. (Booth had been running Zippo’s knife making subsidiary.) With only himself to please, Duke could wait for Booth to find the solution. The average age of Zippo’s customers then still hovered between 30 and 50 years old. It needed to think younger. Or else, Booth thought at the time, “all the buyers will have Zippos in their caskets, like Frank Sinatra.” (The crooner was buried with his trusty silver Zippo in 1998; replicas were handed out at his wake.)
It needed to reach the generation – ages 18 to 24 – who were children when Sinatra died.
To do it the company shifted ad dollars from print to Google AdWords and sponsored music concert series. They churned out lighters with Jack Daniel’s imagery and others inspired by the TV show Sons of Anarchy. (Skull images have proved especially popular.) All told Zippo produced 30,800 unique designs last year – up from 8,900 a decade ago, a 246% increase partly owing to a new Zippo.com feature where you can design your own lighter from scratch.
Zippo has positioned itself as a maker of talismans, lucky charms – or something akin to customized belt buckles. “The Zippo lighter is a thing of taste,” Booth says. “Sometimes it’s used by folks just as a fashion statement.”
That’s also the guiding light Zippo is following in China. When Booth took over, the Chinese business didn’t exhibit so much as a pulse. Now it’s 13% of Zippo’s revenue (60% of sales come from overseas). Zippo first put boots on the ground there in 2012, and today it has a 15-person team in Beijing. It has opened 14 retail stores in China – Zippo’s first plunge into creating its own stores – with another 35 to come by 2015, all riding the idea of Zippo as an all-American lifestyle brand. The stores carry a Zippo-designed clothing line (logos on the interior tags only), with gear resembling J. Crew’s preppy woodsman style. The stores worked well enough for Zippo to open two Las Vegas stores – in the Luxor hotel and Planet Hollywood casino – earlier this year. Zippo has its eye on several more Vegas locations.
Another brand extension: camping products (grills, stoves, LED lanterns). It launched in 2012, and sales were around $3 million last year; Zippo hopes to hit $20 million by 2016. For now those products are partly made in China. Greater sales would make it economically feasible to move those overseas jobs to Bradford (pop. 8,600), where Zippo remains the greatest source of blue-collar jobs, employing around 950 workers. The Blaisdell family remains the town’s greatest patron, even making up the difference at the perennially lossmaking country club.
Not everything Zippo tried caught fire. Booth originally created an ambitious plan to hit $300 million in sales by 2010: “We had the economic downturn. That set us back dramatically in terms of sales.” Zippo also planned to acquire more companies. It largely hasn’t.
Success enough, though, for Duke to dread Booth’s retirement at the end of 2015. A replacement will likely come from within the company. Duke has no plans to step down himself, but he is actively cajoling both his twentysomething sons to take his place. One has already worked at developing new lighter designs while on his college breaks. “This is just a metal box,” Duke says, twirling his Zippo in his hands and drawing deep on a cigarette. But, he says, “there’s a lot you can do with a metal box.”

Sparking Zippo

It’s a mixed bag of black investors; a former civil servant, an engineer, an IT specialist and a car leaser. They are united in taking the risk of bringing the craze of pay-as-you-drive car rentals to Africa. Their company, Locomute Shared Mobility, has sunk $3.4 million into it.
In June, Locomute will have 50 vehicles running on the road in Johannesburg; in three months, Cape Town and Durban will follow.
Sibusiso Xaba, the chairman, is guiding a group of young, black entrepreneurs in their thirties. For more than a decade, Xaba was a civil servant and director general in the Department of Arts and Culture. In January, in his forties, he took the leap as an entrepreneur.
“For every car that is shared, 15 people won’t necessarily have to buy a car. The convenience our service gives to the customers makes it outstanding compared to our competitors. It gets rid of debt capital, no e-tolls, no maintenance costs, you pay as you drive,” says Xaba.
In the competitive world of car rental, Kuthula Mkhize, the general manager, says it’s mainly for business types and visitors.
“Our target market is the executive person who flies into OR Tambo International from Durban and uses the car while in Johannesburg for the meeting and comes back to airport,” says Mkhize, who worked in the car rental business for eight years.
Technology is key. Before you can use Locomute cars you register on the internet or using a cell phone application for a few dollars.
“Subscribed members will reserve a car online or via the Locomute application. It’s a 24/7 access to a pool of vehicles located within designated zones called Locoparks. You only pay for the time you used the vehicle. We are responsible for the fuel, insurance and you leave the car where you desire,” says Xaba.
“This is an in-city service. You are not allowed to take the car in Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. We have technology to monitor our cars and we will immediately know what happens to each and every car in our fleet. If a car is stolen, we will be able to track it in no time,” says Mkhize.
“Before Gautrain was introduced, people drove cars to the airport, not because they wanted to but because they had no choice. Gautrain brought the service that was needed and today it is fully subscribed. So, if you give that person an option to drive our car from an office and leave it in a parking, he doesn’t have to worry about anything else,” says Xaba.
Martin Lydall, chief commercial officer for Imperial Car Rental, one of the biggest car rental companies in South Africa, says competition is good. In South Africa alone there are 60,000 rental vehicles in a business worth around $380 million, he says.
“This is probably the most competitive business in the world and South Africa is among the leading countries. We are business people and competition makes business effective. We are not concerned about the new companies. We have been competing with the small and big companies. It helps to evaluate your competitors and see where you need to improve in your own business,” says Lydall.
Derek Watts, FORBES AFRICA’s motoring correspondent, says there’s space for new players.
“We get used to the way of operations but if they establish a good name people will use their service. The transport system in South Africa changes by the day. It would be interesting to see, as long as you free people from insurance which this company is promising, then people will use the service,” says Watts.
Xaba hopes so.

Tag: June 2015

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