Contact Advertise Subscribe Archive
Home Technology Innovation Features Roundtables C-Suite Business Verticals Events Search
Clairwyn van der Merwe
Startups

Natal incubation

Durban isn`t the first South African city to create an incubation centre for start-up ICT companies, but its SmartXchange claims to go a step beyond better-known centres.

Flying under the radar

TCM shunned publicity for years – and was one of the few IT companies to actually grow in recent times. Now a head is appearing above the parapet.

Made in SA
Clairwyn van der Merwe

A feisty advocate for the underdog

When Lynda Odendaal talks about women empowerment, it has the ring of authenticity. Her own journey to the top as CEO of Network Support Services started on an assembly line in an Eastern Cape factory.

Technology
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Struggling against all odds

From a distance, the people queuing outside one of the few brick buildings in Orange Farm could well be mistaken for pensioners or voters waiting their turn.

Features
Clairwyn van der Merwe

CIO of the shoeless

Lionel Moyal, CIO of Intervate, has his own ideas about the qualities and skills that a successful CIO needs.

Personality profile
Clairwyn van der Merwe

I, not a robot

CIOs tend to be seen as techno-whizzes who have optic fibre for veins and microchips for a heart. But Internet Solutions` Kemmy Chellan says he`s made of flesh and blood.

Personality profile
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Woman on tax

Travelling alone, a young Kenyan lawyer is venturing where few women have gone before her: into the centre of Africa`s male-dominated telecommunications regulatory scene.

White Noise
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Enter the promised land

Forget the image of destitute, barely literate refugees sneaking past man-eating police dogs to enter Africa`s land of milk and honey. The typical technology immigrant to SA is fully legal, highly qualified and apparently more likely to create jobs than compete for them.Hearing her cut-glass British accent, it`s easy to picture Nigerian Moky Makura shaking hands with Maggie Thatcher on graduation day at Buckingham University. Or to visualise Harvard MBA graduate Cyrille Nkontchou, son of Cameroonian diplomats, clinching a $2.5 million deal with American financiers.Come to think of it, Sinisa Tucakovic, originally from Yugoslavia, is one of a minority of foreign-born technology workers who actually do seem to fit – well, sort of – the stereotypical immigrant profile.The country`s skills haemorrhage since the early 1980s is common knowledge, but accurate statistics on the real losses are hard to come by.It would seem, judging by Statistics SA numbers, that SA continues to lose more people than it gains, though the gap slowed from a net loss of 7 400 in 2001 to 4 300 last year.Still, it may be too soon for rejoicing – particularly for SA`s skills-intensive technology sector. Skilled people are more mobile, and losses continue to be heaviest in these sectors. In 2002, for instance, SA lost 379 engineers and gained a mere 27.But official statistics also reveal a shift in the countries of origin of immigrants to SA. African countries have steadily overtaken Europe as the main source of foreign skills, with Nigerians taking the lead, followed by Zimbabweans and then Ghanaians.Europeans remain the second biggest category of immigrants, followed by Asia.Least likely to settle in SA, it seems, are North Americans, accounting for only 180 of the estimated 6 500 legal immigrants, followed by those from the Middle East (103), Australia and New Zealand (65), and Central and South America (60). Meet the newcomersFor most immigrants from other African countries, like Nigeria`s Moky Makura, the demise of apartheid was the trigger for heading “down south”.Born in oil-rich Nigeria, Makura had left her homeland at the age of nine, spending the next 16 years in Britain, where she attended exclusive boarding schools and university. “For me, the UK was always going to be a pit stop; I was always going to go home.”The problem was that, in the end, she`d been away for too long. Back home for a week to test the waters of its working world, Makura realised that “Nigeria wasn`t ready for me yet. While I like a challenge, I also like an easy life. I don`t go camping, put it that way,” she says, tactfully referring to the scarcity in Nigerian offices of basics like flushing loos and working telephone lines.Back in London, Makura read a magazine article on black women like Felicia Mabuza-Suttle who were doing “wonderful things” in SA. “I thought, ‘I can do that!`”She settled in SA in 1996, first joining British-owned technology PR company Text 100 and then starting her own marketing business, Red, targeting a new market: the whole of Africa. “My vision was to build up the first pan-African PR network and, at the time when I launched, nobody else was doing that,” says Makura. Three years ago, when there were more African customers than she and three staff could comfortably handle, she sold Red to FCB, becoming joint MD of its Redline marketing agency.On the other hand, being a Nigerian in SA can have a flipside. “We have a bad press here,” says Makura of her Nigerian roots, but adds firmly: “I`m very proud to be Nigerian.”For the foreseeable future, though, SA is home. “When you start complaining about where you live, you know you`re home,” says Makura, now a permanent South African resident, married to a Zimbabwean.“People still ask me how I could leave London for here. Fact is, it`s highly unlikely that I would have set up my own company in the UK. It`s a lot harder there. The people here are much more open, more vibrant, more entrepreneurial. Maybe it`s the weather!”French-speaking Cyrille Nkontchou also left Africa as a child, moving from Cameroon to Paris, France, at the age of 11 with diplomat parents and six brothers and sisters. Things work hereHaving been out of Africa for over 20 years, he deliberately chose SA for his return for compelling business reasons. “This is the only place in Africa where I can run this business,” says Nkontchou, the 36-year-old CEO of LiquidAfrica, the Johannesburg-based company he started in 2000 to bring online trading to Africa`s 18 stock exchanges.“The infrastructure is here; things work,” he says, pointing out that in Nigeria, for example, businesses need their own power source to operate. “Here, there is also good office space and skilled people, and it`s cheaper. Had I been based in London, I would have had to compete with the big banks for talent.”Like Makura, Nkontchou says SA has allowed his entrepreneurial side to surface, after an earlier career that was stolidly corporate.On graduating from the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, he joined Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) for five years, then headed for Harvard University in Boston. Two years later, an MBA under his belt, he joined Merrill Lynch in London, heading up the investment house`s equity research effort for sub-Saharan Africa, excluding SA.With “Africa thumping deep in my heart”, Nkontchou visited Cape Town in 1999 to attend a global Harvard alumni conference, and was instantly sold on the country. Although originally intending to get a transfer through Merrill Lynch, Nkontchou instead leapt at the opportunity to set up his own company, LiquidAfrica, with $2.5 million in funding from American backers, Modern Africa Fund Managers.“We should be profitable by June this year,” says Nkontchou, adding that LiquidAfrica recently made its first acquisition, Fin-X, a company offering access to Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications). Swift services more than 7 500 financial institutions in 200 countries, daily processing payments estimated at $5 trillion.Business is good for LiquidAfrica – and that`s good for SA, too, says Nkontchou. His company now has 15 employees, 10 of them South Africans. “We have brought new investment into the country and we are creating jobs. I have also made a point of ensuring that our staff is properly balanced, with about two-thirds black and one third white.” The very image of an immigrantTucakovic also fits the humble beginnings profile in another respect: no safety net to fall back on. “It sounds clichéd, unfortunately, but I did come with one or two suitcases and a little bit of money,” admits Tucakovic, who arrived in Johannesburg almost 12 years ago at the age of 27. “I had to find a job fairly fast. It has turned to my advantage, because it forces you to work hard. You work hard or you die of hunger.”On the contrary, he has thrived in his adopted country. After initially helping a Yugoslavian friend to run his IT business, Tucakovic and six or so South African partners set up Project House, a contracting business, which they later sold to Usko, in turn bought by Bytes Technology Group.Apart from acquiring a taste for rooibos tea, Tucakovic, now professional services manager at Bytes Business Solutions, has married an Afrikaner, started studying towards an MBA, and become a fully-fledged South African citizen.“SA needs high-tech skills if we want to compete with countries like India who are positioning themselves as software facilities for the world with a fairly low cost of labour,” he says. “Skilled people will come through the ranks of the education system, but is it fast enough to offset the brain drain and Aids? As much as we are losing skills, we need to attract experienced, educated overseas people.”While SA`s pulling power for Africans is relatively obvious, developed world immigrants like California-born J Eric Wright, or Swiss national Robert Tibbs, are a rarer species, as immigration statistics show.Living in Africa wasn`t originally part of Wright`s long-term plans, although “I had always felt a piece of my heart belonged to Africa,” says Wright, who has a degree in economics from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Wharton and a US investment banking background. The lure of comfortsHe caught the “Africa bug” while living in Ghana, where he started Gold Coast Securities, a merchant bank. “Moving from California to Ghana took quite an adjustment and I realised that, to make Africa part of my long-term plans, I would need a bit more of what I was used to in terms of infrastructure and the comforts of life.”So, scenting change in apartheid SA, Wright decided to move here post-elections, accepting the position as Citibank`s head of private equity in Johannesburg for five years. “But I`m an entrepreneur at heart,” says Wright, who three years ago teamed up with American-born Swiss citizen Tibbs to co-found Africa Venture Partners (AVP) in Johannesburg.Specialising in pan-African telecommunications and technology from Cape Town to Cairo, some of AVP`s current projects include the Nepskom joint venture in Nigeria, where Eskom is stringing fibre optic cable on the power transmission lines of Nigeria`s power producer Nepa. AVP has also teamed up with European telecom operator Telenor to pursue strategic operating opportunities in the telecommunications assets field. It`s also preparing to launch broadband satellite Internet services across Africa, through subsidiary company IP Direct, with trials due to kick off in Ghana and Nigeria in July this year.In SA, AVP has been commissioned to investigate the feasibility of under-serviced area licences earmarked for new telecoms operators in ten rural districts of the country.“What a pleasure to work with a group like AVP,” says Heloise Emdon, a telecoms analyst with the Canadian-funded International Development Research Centre. “They understand the market, their work is to the point and on time. They have been brilliant.”Wright, now in his ninth year in SA, says that, for him, there`s no going back to corporate America – a fact potential foreign investors are likely to find reassuring, given his Wall Street contacts and AVP`s investment track record.But SA shouldn`t be counting too heavily on foreign investors alone to boost growth. “The country needs much higher levels of domestic investment before we will see higher levels of foreign direct investment (FDI),” says Wright. “And while I fully endorse the principle of job creation for South Africans first, the country should encourage the participation of highly skilled non-South Africans, through developments like Silicon Valley in the US, where entrepreneurs and programmers from Asia, specifically India, have been welcomed with open arms. Talent attracts capital.” Africa deserves a breakAs for First World perceptions that Africans are slow on the technological take-up, AVP`s Tibbs has a short retort: “Poppycock.”He says, “I often have to remind people that the first human heart transplant took place not in Europe or America but in Africa. The ability to create and adopt technology across the board is in Africans` hearts; Africa deserves a break.”Tibbs says it`s his “hobby” to prove stereotypes wrong. That`s because he`s broken his share of moulds. “I grew up poor and rural in New Jersey; my mother was a maid and my father was disabled.” After dropping out of school at the age of 15, he joined the military to make a little money. He earned two degrees with high honours by studying at night school, then moved into the corporate world, first in organisational development and later marketing.His next leap was to Switzerland, where he worked on various international technology projects with the likes of Credit Suisse, General Electric and American Express, while also learning to ski, play tennis, appreciate fine wines and speak fluent French – now his home language, his wife being a French-speaking Swiss.Hence Tibbs`s passion for technologies like boundary-busting broadband satellite, which AVP, through IP Direct, of which he is CEO, is about to pilot in Ghana and Nigeria. “I just don`t get this whole boundary thing,” says Tibbs, “cultural, geographical or otherwise.”That may be so, but borders remain a big deal for the South African government, which earlier this year introduced complex new immigration laws and regulations that some say raise the financial entry barriers. “Financially independent” foreigners, for example, have to pay a non-refundable fee of R100 000 and prove a minimum net worth of R20 million.Possibly even more of a barrier, though, is the red tape surrounding immigration. The new laws and regulations contain no fewer than 12 classes of entry permit and run to a staggering 234 pages. Talk about mountains to cross…

Business
Clairwyn van der Merwe

The kingmakers

When you`re on the lookout for CEO-level material, you can`t be too careful: up to 40 percent of newly appointed executives leave or fail within the first six to 18 months.“What is the risk of hiring the wrong CEO? It`s high,” says Bryan Hattingh of executive search firm Cycan. “That`s not necessarily because they can`t perform in the role but more often because their lifestyles, cultures and conflict-handling styles don`t fit,” he says. “Or because their positions don`t turn them on. If you can do a job with your eyes closed, you`re not going to be excited, energised and committed, which has huge repercussions for an organisation`s performance.”So Hattingh`s forte is to penetrate below the surface of those seemingly spectacular CVs and unearth the qualities he says make executives and their companies fly: passion, purpose and commitment. “Along with culture fit, a sense of excitement is the most important reason for hiring anybody and, more than anything else, that`s what I look for.”Like Hattingh, Allen Shardelow of Heidrick & Struggles seldom takes a CV at face value (which would be foolish considering that up to 50 percent of CVs contain at least one deliberate inaccuracy, from a date doctored here and there to blatant personal or career fibs). Under your skin“I look at the depth of people`s lives, rather than just what you`ve done in business,” says Shardelow. “I want to know about the soft issues: who you are, where you were born, where you grew up, what kind of memories you have of your childhood, whether you still have friendships with the people you grew up with...”This kind of background can be deeply significant, he says. “For instance, if you need to be in a relationship-type role, which most executives do, but you`re not good in relationships, I would be sceptical.”While executive searchers aim to get deep under your skin, there`s nothing crass or tactless about the way they do it. Rubbing shoulders with CEOs and chairmen of boards seeking top-level talent takes charm and finesse.Meeting the impeccably courteous but easygoing Shardelow, it comes as no surprise that he`s an ex-diplomat of 16 years, with postings in London and the United Nations in New York. Now a partner at Heidrick & Struggles, whose network covers 50 cities, his diplomatic background isn`t being wasted.Cycan`s Hattingh is more informal, what with an open-necked shirt and the earring in his left ear. Still, his credentials are blue-chip: he was the man who appointed the entire local staff of Microsoft when it first set up shop in South Africa 10 years ago. Now, with 14 000 leaders on his database and a footprint on every continent, his client base spans the IT, banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals and services sectors.Besides, the earring turns out to be much more than a fashion statement. It`s his wedding ring and he`s been wearing it for 28 years.Just as solid as his marital track record are the Rhodesian teak table and chairs in his interview room, aptly named the Wine Room. Filled with vintage wines, brandies and whiskeys, along with easy chairs, a porcelain tea set and hand-carved chess set, it`s the perfect setting to break the ice and put the most frazzled executive at ease.That, together with the ability to get him or her talking, is a hallmark of the blue-blooded executive searcher.Indeed, both Shardelow and Hattingh are big on getting people to open up. But both know that to do this you have to give something of yourself. “The more vulnerable you are, the more you get,” says Hattingh. Says Shardelow, “People are comfortable when you talk about things that are familiar.” Shortest guy on the teamShardelow may well start a conversation by telling you where he grew up – in Pretoria, near the Apies River – and that he did a BSc in zoology and botany at Wits University and that his first career choice was nature conservation. “I wanted to save the world and the whales and the lions and the ants. I wore a beard and had hair down to here,” he says, gesturing behind his immaculately navy-jacketed back.He may also tell you that he once played under-21 basketball for South Africa (“I was the shortest guy on the team”), that he joined Foreign Affairs after his stint in the army because he realised conservation wouldn`t pay the bills, and that he adores wine, Persian carpets and cooking. He`ll even say why he left diplomacy in 1996. “When I got back, I took a long, hard look at my prospects and realised I would have to mark time while the transformation took place.”Hattingh, whose company motto is “Inspiration @ work”, is just as frank about himself. Career details aside – he started out as a “propeller-head”, doing programming and then software and development support management – he obligingly spills the beans about his earring-wedding ring, along with his innermost fears, and how he`s conquered them.“I used to be scared of heights, so I took up skydiving. I did scuba diving to overcome my fear of water and closed spaces. Giving blood was another,” he says with a shudder. “I was terrified the first time. Overcoming your fears is the secret of life. You`ve got to extend yourself, in work and life, by giving yourself sufficient stretch, challenge and unknown.”After this kind of openness, I defy you to keep your defences up. Rest assured, though, that Hattingh and Shardelow (also a scuba diver – yet another search common denominator?) will not divulge your secret hopes and ambitions to anyone else. “Working at this very high level, as a trusted outsider dealing with leadership issues, your integrity has to be beyond reproach,” says Shardelow.Nor, they claim, will they dangle glittering salary packages and promises of power before the eyes of a possible candidate. In fact, the first time you meet Hattingh, he probably won`t even mention that there might be a position available. Qualified but clueless“When I target people, I invite them to meet me,” says Hattingh. “You come along, and, guess what, I don`t talk to you about positions, money or companies. I talk to you about you, about what you really want from life.“I`ve learnt that almost nobody has been taught life planning and personal strategic thinking. We come through the education chain educated, intelligent, qualified and clueless. Only a few top executives I`ve ever met had really thought through where they were going. Talking in this way can crystallise a framework against which to assess your career opportunities and to discover potential you are not even aware of.”So Hattingh will talk about life with you, maybe drink a cup of tea or glass of wine with you, maybe play a game of chess with you. “At the back of my mind, I might have an opportunity to present but I will not create an artificial point of departure. If you do fit, and you indicate you are arriving at a departure point, I might arrange a meeting at which you can meet the client informally.”Shardelow`s approach is more direct. When he thinks he`s found a likely suspect, he`ll call the candidate and, without mentioning money or the client`s name, ask if the person might be interested. “Most of the people we approach aren`t looking but, nine times out of 10, they will agree to come to the first discussion. The skill is to get someone to lift up their head from what they`re doing and to consider alternatives, knowing that they might not get the job.”He doesn`t believe, though, in bulldozing or flattering anyone into making a career move. “When I make the initial call, the best answer to get is: ‘Funny you should call; my wife and I were just discussing that it was time to move on.` You`ve got to make sure this is the right time for a person to move. There may be a whole bunch of reasons why the timing is wrong and, in a way, the first discussion is like career counselling a person.” Finicky palatesOf course, there is more to executive search than intuition and heart-to-heart conversation. “We search by research,” says Shardelow, using the example of the master winemaker (executive searchers seem to have an affinity for the vine) wanted by one of South Africa`s top wineries, which was hoping to make a splash in the finicky American market.“The problem is that South African wines are not familiar to the palates of old-world consumers. To make our wines more accessible to them, you have to influence the style in which the wine is made,” says Shardelow. “So my client needed a winemaker with old-world and new-world experience. He or she also had to have experience of running a significant wine business, be able to influence other winemakers – which can be tough, because winemakers are like artists – and also be able to fit into the Stellenbosch culture, the heartland of Afrikanerdom.”It was a tricky one, much like being set the task of finding a coach for Bafana Bafana, the Proteas or the Springboks, although neither Shardelow nor Hattingh have actually been asked to try their hands at that.Within 24 hours of getting the brief, Heidrick & Struggles had activated its international network, zooming in on the world`s three winemaking hotspots in San Francisco, Melbourne and Paris. To cut a long story of an intensive search short, the right candidate was tracked down in Australia. With his wife, and incognito, he came out to Stellebosch for a “thorough recce” flying in on business-class tickets for two to three weeks. They liked what they saw but were concerned about the quality of medical care out here. Shardelow meticulously did his healthcare homework, an offer was made and accepted, and the couple relocated.“They`ve been here two years and he`s done a wonderful job,” says Shardelow. “He`s got South African wines into markets they`ve never been in before, the company is delighted, he`s built relationships with everybody, including the guy who washes the hoses in the winery, and his wife has learnt to speak Afrikaans.” No bums on seatsEvidently, executive search is far removed from recruitment and advertised selection. Search companies don`t skim thousands of CVs and they don`t place advertisements hoping that the right person will simply come to them. “Talented people don`t normally respond to ads,” says Kuseni Dlamini, a top mining industry executive who has been on both ends of the executive search chain, as an appointee and a client who has worked through Hattingh. “They need to be approached in a special and unique way.”Says Hattingh, “This business is not transaction-driven or commodity based; the aim isn`t to get bums on seats through quick appointments. Recruitment is not what we do. This business is about having an impact on business`s bottom line. It`s about strategic leadership and cultural issues. An energised and purposeful leadership is your greatest competitive advantage and if you have the right leadership, the whole organisation will be sparked. And the risk of hiring moves to zero – leaders with energy and passion stay the distance.”In 16 years of executive search, Hattingh says, he has not had an appointment fail. "However, we do provide quite lengthy guarantees, the minimum period of which would be three months up to a maximum of 12 months, depending on the nature of the appointment. These normally have some conditions to them but in short, if the appointment did not work, we would redo the assignment."Other differences, says Shardelow, are that executive search companies use dedicated researchers and build long-term relationships with their clients and the people they appoint long after the ink has dried on the employment contract.And, of course, their fees are different.“We are more like trusted advisors to the CE and chairman, and a client has to be very serious about using search,” he says. “Unlike a recruitment agency, where the client only pays when an appointment goes through, we work on a retainer basis, not on commission. The client pays upfront.” Heidrick & Struggles` fees amount to one third of the annual salary package of the position being filled, payable in three instalments over three months. The cost-value equationSo yes, an executive search will cost you, and many may wonder whether the services are worth the prices charged.“It comes back to that wonderful word that catches everything – value,” says Ken McArthur, MD of market research company ACNielsen, which has used Shardelow`s services twice in the past year.“I`ve got a company to run and I don`t necessarily have the connections at all the levels I`d like,” he says. “Search companies have those contacts, but one of the biggest benefits is that they do an enormous amount of screening for you. They know who is going to fit and who is not, and they don`t waste your or the applicant`s time. Of course it depends on the level of management. For junior management positions it`s probably too expensive, but at higher levels it`s absolutely essential.”McArthur, incidentally, isn`t just a client, but was also appointed to his current position through Shardelow. “Allen called me two years ago while I was on holiday in Germany to establish if it was a time I wanted to move,” says McArthur, who was then CEO of Gold Circle, the Durban-based horse racing and gambling business. “I was actually considering coming back to Johannesburg, which was where my wife and family were. It`s worked out very well.”Claudia Koch, head of Ethos Private Equity`s Technology Fund, says there are three reasons why she uses executive searchers to make strategic appointments: "In the instances where we have used Cycan, Hattingh`s understanding of technology and the venture capital business, his vast network of contacts and, above all, his ability to judge an individual from a qualitative, soft-issues perspective, were the key reasons for our engagement. When things go wrong in business, it`s typically the soft issues that trip companies up,” says Koch. The price of failureOperating in the private equity space, Ethos`s Technology Fund specialises in acquiring young technology companies, growing them and ultimately selling them on the international market. “This environment is fast-paced, very pressured and highly complex,” says Koch. “The price of making one mistake during the investment process can be quite great. We look after an enormous amount of money but have quite a small team, which relies on team collaboration, stability and harmony. Bringing in a person with the wrong attitude or a culture that doesn`t align with Ethos would definitely put the business at risk.”She adds, “It is very easy to be seduced by a wonderful CV but you have to put those things aside and look at how the person interacts as a human being. They might be excellent on the hard skills but will they align with our culture? Are they going to be sensitive to the very complex dynamic of our business or are they going to come in and ruffle feathers, frustrate and irritate? I cannot emphasise enough how important the soft factors are.”

Business
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Rolls Royces, Bentleys and Mercs

It`s the old dilemma faced by IT companies: you spend thousands of rands on training your staff, and then they up and leave. Now a new class of trainers say they can help your company keep people for longer, get more out of them – and even improve your employment equity profile.Photographer Sally Shorkend is struggling to get this shoot just right. The problem seems to be the setting: this Rosebank house is an art connoisseur`s paradise adorned with objects begging to be captured on camera.While the photographic assistant obediently shifts the position of various objets d`art – a wooden statue of a king, a sculpted bust, a gilt-edged frame – executive coach Alain Willem obligingly does what he`s told … lifting his chin, raising his arm, lowering it, moving a hand, sitting further forwards, leaning more to the left.“Can you help me get some direction?” Shorkend jokes to Willem.“I`m probably too expensive for you,” he replies, face deadpan.“How much do you charge?” she asks, eyebrows rising at the answer: R5 000 for a single three-hour session, with at least four sessions needed to tap and extract a client`s full human capital.But then, as Willem demonstrates later, his coaching techniques aren`t exactly one-size-fits-all, off-the-shelf stuff for the mass market. What`s more, you`ll find much the same approach – they call it customised – over at pi africa intellectual holdings in Midrand, and at Connemara Consulting in Illovo. When it comes to unlocking human capital, you don`t cut corners. These things take timeWhile Willem insists on a minimum of four one-on-one sessions, pi africa needs months to start delivering the goods – in the form of handpicked people who love their jobs, know their stuff, fit like a glove into the company culture and, joy of joys, will actually stick around for a decent length of time, says CEO Niel Human.“We all know that staff turnover is a huge problem in IT, especially among black professionals,” he says. “There`s a growing perception that it`s pointless to train black people because they leave. Our model is increasingly in demand by companies in an employment equity crisis, because of our track record in bringing in people with staying power, people who give you a lot more, a lot sooner. Of the 1 400 people we`ve taken into IT to date, about 82 percent have been black.”Bear in mind, though, that pi africa`s not offering quick fixes. On average, it works with a client for up to two years before finally handing over its candidates (or “cadets”, as Human calls them) as full-time employees.It all starts with a shopping list. Let`s say IT Company A is looking for ten development specialists, including five black women (don`t giggle, Human says you just need to know where to look). Making the order taller is that Company A wants people who work for job satisfaction rather than the biggest pay cheque around, and share its values and personality.Next, pi africa sends in the psychologists to check out the company culture, values and personality – there must be a match, or you might as well not bother – and then draws up “an identikit of the most likely suspects, using lots of science”. This part is often pretty quick, says Human, since pi africa does its marketplace homework in advance: it draws from a pool of over 4 000 people who`ve attended its regular IT career guidance days, have undergone full psychometric and personality testing, and are actively looking for work they really want to do.So the scouts return with 20 possible cadets, from whom Company A selects ten. And now the heavy part starts: the training. Investment and returnsFrom day one, the ten cadets will earn a salary and benefits, which pi africa pays, even though they`re not yet working. This early phase is highly intensive, very practical rather than lecture-led, and takes six weeks to five months, depending on what skills and knowledge the cadet still needs to fit in at Company A.It includes simulating the actual work environment and could involve any or all of nine different training institutes on pi africa`s books, from the University of Pretoria to CS Holdings.“We overlook no detail of the job and we make no assumptions,” says Human, whose own qualifications include an MBA, a post-graduate marketing diploma and a master`s degree in neuro-psychology.Add it all up and the investment so far – which pi is still paying – comes to about R90 000 per cadet for salaries, benefits and training.Now the ten cadets are ready to set foot on Company A`s premises, but not yet on their own. For another six months, they`ll undergo intensive coaching with a “co-pilot”, meaning an internal company mentor. For 12 months after that, they`ll “fly solo”, although still as contract employees officially on pi africa`s books. Only then, after 18 months of hands-on work, do they become fully fledged Company A employees.Meanwhile, pi africa has a formula for getting a return on its R90 000 per person investment, while earning a bit more besides. It`s complicated, so Human puts it simply: “We contract the person to the customer for the 18-month period at a rate that covers our investment, the person`s salary and our margin.”Of course, the proof of the pi is in the eating, and Dimension Data`s Richard Askham reckons the company`s investment has been worth it. Askham, Centre of Excellence manager in the service providers solutions business unit, formally took 19 pi graduates into his fold as full-time staff in November 2002. Only one is black, incidentally, since this particular intake wasn`t driven by employment equity requirements.Are they delivering? “We`ve actually come out tops,” says Askham. “We`ve come out with people who are strong in a number of different ways: they`re solutions-focused and in the game for the right reasons. Sometimes people move into IT because they think that`s where the money is. These people are here because they want to be and they`re delivering value for money. Of all our billable people, they have been the guys being asked for by project managers.”High praise, indeed, and Askham adds. “It`s been two years since the preliminary selection and, originally, they were intended to work in a hard-core development environment, but our projects have changed and they`ve made the transition well. In this environment, skills are only 30 percent of the equation; the other 70 percent is character and attitude.” Accountable to deathWhile pi africa draws heavily on scientific formulae (its name refers to the relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle), Connemara Consulting gets hopelessly physically, mentally and emotionally involved: “Totally addicted and immersed,” says Connemara`s Esta Viviers. “And accountable to death,” she adds, “otherwise it`s too easy to come in, talk, bill and leave.”What this means in practice is that Viviers and her two co-directors fling themselves head first into the client`s business. “We often work in a company to understand their business and their internal debate,” says Viviers. “Yesterday, we met with panel beaters and for the next two weeks I will be at five panel beating shops, wearing overalls and listening. At IQ Business Group, I`m a person with business and IT experience, and I understand outsourcing. At an events management company, I`m an events manager.”At all times, she says, there must be an “absolute fit” with the client`s culture. “We have clients who dislike me intensely. I`m Afrikaans, I`m too straight-talking. So I don`t go, I won`t irritate them with me. If the culture calls for someone refined, cultured and soft-spoken, but not wishy-washy, we send Ina (a co-director).”This is all aimed at figuring out what a client really needs – or doesn`t – in terms of skills development.“Sometimes people just need plain, old ordinary skills, like standardised PC training,” says Viviers. “You do training that a business needs at a particular point, you don`t do things to pay this month`s rent. If it`s not right to spend the money, I often walk away from things or even assist in bringing in suppliers other than ourselves – our competition – if they`re suitable to deliver.”What niche, then, has Connemara found in the market? “Customised training in areas that we can do better than anyone else.” In Viviers` case, with 15 years of large-scale change management experience before starting Connemara six years ago, that`s her specialisation.“Some people will only accept knowledge if you give them seven international studies. Others will never change until they have been intellectually convinced in a debate, when they give their commitment by defending the concept they were originally opposed to. So it could be debate, or it could be simulation, or role play, like actually holding a cocktail party to learn to interact with huge groups of suppliers.“Or let`s say you are an incredibly successful company where the people are used to increased profits and everyone is incredibly comfortable. To position yourself for the future, you will have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So you create an intellectually uncomfortable, pressure-cooker experience, perhaps out in the veld, where people need to gather information without the Internet access they are used to.”The point, says Viviers, is that nothing Connemara does is standardised. “That is why we could never have a million clients.”Executive coach Willem also keeps his client base small, for two reasons. One is that with each personal or “path coaching” session taking three hours, it`s highly intensive. Second, he specifically seeks out a certain kind of client: he only takes “successful” people.If that sounds like targeting the converted – or perhaps a trifle arrogant – he explains: “Remember what Freud said about preferring rich patients to poor patients because at least the rich already know that money can`t buy happiness?” Well, Willem buys that. Engineering a new lifeIn fact, he says it`s a lesson he`s personally learnt. Formerly an engineer of four varieties – mechanical, electrical, geo-technical and systems engineering – Zairean-born Willem, who studied in France and emigrated to South Africa 17 years ago, became “burnt out” about eight years back.“My life was about making money, and I thought, ‘What am I doing?` I started exploring the whole human aspect, from hypnotherapy to neuro-linguistic programming. After going through a period of chaos, I realised that I could integrate the whole of my life experience in one point. Now my purpose in life is to bring wisdom to business by taking successful people, filling in the other dimensions, and transferring it to their organisations.“So unsuccessful people are not my target. I`m not a psychologist. My target is people who have already found the magic in some respect, who have already tapped into some aspect of their power.”Just how does he fill in their “other dimensions”? “By using a set of 200 tools that are like hooks, that help people develop intuition, find their purpose in life, understand who they are, ask powerful questions, negotiate more effectively,”Before I know it, Willem is using some of his toolkit on me. Breathing techniques. Questions that are gently but deeply probing. Meditation. A decision path based on harnessing the mind, body and soul. Now, if I just had R20 000…

Business
Clairwyn van der Merwe

The Iron Lady melts

Changing perceptions that Telkom is Public Enemy Number One is the mission of the utility`s corporate communications group executive Amanda Singleton, and, she believes, her proudest achievement.

Business
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Quitting the race

Former IT executives who`ve quit the rat race are making the most of their freedom. One has sailed off into the Caribbean sunset. A second is flying helicopters, financing start-ups in London and cycling through the winelands of France. A third is building a fast-food empire in Johannesburg and Pretoria while taking time out on a game farm; a fourth is farming on the Garden Route.They`ve got it good and they know it. But, they say, they`ve paid their dues and are neither living lives of idle luxury nor crowing over ex-colleagues still turning the treadmill.While it must be blissful to live on a protea farm off the Cape coast, don`t expect to hear the gory details from the farmer concerned. Contacted for an interview, he was bluntly unenthusiastic, pointing out that he`d left the IT industry around five years ago. After reluctantly agreeing to “think about it”, he called back two days later with an emphatic no.The reason for the reticence? Being out of touch with IT, he`d bought a copy of Brainstorm at the airport on his way to a Johannesburg wedding and realised with a jolt just how turbulent the business had become. “People today don`t have the choices that I did back then,” he says. “I still have friends in the industry and I don`t want to sound like I`m gloating.”He`s not the only ex-exec to tread lightly on the feelings of those who`ve stayed behind.“We were just lucky with our timing,” says James Fitzgerald, MD of EDS between 1994 and 1999, and an outsourcing veteran since 1970. “The IT industry has changed, becoming more mainstream as opposed to being on an exceptional growth curve. There`s not the same degree of growth and innovation. I have no guilt about having made money doing what I did – when the timing is right, the timing is right – but I don`t wish people to have the sense that I retired or that I ‘escaped`.” Flying a rocketship“I didn`t want to get away from IT. It was great fun: satisfying, successful and I learnt a lot and made a lot of friends,” says Fitzgerald. “Then I realised I couldn`t carry on working so hard. Seven to seven, and weekends; it wasn`t a good model, it was personally unsustainable. The results were satisfying but it was a long haul – 29 years – and the process took a lot out of me. I wanted to get the balance back.”That called for career and lifestyle change. Now a venture capitalist, Fitzgerald`s London-based company Rocketship Ventures has “interests in interesting businesses where I get the ability to apply what I`ve learnt in outsourcing. Typically they`re not IT startups, although IT is a component of most companies these days,” he says, citing the example of Oxigen, which sells advertising on screensavers in London.Rocketship`s investments take up most of his time, including a week a month in London; but it`s not his only business interest. Fitzgerald is also chairman of Business Against Crime in South Africa (“I`m a passionate supporter of South Africa”) and a partner in a Midrand helicopter rental company.“Flying helicopters is one of my hobbies and they`re expensive beasts. The way to defray them is to make them do some work,” says Fitzgerald, who together with two partners rents out 18 helicopters to security and asset transfer companies, as well as for executive transport.Fitzgerald himself goes for regular whirls “for pleasure and when it makes sense” (as does a two-hour flight to Durban), clocking up around 150 hours` flying time a year. Combining business and pleasure is paying off. “What started as a means to an end has become quite a successful business,” he says, sounding mildly surprised.“It`s interesting that when you drop out there`s a sense that you`re retired. I`m very busy, doing quite a lot of fun stuff. I also spend more time with my kids, who used to have an absent father, and started playing golf a few years ago. Later this year, I`m going on a skiing trip and cycling through the winelands in France. There`s balance and what I do now is not stressful; it`s a good, sustainable model. Retirement isn`t even an option. I could go on forever.”Like Fitzgerald and the reticent farmer, people who`ve made more recent exits from IT are equally determined not to burn bridges. In fact, the only objects Johann Kunz might conceivably want to burn are hamburger patties and French fries.Staple fare of the fast-food empire he`s helping his wife Elize to build, mass-made meals leave him culinarily cold. To get Kunz cooking, pour him a glass of dry white wine and hand him a challenge like roasting a duck (“bloody difficult”) for the couple`s Christmas lunch.“In a restaurant kitchen, I`d be a disaster,” says the former MD of CS Holdings` IT services division.So it wasn`t Kunz who grilled your steak at the Spur in Rivonia, one of about six outlets in Elize`s fast-growing franchise business. Seldom setting foot in any of the eateries, his function is strictly back office. Tapping away on his laptop, either at his home-office in Pretoria or on a game farm just out of town, Kunz is using his big business background to streamline Elize`s company, without getting in her hair.“One of the reasons I left CSH was that Elize`s business was getting quite big and she needed a bit of help, especially with financial and support systems,” he says. “The time had come to make a call: leave things as they are, or grow. We decided to grow.”That decision also gave Kunz the chance to get back to his entrepreneurial roots, which first sprouted when he ran his own publishing company in his days as a law student at Tuks.“IT was also very entrepreneurial when I started out and it`s still a great industry, although it`s changing now, becoming more consolidated. And to some extent, my decision was a quality-of-life choice, too. You have to work very hard to grow as fast as we did at CSH. That`s stressful.” After about a year of pondering, he made the leap to small business in November 2002, having given CSH plenty of notice about his intentions – and taking pains not to land on Elize`s toes in the process.“I didn`t want to interfere too much,” says Kunz, “and I think the first month or two were horrible for her. I think she felt I was intruding, but now – I hope – she`s starting to see the value of the new systems and procedures.” But wait, there`s moreSensibly, the couple have lessened the potential for marital strife by keeping their businesses firmly separate. Apart from physically keeping himself at a working distance, Kunz has registered his own company, I3 Consulting (with the three I`s standing for Innovate, Initiate, Implement).He`s not just working for his wife, either. Kunz, who admits he gets bored easily, also holds a stake in a Gauteng-based marketing company, where he spends an afternoon a week, and is eyeing out some property investments, having just completed a property course.Nor has he completely cut his ties with IT. “No, I wouldn`t go back to the corporate world, but I still read my newspaper every morning, still have shares in CSH and I still have contact with some of the guys. The difference is that nowadays we braai together instead of talking shop.” Sailing into the sunsetOn 6 January 2003, former MGX director Aletha Ling and her husband Michael left Cape Town for Barbados on a yacht christened Radical Innovation. Just how long they`ll be gone is anybody`s guess.“The first thing about the future,” says Ling, “is that it is totally flexible.“We have planned only the first half year to the Caribbean, with broad plans for the following years,” she said in the month before setting sail. “We will, over the next few years, sail the oceans of the world. Of that I have no doubt. It is likely that after the Caribbean we will sail the Pacific Ocean, planning to trace some of the exciting routes opened up by Captain Cook.”Radical Innovation is certainly up to an open-ended adventure. Custom-designed to the Lings` specifications, the yacht has four double cabins, a “fabulous” galley and a saloon that can comfortably seat eight people for dinner.Not surprisingly, it`s bristling with tools of the technology trade, including fault-tolerant servers, a full LAN system, satellite phones, broadband connectivity, GPS and radar, not to mention Internet access so Ling can do some online research.“Both my husband and myself are from the technology business and so we have all the gadgets on board. This is the ultimate high-tech boat and we make no apologies for that,” said Ling. “And, in case you worry that we might become reclusive, we will be in constant e-mail contact with the world. I am really lucky to have some wonderfully exciting friends who will keep us in touch with what is happening at home in both business and our personal world. At various points of our journey we have friends flying from various places in the world to join us for certain legs of the journey. Who could ask for more, the joy of discovery and the pleasure of friends to explore with?”Quite obviously, this journey was no spur-of-the-moment impulse. “This is for us the realisation of a long-term dream and the culmination of nearly two years of planning,” said Ling. “It is time for a radical change in our personal lives.”For many years, she says, life was about business, with little time for reflection and self-discovery. “These years have been exciting and totally consuming, which is really what has brought me to this point,” said Ling. “I found myself lately on a much too familiar and, in many ways, conflicting treadmill. I found myself in a corporate environment with too many unresolved conflicts that I believe need pondering.” Back to the futureMore specifically, “I have enjoyed the exciting early years of a business that was small, personal and very focused on things that we believe mattered. I lately found myself back in the big corporate, where much of the vitality and spark of smallness gets lost in the bigness of the corporation. Surely there must be a way to marry these two models? A major learning, I think, from the 20th century, is that centrally planned systems don`t work. What then, are the alternatives that will drive the new century? This I think is a question worth grappling with.”While grappling with that conundrum, Ling will be keeping track of IT developments. “I continue to be fascinated with advances in technology across the board. There is so much happening in IT, such as nano-technology and in the new spaces of bio-technology. I am planning to give myself time to not only dig deeper into what is coming along but also time to think about the implications and opportunities which may result from this.”On top of that, she`ll be writing for various publications and catching up on a pile of reading, from the “great philosophers to the leading business thinkers of our time”. She`ll also be doing her share of yacht duty – “a regular schedule of duty at the helm, as well as the general work on the boat and the cooking”.As for the future, we may or may not see Ling making an IT comeback. “I have no doubt I will find the inspiration for the next business venture, whatever it might be,” she says. “It is very difficult to keep the entrepreneurial spirit at bay for too long. The mystery, of course, it is what it is likely to be. One certainly cannot repeat history, so I am hanging on to that moment of freedom before shaping the future.”Despite the different directions they`re taking, IT`s departees have much in common, apart from their obvious financial freedom.For one, as Kunz and Fitzgerald have already shown, they`re as little inclined to rest on laurels as they were when still punching the IT clock. For another, they`re quick to dismiss perceptions that they`ve fled an ailing industry. What they do hint at, though, is that IT may have lost some of its entrepreneurial spark.Perhaps Aletha Ling will come up with an answer.

Business
Clairwyn van der Merwe

Money-men steal IT thunder

Beware the rise of the chartered accountant. Granted, Benjamin Mophatlane, IT Personality of the Year, isn`t one, but he nearly was. A BCom graduate, he had already signed up as an articled clerk when opportunity knocked and he left to start Business Connexion. Bytes Technology`s David Redshaw isn`t actually a CA either, but he swears by fiscal fundamentals and has an ACMA, a UK cost-accounting qualification, on his CV (along with an honours degree in French and Spanish).On the other hand, Mike Wright and Peter Forsyth, of The E-mail Corporation and ERP.com respectively, are the real accounting McCoy. Qualified CAs both of them, Wright and Forsyth ventured into start-up IT territory when others were bailing out, and they`ve soared spectacularly.The other three non-techie nominees are an eclectic mix. Jill Hamlyn of The People Business has an honours degree in social science and was once a crisis counsellor with the UK`s Samaritans. Forge Ahead BMI-T`s Simon White, an entrepreneurial activist, has a background in economics and teaching, as does Ignatius Jacobs, Gauteng`s MEC for Education.Which leaves only Mike Lawrie, Richard Firth and Andile Ngcaba, winner of the ICT Leadership Award, holding the truly techie fort.Lawrie, Internet pioneer and staunch defender of the .za domain namespace, has been in computing since the early 1970s. MIP Holdings` Firth went straight into programming after leaving school, and Ngcaba, director-general of the Department of Communications, was once a bench worker who tested electronics. (Judging from his MCom from Wits, though, it`s safe to say that he, too, has a fair grasp of the financial side.)Could there be a message here? Benjamin Mophatlane, CEO, Business ConnexionA die-hard Blue Bulls fan, Benjamin Mophatlane, IT Personality of the Year 2002, is still on a high over his team`s thrashing of the Lions in this year`s Currie Cup final. “The drought is over!” he says gleefully. “I`m ecstatic!”The fact that he didn`t actually attend the final at Ellis Park had nothing to do with any fears that his team might not make it. “I went to my uncle`s 70th birthday party instead. It was a sacrifice, but it was worth it.”Family is a recurring theme in Mophatlane`s life. “Family is important to me and we get along very well,” he says of his parents, sister and twin brother Isaac. (Twins is another recurring theme – he has a twin, so does his mother, and there are more twins on both his father`s and mother`s side.)Having gone through school together, first at Ikageng near Pretoria then at Christian Brothers College in Kimberley, where both were prefects in matric, the Mophatlane brothers remain close. Close enough to have started a company together, then called Business Connection, and to have worked side by side for over seven years.“Isaac drives sales and strategy, and is the chief operating officer. As CEO, the buck stops with me and my neck is always on the line,” he says, flashing a mischievous grin, a facial expression that lurks close to the surface with Mophatlane, who radiates cheeriness. “I believe in being positive. When you`re down, you use more energy and more muscles,” he says of his habitually optimistic outlook. “We South Africans need to take life with a bit of humour.”On a winning streakClearly, the filial division of responsibilities at the company is working. In its first year as one of the first black IT companies in the country, it earned revenues of around R100 000. Seven years on, and now called Business Connexion following a merger in 2001 with Seattle Solutions, annual revenue has soared above R300 million, with 140 employees and offices in Cape Town, Rivonia, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth.Business Connexion also happens to be the only company in SA with triple Microsoft Gold Partner status (for enterprise systems, e-commerce and support). What`s more, it has also been Microsoft`s channel partner of the year for the Africa region for two years in a row. “We live, eat and breathe Microsoft technology,” says Mophatlane, who attributes the company`s stellar growth to its unflinching focus on its core Microsoft business.A BCom graduate from the University of Pretoria, Mophatlane`s original career plan had been to join SA`s tiny pool of black chartered accountants. Six months after starting his articles with accounting firm KPMG, though, business beckoned when the Software Connection group, with whom he worked as a student, offered to supply business start-up capital. “The opportunity came up and it was a choice between my own business versus becoming one of the few black CAs. Entrepreneurship appealed to me,” he says, recalling his and his brother`s biltong-selling days at high school not too long ago.Leaving a legacyMophatlane says he is honoured to have been nominated for this year`s IT Personality of the Year award. “I look at the other nine nominees and I see quite a lot of special people, special leaders. Possibly, I`m the youngest in the bunch.”Not yet 30, he has far from achieved all his ambitions. “Personally, I want to contribute to this country, I want to leave a legacy to my society,” he says, hauling out a business card carrying the ‘Proudly South African` logo.At this point in the conversation, a marked change comes over Mophatlane. Up to now, he`s been light-hearted, smiling often and cracking the odd joke at his own expense.His speech, although forthcoming, has been short and to the point. Now he`s solemn, almost intense, and the words flow.“Our vision is to be a true South African company, to be a role model in the new SA. IT is one of the key areas where we need to transform, and I want to help change the mindset of people, to show that young black professionals can succeed in IT. A lot of our success is due to the fact that we have had the opportunity to thrive in this new SA and it is up to my generation to pass on the torch. We`re kind of the first young black people to have had the opportunity to build an IT business.”Empowerment, of course, is part of Mophatlane`s philosophy. “I want South Africans to embrace empowerment – which doesn`t mean taking anything from those who have. It might look one-sided sometimes, but we must transform; it`s an important strategic imperative. But you must do it with your mind, body and soul, not because you have to but because you want to build an exciting future, to build something bigger and sustainable. Anything not done with the right spirit, with 100 percent commitment, can never end up with good results in the long-term.” Andile Ngcaba, director-general, Department of CommunicationRich, deep, resonant, Andile Ngcaba`s voice matches the lofty ideas he expresses. He talks about having a broad vision, of taking the long-term view, of doing what is best for the people and the country, of his passion for imparting knowledge on technology, of his delight in innovative concepts and models and ideas.“Implementing a vision is something that takes a long time to work, that is something one recognises,” says Ngcaba, winner of the ICT Leadership Award. “I do not believe in a short-term approach. I must generate new ideas and think about what must be done in 2005 or 2006. These are things I grapple with every day and night.”With all his talk of long-term goals and visions, don`t be fooled into thinking that Ngcaba has his head in the clouds. His eye may be fixed firmly on the future, but when it comes to the daily detail, he`s a stickler. “For any day in the past seven years in my job, I can tell you who I met and what subject was discussed. It is all here,” he says, gesturing around his office, where every one of his diaries has been fastidiously filed.“You must never lose sight of the overall vision, but then you must break it down into hours and days and weeks and months and years. Making that link between day-to-day projects and the vision is what fascinates me.”Ngcaba`s own working schedule is planned a full year in advance, and then broken down into days and hours. “Everybody wants to pick his brain,” his secretary had explained earlier while the ‘DG`, as his staff refer to him, was still making his way back to the office.However busy he may be, there are two types of people Ngcaba says he always finds time for: those with new ideas, and those who want to understand technology. “If somebody on my staff has a new idea, they must come running to me. Work and home are almost one and the same thing, and it is very important to me that the people who work here have the energy to continue to work at home, to keep producing new ideas and projects.”He strides towards the framed departmental code of conduct standing on a shelf in his office. “This is the most important thing in my office,” he says, homing in on the word ‘innovation`. “Innovation, that`s what gives me a kick.”Turning to the flat-screen computer on his desk, he says: “This is the other most important thing. I have a passion for getting people interested in technology so that they feel they are part of it. I must impart knowledge to others. I think I enjoy that more than anything else.”Ngcaba has little time for levity or idle chitchat, though. “I`m a deep person in terms of anything. I enjoy conversations, even informal ones, that are deep and scientific.”Still, he does admit to a hobby or two. One is bungee jumping in the Tsitsikama, Eastern Cape, although he doesn`t indulge often, maybe two or three times a year. “I like to take calculated risks and to live on the edge of life. Bungee is a thrill, it deals with stress. I would also like to do white-water rafting. I am going to learn.” David Redshaw, chairman and CE, Bytes Technology HoldingsAfter one night in Cairo, population 14 million, David Redshaw`s wife Marjorie announced that she just couldn`t live there. Redshaw was sympathetic. “You can`t go for a run in the morning in Cairo, the pavements are so full of people,” he says.Next day, the British-born-and-bred couple hopped on a plane back to SA, where he`s lived for the last 15 years, and by Monday morning, Redshaw was explaining to his apoplectic American boss why he wouldn`t be working in Egypt.“He gave me a mouthful,” says Redshaw, wincing at the memory. “I told him my wife comes first in this.” He offered to resign from the multinational but his boss said no, summoning him to the UK instead.Back in the UK, the couple weren`t convinced they`d made the right move. “Two things happened,” he says. “I didn`t think the job prospects were there and Marjorie said, ‘I want to go back to SA. I thought, ‘Why not?` and resigned.”Within three months, they were back in Johannesburg – jobless. Before a week was out, though, Redshaw had had five offers, opting to join the Altron Group, where he started as finance director at Powertech.That was 15 years ago, and the Redshaws are here to stay. “I`ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he says. “For me, it`s turned out fine. You can always make things turn out well, with the right kind of luck.”A regular jogger and still a tough opponent on the squash court at the age of 60, Redshaw is also staying put professionally. “I have no intention of retiring just yet. I love work, I always have. It`s a challenge, isn`t it?”Running Bytes has had its moments. Formed in 2000 when Altron`s IT group Fintech merged with the ailing Usko, the merged company was greeted with scepticism. “We were half written off two years ago; people saw this as the dead cat bounce – you know, you move up an inch and then sink back. It was pleasant to prove them wrong.”Bytes is now profitable, achieves annual turnover of R3 billion and employs 3 000 people. “Morale is high,” says Redshaw. “It`s important that staff feel proud of where they work and to be honest, I think some were ashamed to say they worked for Usko.”This turnaround, in an industry where many have a tale of woe to tell, is probably what prompted someone on his staff to nominate Redshaw for IT Personality of the Year. “They didn`t tell me, the so-and-so`s. The first I heard about it was when someone said, ‘Hey, you`ve reached the final 10`. I said, ‘Final 10 of what?`”And he isn`t even a dyed-in-the-wool IT type, having spent 25 years of his 37-year career in manufacturing. “IT is a different business, but it`s still a business,” he points out. “It`s still subject to all the rules that stood you in good stead when you were in another business – controlling your expenses, making sure you make cash, paying dividends. I can`t imagine running a business without a pretty solid financial background – one would never want to be totally reliant on someone else giving you their interpretation of financial information.” Mike Lawrie, .za domain name administratorIn a flower-filled retirement complex called Haven Village, just off a street named Serene, Mike Lawrie is easily, if unintentionally, the most controversial resident.Although entering his third month of retirement from the National Research Foundation in Pretoria, you can bet that SA`s Internet industry hasn`t seen the last of him yet. In between growing his beloved bonsai, doing some consulting work and taking brisk, crack-of-dawn constitutionals at the Haven Village gym, Lawrie is keeping a beady eye on government`s pending takeover of the .za Internet domain namespace.Administrator of the .za domain for the past eight years, he`s still smarting from the tongue-lashing he took in Parliament in June when his warnings over government`s plans were interpreted as threats to crash the Internet.“I seemed to have upset the Portfolio Committee on Communications and every politician in the country – but I didn`t cause the ruckus, the politicians did,” says Lawrie, who believes he was unjustly portrayed as a pale male clinging doggedly to the past.“The point I was making was that the .za domain level has to be absolutely technically stable, otherwise there is a risk – a serious risk – that the Internet will crash. If the new administering authority doesn`t know an IP number from a web site address, Internet services will grind to a halt.“That was misinterpreted as a threat, that ‘Mike Lawrie is going to crash the Internet`. Absolute rubbish. There`s no way that the person who brought the Internet into this country is going to stand by and watch it crash, never mind crashing it.”While none too popular with the politicians, perhaps, Lawrie is highly regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Internet in SA. He led the Rhodes University team that set up the first Internet-style inter-networking in the country, and ran Uninet, the country`s research and academic computer network, until its closure two years ago.Today, he`s still adamant that government`s got the .za domain debate all wrong, however good its intentions. Like it or not, though, he intends living with the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act and its offending .za domain section. “The Act exists. It`s not going to help if we all run around and say it`s dreadful. Going forward, we have to make the best of it. I will be working with the government as best I can to make it work as best it can.”So Lawrie, although still hoping that government will see the light and change the law, will definitely be at the party when negotiations get going over the setting up of the new domain name authority. “If the process leads to an unworkable product, the option is still there that, given the opinions and support of the rest of the Internet community, I can still refuse to hand over. But that`s not an option that is high on my wish list.” Jill Hamlyn, MD, The People BusinessJill Hamlyn`s business cards are an awkward size. Quite a bit bigger than usual, they refuse to fit snugly into a conventional cardholder. Which is exactly the point. Hamlyn does not believe in putting people into boxes.“It`s funny how people jump to conclusions, though.” Women in business, for instance, still tend to be seen either as fire-breathing feminists or as one-woman outfits. Hamlyn says she`s no feminist – nor does she come across as one – but has been mistaken for the latter. When someone she`s just met hears she runs her own business, the next question is often: ‘Oh, do you work from home?`Hamlyn, whose staff of 24 wouldn`t fit into a home office anyway, seems more amused then annoyed. “I know who I am, and we`re more of a real business than most.”After emigrating to SA from the UK 21 years ago, she worked for big corporations like IBM and Don Gray, before branching out on her own. When The People Business started up 15 years ago, Hamlyn focused on IT recruitment and then expanded steadily into the full HR spectrum, including payroll consulting, management and leadership development, executive coaching and conflict resolution. Growth over the past 15 years has consistently averaged 20 percent and annual revenues now exceed R21 million.“I absolutely adore running a business,” says Hamlyn, who has an honours degree in social sciences and used to do voluntary counselling as a Samaritan, the UK-equivalent of Lifeline. “I love negotiating and the cut-and-thrust of business, while showing that business can be done without ever detracting from the dignity of others.”She pauses: “Maybe I sound soppy. I don`t mean that business is about being nice to everyone all the time. It`s about being fair, trustworthy and excellent in communication, so that people always know where they stand.”Increasingly being called in to do executive coaching and high-level conflict resolution, Hamlyn says her greatest skill is probably to get people to open up. “I don`t judge, so people open up. It`s an enormous privilege and I would never break a confidence. There`s no price on that kind of information.” Richard Firth, CEO, MIP HoldingsFor a chief executive`s office, Richard Firth`s working space is modest. Rather on the small side for a large man, its furnishings, while functional, are hardly opulent. The only pictures on his walls are paintings by his children. The filter coffee is good, though, and it flows generously.“We`re a no-frills company,” he says, gently rapping the table with his knuckles as if to make the point that it`s not solid oak. “Four years ago, we were a prime listing candidate and it would have been a good listing. Then we sat down and said, ‘We`re software guys, let`s stick to our knitting`. So our money goes into technology and our people, and the company has grown substantially.”Notching up growth of around 70 percent over the past year, MIP`s performance in these torrid times for technology is enough to make most CEOs (with much fancier offices) turn green. “We`ve grown in a tough market,” agrees Firth. “We have good offshore international revenue and our product locally is doing well, too. We`re sticking to our knitting.”That knitting is woven firmly around its core programming skills, says Firth, who started his career as a Cobol programmer with Van Zyl & Pritchard.“At MIP, we believe you`ve got to be born a programmer. You either are one, or you`re not, and that takes logic, aptitude, an analytical mind – and time. If you`ve got 10 years experience under your belt, you`ve got experience in IT. If you`ve got one or two years, you haven`t got the experience yet.”Close on half of MIP`s 180 employees are programmers – born programmers, mind you – with experience ranging from a minimum of three years to as many as 20 years. “It shows in the quality of our delivery,” says Firth. “A lot of our customers here have had a good ride.”Firth hasn`t touched any code himself for about five years now, though. “Going from programmer to manager was quite hard for me, probably like getting divorced, but I love people, so that`s fine.”Instead, much of his energy now goes on making MIP a pleasant place to work. “When you`re a programmer, you can`t afford to be distracted by financial or personal worries. It takes about 35 minutes just to get into the flow of programming, and you have to give it 150 percent of your attention. All our employees have shares in the company and we do what we can to provide a nice working environment where people can do what they love doing. I never ever want to get up in the morning thinking, ‘Jeez, I`ve got to go to work today`.” Mike Wright, CEO, The E-mail CorporationThere`s a good reason why Mike Wright and his staff are crammed back-to-back into open-plan offices that are ridiculously small for 30 people, although no one seems to mind. “Slaves to bandwidth,” says Wright. “Lots of space or a super-fast PC – it`s an easy choice.”He points to the offices across the hall where The E-mail Corporation`s bandwidth provider is conveniently based. “We plug right into their port.”Right now, the company needs every bit of bandwidth it can get (though it`s also working on more office space in the same Rosebank building). Last month, it topped 10 million e-mails for the first time, not bad for a company in a country that has two million or so active Internet users.Wright, who`s actually a chartered accountant by training, started exploring e-mail back in the good old dot com days when it was still fashionable to throw a party to launch your web site. (He laughs uproariously at that quaint idea.)At the time, around three years ago, he was managing director – “a very green MD” – of VWV Interactive, and the client was (surprise, surprise) planning a web site launch, which would include a direct mailshot to 5 000 addressees.“Our assumption was that this was an e-mail shot,” says Wright. “Tremendous! But when we asked for the e-mail addresses, they said, ‘Aren`t we printing and posting it?` We totally missed each other.”That mailshot was dropped but the episode set his mind ticking. E-mail was clearly the future. He spent three days and nights working on a business plan and then, eureka, The E-mail Corporation, a direct electronic mailing specialist, was born.“I always thought I`d do something on my own,” says Wright, whose first stab at business was as a seven-year-old selling silkworms for 1c each on the pavement outside his house.“I`m someone who wanted to be responsible for my own success, but the business I wanted to start had to be well thought out and pragmatic, not a flash in the pan. I wanted to do it right, in a space where it would be tough for others to compete, and most of all, I never ever wanted to let anyone down.”Mass e-mail distribution fitted the bill on all counts, says Wright, who`d like people to see his business as “the e-mail company that builds great software”. “My little sister – our marketing director – would kill me for saying that,” he adds instantly, explaining that she`s positioning the company carefully as “a specialist in secure electronic document delivery”.Wright`s motto that “we`re never going to drop you” has clearly struck a chord among the company`s growing customer base, which includes top banks like Absa, Standard Bank, Nedbank, FNB and Investec.“For the first couple of years, we had that start-up feeling. This year, we passed that. We`re a real company with real clients, real revenues and real projects; we`re no longer a start-up. Hey, we`ve just had our first two orders from the UK. It seems that exactly what we do is exactly what they need. And we`ll be earning pounds!” Simon White, Joint MD, Forge Ahead BMI-TWith his overdeveloped social conscience pricking him mercilessly, Simon White is a pushover for worthy causes.“I suppose it`s one of my biggest weaknesses, my social conscience. I love this country immensely and I`ve always had a problem saying no when there`s an opportunity to contribute. I get extremely angry when people say SA is a violent country and I`ve made it a personal crusade to prove the whingers and whiners wrong.”His crusading spirit was ignited at the age of 14, when Soweto-born White began running the family shebeen – illegal, of course, at that time. “My mother (a single parent) was arrested so many times but I benefited from being under-age. The cops who used to raid us got fed up, put me in a kwela-kwela, told me I was going to jail, and drove me around for hours. They terrified me. Ever since, one of my driving philosophies has been to get involved with transformation and capacity-building. If you don`t make an impact positively on society, what is life worth living for?”Aided and abetted by seemingly endless reserves of physical energy – “I`m hyperactive, I can`t sit still, I have to be doing something all the time” – White admits he has tended to spread himself too thin for the transformation cause. “For me to be sane, I have to manage my life better, to be more reserved about getting involved.”On this score, he passed one major personal test recently by deciding not to stand for election to the Black Information Technology Forum, which Forge Ahead BMI-T helped incubate. “I was torn but I withdrew,” he says. “I told myself that there are other people who can make a contribution.”Not that he`s a rebel without a cause right now. His current crusade is to make a success of government plans to license telecoms operators in underserviced areas. “This is an incredible opportunity for local communities and entrepreneurs,” says White, who has personally visited all 10 districts earmarked for the licences, drumming up support and mobilising local communities to form bidding consortia.White, who has a BA in economics and a teacher`s diploma from the University of the Western Cape, says entrepreneurship would have been his first career choice in an ideal world.“I have a natural instinct for sniffing out business opportunities, but the social conscience always pulls my entrepreneurial spirit back. One tends to do things you see as a calling; in a certain sense, I have been married too much to that one aspect. Hopefully, at the right time, one can break the umbilical cord and do what`s in my nature.” Peter Forsyth, CEO, ERP.comChartered accountants are supposed to be cautious folk. Quite possibly, that`s why, when the stock market was dead as a dodo, Peter Forsyth decided to go for a listing in the venture capital sector.“September 1999 was probably the worst time ever to list. The IT market was as depressed as I`ve ever seen it, but we were doing it for the right reasons,” says Forsyth. “One, we needed to make sure we had a profile in the market. Two, we were a total start-up and we had to have a vehicle to make acquisitions and put a value on the share.”Three years on, ERP.com, now growing at an average of 56 percent a year, has qualified to move to the main board of the JSE Securities Exchange – a feat that Forsyth says is a first. “No other IT company has survived three years on venture capital and moved to the main board. It`s a sign that we have matured, that we have a track record. In the IT industry, which has developed a credibility problem in the past four or five years, that`s important. We don`t expect miracles but I like to think that we`ve shown we can deliver and keep our promises.”While talkative enough when the subject is ERP.com, Forsyth is reticent when the conversation turns to himself. How does he feel about his nomination for this award? “I was pleasantly surprised,” he says. Silence.“I`ve never been great on talking about myself, everyone knows that. It`s not about me, it`s about the company. We have very good people and we`re not at all interested in egos and status.”Prodded, he is only marginally more forthcoming. Why did he make the leap from accounting to technology? “I got bored with accounting. I see myself as an entrepreneur – a very patient entrepreneur. It takes time to build an asset, the last three years have taught me that.”He has also learnt that golf, a sport he took up late, at the age of 35, is a great revealer of character. “It brings out the best and the worst in people,” he says enigmatically.Which, in his case, means what? Forsyth laughs: “I`m a very good winner; I`m a wonderful person when I`m winning! I`ve also learnt how to handle disappointments, though. I can accept setbacks and put them behind me. With golf, like in business, you can never sit back and think you`ve arrived. I could kick myself for not starting earlier.” Ignatius Jacobs, MEC, Gauteng Education DepartmentSorry, man, when we`re in the middle of writing matric exams, it`s like I`m writing matric exams,” says Nash Jacobs, apologising for being so scarce lately. “You`ve got to hold thumbs for us. In 1998, the matric pass rate was 52 percent. By 2001, it was up to 74 percent. This year, we`re hoping for 80 percent.”Of all this year`s nominees for IT Personality of the Year, Jacobs seems the most unlikely candidate. On the other hand, education and technology are no longer like chalk and cheese. In fact, it`s chalkless teaching that he`s aiming for.As MEC for education, Jacobs is championing GautengOnline, the province`s drive to put at least 25 PCs in every school within the next three years. “As a developmental economy person, one sees the transition from an industrial-based to an ICT-based society,” says Jacobs, who has a social sciences degree and has held the provincial education portfolio since July 1999.“Education gives birth to all other professions, so the question is how does the education system respond to this challenge? If we equip our learners sufficiently with resources and quality teaching, this generation will be the Mark Shuttleworths, the Chris Barnards, the Miriam Makebas of the future. We`re preparing our learners for real time, real learning, real smart,” he says, quoting the GautengOnline slogan.The project is still in its early stages, but is already producing measurable results, says Jacobs. “It has had its ups and downs, but the small part we have done up to now is clearly creating a revolution in education. There is an amazing enthusiasm at pilot schools: attendance levels are rising, drop-out rates are decreasing dramatically, and school administration and lesson preparation are improving.”Take the planning of school timetables. “With chalk on a board, this used to be one of the most complex admin jobs at schools. It`s so easy now, because the software designs everything for you. As educators, we are also appreciating this information-age society.”Jacobs, who says connected computer laboratories will have been rolled out to more than 1 000 schools by next November, has high praise for the technology industry`s enthusiasm for the project. “The support from industry has been overwhelming. They have funded the entire cost of the pilot, and are coming forward with strategic support and advice. Industry is playing a crucial role and has clearly seen that this is an investment that is also to their benefit.”

Case Study
Clairwyn van der Merwe
abc