The IMF says the global economy is likely to expand 3.7% in 2018. What is your personal investment philosophy? 
A 3.7% growth rate for the world economy is quite thought-provoking when considering that some emerging markets, such as South Africa, are not expected to grow by much more than 2% in 2018. The foundation of my personal investment philosophy is the elimination of debt, starting with the most expensive debt.
Is it mainly cash, stocks or mutual funds where there is growth? Any other preferred financial instruments? 
The organization that I work for restricts me from directly investing in shares, due to independence requirements, and so I generally do not invest in shares. The asset I find attractive is property, followed by unit trusts. Interest rates are currently low, and have been so for some time as a result of the pressure that the global economy has been under, and so I do not consider cash to be an attractive asset class.
What about real estate, art, jewelry, wines, watches…? Do you see them as worthwhile investments too? 
I strongly believe that real estate should form part of any wealth creation and preservation strategy. I have never invested in art, jewelry or wines (as an asset), and so cannot speak with any authority on these type of investments. Over time, and with the exception of the odd property bubble, real estate has proven itself to be able to generate inflation beating returns for relatively low risk. However, one should always be cautious of property bubbles and unrealistic expectations.
How do you balance your portfolio between liquid and fixed assets to build wealth? 
We are fortunate enough to live in a country that still makes it possible to hold a good balance of both, and where fixed investments can be liquidated with relative ease. This is not always guaranteed in other parts of the world. When one is still young, I believe a portfolio should always be weighted towards fixed assets, with the liquidity being prioritized as and when one gets nearer to retirement.
Is investment about getting rich or increasing savings? What are your own long-term goals? 
The first goal of investment should be to secure financial independence and the ability to sustain one&#8217;s lifestyle long after retirement. This does not necessarily translate into being wealthy. After all, wealth is a relative term. With people living longer and longer, the ultimate long-term goal is to have enough to live on after retirement without having to make significant changes to one&#8217;s lifestyle.
What returns do you target from your investments and how do you monitor it? 
As a minimum, one should target for one&#8217;s investments to outstrip inflation and to cover any investment and financing costs associated with that investment. I enlist the services of a broker to monitor performance. 
 
What do think the seven habits of successful investors must be? 
Perhaps not seven in total, but a good mentor once told me the following: 
1. Try and pay off your debt in the shortest possible time. 
2. Do not be greedy. 
3. Do not follow the herd. 
4. Invest for the long-term, and do not be fazed by short-term volatility. 
5. Life is not only about money.
Was there any one time when you thought your plans didn’t work, especially in a volatile market? 
All asset classes come with some exposure and risk. Very few people in the world can claim not to have been impacted in some way or another by the 2008 global financial crisis.
With longevity increasing and global billionaires investing in prolonging life, how best can one be retirement-ready? 
Retirement-readiness is a big problem in society today, and it is an accepted fact that people generally do not save enough for retirement. There is unfortunately no silver bullet to this. The simple fact is that one gets retirement-ready through exercising discipline in saving, and to start saving for retirement at the youngest possible age. Of course, one is always in control of one&#8217;s lifestyle.

Me & My Money: Dion Shango

Kenya’s nascent mutual fund industry is becoming an important component in the country’s financial landscape. With increasing international focus on frontier economies, the country is slowly emerging as an investment destination for foreign investment funds seeking exposure in East Africa.
Moreover, the emergence of a thriving middle class is also creating capital flows for local asset managers. The industry, which is regulated by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), now commands $430 million in assets under management, having grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.2% since 2010, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Africa Asset Management 2020 report.
For a long time, growth in Kenya’s mutual fund industry was subdued due to an underdeveloped capital market. Until 2006, equity transactions were still being done through the floor-based open outcry system, share certificates still served as proof of ownership, trading hours were limited to two hours, trade settlements took four days and less than 50 entities were listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). As a consequence, by the close of 2005, only five investment funds operated and total market capitalization accounted for less than a third of its gross domestic product (GDP). This state of affairs seriously hampered Kenya’s capital markets as an important investment destination.
However, since 2006, all this changed drastically with the number of listed companies increasing to 63 and the total market capitalization rising to nearly 41% of GDP by the end of last year. Between 2006 and 2014, equity turnover doubled to $2.15 billion, Kenya managed to successfully issue its first sovereign bond which raised a total of $2 billion, the number of operating investment funds grew to 71 and the NSE received approval to demutualize and self list on the exchange. In April, the top foreign investment funds investing in Kenya had at least 25% of their funds allocated in the country, according to PwC research.
Despite this growth, the fund industry has a long way to go as it still accounts for an extremely small share of GDP at 0.7% and 0.8% of total financial sector assets. Among other reasons, a poor savings culture in the country has been blamed for the small size of the industry. The World Bank puts Kenya’s saving rate at around 12 to 13% of GDP which is half the average for all low-income countries (at 26% of GDP) and slightly lower than Africa’s rate which stands at around 17%. Furthermore, with wealth distribution highly unequal, the fund market has relied almost entirely on institutional investors. The young industry also has to deal with rising competition from other alternative investment vehicles such as the real estate sector and private equity.
Nonetheless, a combination of certain fundamental factors are likely to drive the mutual fund industry’s speedy growth in the coming years. These factors are stable economic growth, strong market performance, widespread adoption of mobile technology which makes delivery of new products cheaper, introduction of new asset classes, cross listings, loosening of regulations, political stability, investor education and the emergence of the middle class. The latter, which now stands at 44.9% of Kenya’s total population, is projected to grow at an average of 5% every year. The expansion of this group will be instrumental in driving demand for mutual fund products such as equity and fixed-income funds.
In addition, government’s agenda to grow the financial sector as stated through the Vision 2030 development program will also boost the mutual fund industry. Through the recently launched Kenya Diaspora Policy, funds can expect to tap into the ever increasing diaspora remittances. Since the CMA has been keen to market Kenya’s financial markets through diaspora conferences, mutual funds can expect to be a major beneficiary. According to the CMA, remittances inflows have risen from $408 million in 2006 to $1.43 billion in 2014, or the equivalent of a CAGR of 15%. Average monthly remittances now stand at over $100 million. Kenya’s government estimates that 15% of the remittances are used in productive investments.
The future is indeed bright and there is little doubt that Kenya’s mutual fund industry will grow to become a strong player within the finance sector and the economy at large.

Growing In Leaps  And Bounds

The performance of African markets was strong last year, with money raised by companies doubling to $10.9 billion. Buoyed by a 40% jump in terms of volume of offers, 2014 saw the highest level of activity in African equity capital markets (ECM) over the previous five years, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report: IPO Watch Africa 2014.
The report showed a total of 90 initial public offerings (IPOs) which raised $6.3 billion between 2010 and 2014. Secondary offers, on the other hand, raised a total of $31.1 billion, representing 83% of the total capital raised and 27% of the transaction volume in the same period. The resurging interest tops a five-year high, recorded in 2010, when African exchanges raised $7.6 billion in fresh equity capital.
Growth in the size of the capital markets highlighted the shift from commodity-based to a broader range of sectors, most notably financial services. During the 2010-2014 period, financials accounted for almost half of the companies raising new capital. Last year, this figure stood at 57%. Within the same year, four out of the top 10 IPOs by proceeds were financial stocks, according to Dealogic, an international financial services information provider.
The report also revealed a new trend – the growth of regional stock exchanges. The research indicated a greater share of capital was raised in markets outside of South Africa, which itself accounted for only 32% and 44% of total IPO capital raised in 2013 and 2014 respectively, a departure from its more prominent position in previous years. Last year, money raised by companies on other African exchanges increased by 66% to $1 billion compared to the previous year. However these stock exchanges still have a long way to go. In the five-year period under review, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) accounted for 78% and 64% of capital raised and transaction volume respectively. Ranked first in the world by the World Economic Forum’s 2014-2015 Global Competitiveness Report for its regulatory framework, it is easy to see why the JSE continues to dominate the Africa’s capital raising landscape.
Most notably, a number of the top 10 IPOs in the past two years had an international component, either foreign companies raising capital directly on African exchanges, or African companies marketing shares to international investors through dual listings or sales to qualified institutional buyers abroad. Since 2010, nine African companies have listed outside the continent, raising a total of $370 million while only one non-African company listed in the continent, raising $107 million. This trend highlights an increasing global integration of businesses in the region and the interest of international investors in Africa.
Regional exchanges need to continue building on the strong momentum of last year. Already, 2015 is shaping up to be a positive year for equity capital market activity in Africa. Nigeria has recorded two capital raisings in January alone; an IPO and a secondary offer. Ongoing harmonization of regional exchanges and liberalization of capital markets through legislation are necessary to keep the momentum going. This is essential to uphold investor confidence and attract new players, such as the private equity funds. To date, the most common means of exiting these funds has been through a sale to corporates, which accounts for about two-fifths of exits, according to the African Private Equity &amp; Venture Capital Association.
Furthermore, improving social conditions, rising urbanization and the adoption of new technological advances are important factors in driving regional exchanges forward. These transformations must be matched with political stability and more effective economic and fiscal policies in order to deliver stable regional exchanges. In addition, improving liquidity and quality of information is crucial. The latter has been blamed for international public companies being hesitant to list on African stock exchanges and foreign investors investing in domestic listed companies.
No doubt, as these measures are steadily implemented, Africa’s rise in the international capital markets is assured.

The Rebirth Of Africa’s Capital Markets

Nando’s founder Robert Brozin, 53, looks, speaks, and swears, more like a surfer than the head of a food industry giant.
Dressed in a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, a ‘united against malaria’ bracelet and loafers, he could easily be dismissed as an old man suffering from a midlife crisis. It’s all part of his plan to disarm anyone who has preconceived ideas about how a company chairman should look and act.
The reality is that Brozin is a very smart businessman. At the FNB Franchising Leadership Summit held in Sandton, Johannesburg last year, he told the gathered crowd:
“Our basic vision, when we started twenty five years ago, was to have fun. If you are not going to have fun, do not do it. This is not a dress rehearsal; this is life, boet [brother in Afrikaans]. We are trying to keep that balance while at the same time changing how the world thinks about chicken,” he says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1729" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Pic3-217x300.jpg" alt="" width="217" height="300" />
Nando’s has certainly changed the way the world thinks about chicken, not only through the spicy meals they dish up but through their infamous, sometimes political, advertising campaigns.
But where did it all start?
Brozin was born in the small town of Middelburg, in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province, but finished high school at Johannesburg’s King David High School.
He did a BComm degree at the University of the Witwaters-rand, after which he joined accounting giant, Price Waterhouse before they became PricewaterhouseCoopers.
He did two years of articles before joining his father’s business Teltron as a marketing manager.
While working at Teltron, he met his future business partner Fernando Duarte, who introduced him to a shop in the small suburb of Rosettenville called Chickenland that sold Portuguese chicken. They later bought the shop.
FORBES AFRICA had an opportunity to speak to him after the summit.
“Fernando and I used to go eat in Rosettenville and I liked the chicken. I wanted to be an investor. I thought I would put money in and Fernando would be there and I would just come to check how things were. But this was not the case. I soon found out I had to be full-time,” says Brozin.
Brozin wanted to take the brand global and enlisted the services of various advertising agencies to help him market the brand.
They finally found the right match in HuntLascaris, which was also just starting out. The two companies created some of the most talked about advertisements in South African television.
“We met Reg and John, who became our first proper agency. We were so aligned, whereas before we were running around like chickens without heads. I remember Hunt presenting adverts to us that I thought were terrible that went on to win awards, which I will now take credit for,” says Brozin.
One of the HuntLascaris founders, Reg Lascaris, remembers those early days for both companies that have since grown to become world beaters.
“I met Robbie in the very early ‘90s, when he was looking for an advertising agency to handle his business. He came to see us and we then presented some ideas back to him, which he liked. Our biggest achievement was in creating breakthrough and controversial advertising that helped create the personality of the brand,” he says.
Today, Nando’s can be found in more than 25 countries around the world, across five continents. But it hasn’t been plain sailing for Brozin, and his partner, to get it to this level.
“When we started out everyone knew about the other brands like Chicken Licken and KFC […] but we were passionate about chicken. The front line people are the real heroes at Nando’s. You can’t have a great organization without having good people at that level,” he says.
He also gives credit to his father, Max, and his partner for keeping him going when times were tough.
“There were times when I was ready to throw in the towel. My personal success has been surrounding myself with people who pull you up when you are down. My dad has been a huge influence in my life. He is a Jewish accountant. Everything is about cost. Fernando has been fantastic for me. We disagree many times but he has gotten me out of [trouble] many times. It’s not how you get into [trouble] but how you get out of [trouble],” he says.
Brozin has stepped down as CEO of Nando’s and has appointed David Niven, previously head of the American and European Nando’s divisions, in his place. Brozin says it was time to get some “adult supervision” but admits that he is busier than he has ever been.
“It needed the right time and right guy to come in and thicken the Nando’s brand globally. I gave the new CEO a watch. I said, ‘You might have the watch but Africa has the time. As you get bigger you get tighter and you squeeze people. That is not the way to do it.’”
It is clear that the married father of three is not only driven by profits; he is passionate about his efforts to curb the spread of malaria in Africa.
Nando’s sells ‘united against malaria’ bracelets in all of its restaurants to raise awareness. The proceeds go to buying mosquito nets for people in affected regions.
However, it is in business where Brozin is an expert. He offers some advice to those wishing to follow in his footsteps.
“When Reg and John started they had no cash, no office… they started at the back of a car. Who starts one of the best agencies in the world in the back of a car? You have got to start with nothing. If you start with too much and you have the biggest offices in the world you are not going to achieve much. Entrepreneurs come to me and ask for cash. Cash is the last thing. Money has four legs, man has two legs. Money will always catch up to man.”
Sound advice, indeed, from a Jewish boy from the northern suburbs, who started selling Portugese chicken in the south; and now sells Nando’s to the world.
<h4>CONTROVERSIAL</h4>
<h4>NANDO’S ADVERTS</h4>
<h4>(MOSTLY CREATED BY BLACK RIVER F.C. ADVERTISING AGENCY)</h4>
<h4>LAST DICTATOR ADVERT</h4>
The advert shows a sad Robert Mugabe dining alone at Christmas in a mansion, while he reminisces about “the good old days” with former controversial leaders. Times when he played water tag with Muammar Gaddafi; made angels in the sand with Saddam Hussein; pushed P. W. Botha on a children’s swing and drove a tank with Idi Amin, while Those Were the Days is being played.
<h4>XENOPHOBIA ADVERT</h4>
In this 60 seconds advert Nando’s aims to ridicule Xenophobia. A xenophobe says that he wishes that all foreigners would disappear from South Africa. Frame by frame South Africans from ethnic and tribal groups start disappearing until only a Khoisan remains on screen. He says, “I am not going anywhere, you found us here”.
<h4>NANDO’S CHICKEN BREAST ADVERT</h4>
A customer orders a Nando’s burger and chips, which are delivered while she is on the phone. Her breasts are so big they cover the plate. At the end of her telephone conversation she asks the waiter where her chips are. They waiter says, “Right in front of you”. She only sees the chips when the waiter pulls the plate to the center of the table.

Nando’s: Not A Headless Chicken

On March 1, 2001, a small bank opened in South Africa with the aim of providing easy and affordable banking services to its customers. Attracted by this alluring promise, in no time people were queuing up to open a Capitec account. Today, the bank has more than four million customers; clearly CEO Riaan Stassen’s move from the liquor industry to banking has been a fortuitous one.
Born in Cape Town, Stassen earned a Bachelor in Commerce Honors degree from the University of Stellenbosch. He then did his articles and CA qualification at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) before spending 14 years in the liquor industry.
The course of his career changed in 1995, when Stassen was asked to reengineer Boland Bank, a conservative regional bank established in 1900. After South African retail billionaire Christo Wiese bought Boland, it merged with Natal Building Society (NBS) and Board of Executors (BoE).
Stassen spent five years at BoE Bank, during which time he came up with a different banking concept: a retail bank for mid-to-lower income people. According to Stassen, the incumbent banks were failing in four areas: accessibility, affordability, simplicity and personal service. He left BoE with his management team and a goal to succeed where others had failed.
Stassen says that South Africa’s existing banks had never transformed to align with the cultural diversity of the country.
“So we saw that as quite a key opportunity for us to create that cement with our customer base,” he says.
Stassen and his team were approached by PSG Holdings, a company owned by South African millionaire investor Jannie Mouton, to manage PSG Specialized Lending, its micro-lending company focused on low-income customers. The name was changed to Capitec and the bank listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2002.
It was no easy road for Capitec. The start-up capital was R250 million ($28 million), it listed with net assets of just under R400 million ($45 million), at R2 (around 2 US cents) a share. Within three months its market capitalization dropped to just under R50 million ($5.6 million).
The first few years of Capitec’s life were dedicated to developing an application platform that could handle high-volume, low-value transactions, efficiently and at a lower cost.
The system is run from Bellville—a small town just outside of Cape Town. From there the bank runs the administration that usually takes place at branch level, shifting the branch focus to its customers. The last fundamental of the technology component is the ability to conduct all processes in real time.
The bank uses fingerprint biometrics to counter fraud and is currently testing new ATMs fitted with the system. Capitec is also the first bank in South Africa to allow coin deposits at ATMs, further evidence of its focus on low-income customers.
Stassen says other South African banks are rife with high costs, lack of transparency and confusing jargon.
“We believe what a person needs from a bank is to move money, to park money and to get money,” he says.
Capitec’s solution to this is its Global One account—a single account that can be used for transactions, including online purchases, as a savings vehicle and as a way to apply for credit. Customers can get up to R230,000 ($25,700) in cash within minutes of applying for a loan. This amount is determined by an affordability assessment based on their monthly cash flow and is repayable over one to 84 months, also based on personal ability. The interest paid, 17% to 28%, also depends on the individual’s credit profile.
A big bone of contention in South Africa has been unsecured lending. In the past, borrowers were required to secure a loan with collateral. With unsecured lending, clients do not need this security, “In South Africa nowadays unsecured lending has become a swearword, and that’s absolute nonsense,” says Stassen.
He points out that as far as Capitec is concerned, it’s not about the assets a person has, but their cash flow.
“There are 20 million active credit clients in South Africa. There are 1.8 million credit clients who have any form of home finance, a mortgage grant. Only 1.8 [million]. So what are the other 18 million people doing to improve their standard of living?” asks Charl Nel, the head of strategic communications at Capitec.
Few deny the fact that South Africa, like most of the world, is a consumption-driven society as opposed to a saving one, or that defaults are part of the territory, but as it currently stands, over 95% of Capitec’s book is current. Despite citizens’ household debt often being greater than disposable income, according to Capitec’s interim results from September, its number of arrears had decreased to 4.4%.
“The profile of our credit client is definitely changing as we are seeing new credit clients with higher income levels attracted to our offer,” the interim report says.
According to a report by South Africa’s National Credit Regulator, unsecured credit in the first quarter of 2012 grew by 49.4% year-on-year. This is a rate far higher than any of the other types of credit.
Capitec has millions of customers, and Stassen attributes the bank’s success to widespread discontent with the big four banks among their customer base, as well as its strong proposition to customers. His is the first bank in South Africa to be open on Sundays, a move that persuaded one of its large competitors, Nedbank, to follow suit.
“We had to think a lot on our feet. We change things a lot. What we thought was going to work had to be changed slightly. And often in a very old, stale, established organization you get resistance and that’s dangerous because people kind of trip up the process,” says Nel.
How does the bank manage to make money and a success out of low-cost banking, especially when they have kept their prices unchanged for the past three years? As most business minds know, you can only undercut your competitors for so long before it becomes costly. Stassen says Capitec could only be priced significantly lower than their opponents if they took smaller margins or lowered their cost structure. Their solution appears to be running the bank like a production line.
“Stassen is an exceptional CEO. One of the best that I’ve come across because since he joined Capitec we’re really focused. They developed a great computer system and it’s a great success,” says Mouton.
Stassen admits that they were initially ignored by the bigger banks because they started off as a micro lending organization. When they began to look beyond this; their competitors believed their primary focus would be on the unbanked and the lower income market. Then around two years ago the more established banks started to take notice.
Capitec now has around 9% of South Africa’s banking market share and their most important objective is to attract primary banking accounts, those into which salaries are directly deposited. The bank also plans to launch a credit card at the end of this year.
The interim results stated that Capitec’s transaction fee income for the first six months of the financial year grew by 61% to R583 million ($65 million) year-on-year. Headline earnings per share grew by 35% to R7.02 ($0.80). Income from credit was R3.6 million ($403,000), which the bank says is due to growth in the unsecured credit market.
The management team at Capitec had been part of a share incentive scheme, allowing them to buy into the company. Last year, there were numerous reports and speculation as to Capitec’s health and suggestions that its captain, Stassen, was abandoning ship, and that other executives were offloading their shares too. When asked about it Stassen says: “It was very bad reporting”.
The truth of the matter is that Stassen sold most of the shares in his own name but that 95% of his investment in the bank is held by a company in his family trust. The private investment company owns more than R400 million ($44.8 million) worth of shares.
“I believe it’s extremely dangerous for executives to be over-extended to the company they run,” says Stassen.
He says this is because, when executives become over-exposed, they start making short-term decisions and manipulate numbers to protect the share price.
Last year, Capitec sought to raise funds through a rights issue, which increased the bank’s capital base by R2.25 billion ($252 million). The funds were for the extension of the branch network, with 55 to 75 new branches proposed for this year, and to increase lending.
Earlier this year PSG sold off some off its stake in Capitec to repay debt incurred in the purchasing of approximately R724 million ($81 million) from the rights issue last year. PSG’s stake in Capitec has dropped from 32.2% to 28.5%, and the company says it will not be selling off any more of its shares.
Then in February, the South African Public Prosecutor confirmed that it will launch a formal investigation into a black economic empowerment deal, from 2011, resulting in a consortium with ties to the country’s ruling party acquiring nearly R1 billion ($122 million) worth of Capitec shares. Nel says they will cooperate fully with the investigation.
Capitec is currently focusing on South Africa but will start identifying opportunities in other countries on the continent. Its long-term goal has always been to internationalize its banking model. Infrastructure is however a concern as the bank is highly reliant on technology. As the fastest growing retail bank in South Africa for individuals, winner of Africa’s Top 100 JSE Companies for the second time, forging into an under-tapped market and making the big dogs follow suit, could mean Capitec will lose its underdog title.
Goliath may not be down and out yet, but he is certainly taking notes on David.

A Plucky David Banking  On Beating Goliaths

Aspirant young leaders are often given the following exhortation: “It’s the attitude, not the aptitude, that determines the altitude.” Aptitude here may be somewhat underrated, but attitude is pitch-perfect. As for the altitude, it needs an exemplar to give the exhortation schtick. Suresh Kana, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Southern Africa, springs to mind. He’s proved as adept at climbing the corporate ladder as he is at scaling some of the world’s highest mountains.
<div id="attachment_51" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51" class="size-large wp-image-51" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kana53_1-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />CEO of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southern Africa, Suresh Kana, Johannesburg; 3 August 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
If you think he’s an adrenaline junkie, you’d be wrong. A lifelong vegetarian and adherent to Gandhi’s principles, Kana exudes a quiet confidence. “In my personal time, I enjoy a good challenge,” he says. “Climbing and trekking are a passion and a hobby.”
In his 35 years at PwC, he has risen through the ranks from being the first black professional to join the firm in 1976 and its first black partner in 1986, to being the only South African appointed to the board of the International Audit and Assurance Standards in 1995, serving for nine years. He currently serves on the King Committee on Corporate Governance and other regulatory boards.
Yet despite reaching the pinnacle of success, for Kana there are always mountains to climb, professionally as well as recreationally.
Like his career, there’s been an interesting trajectory to his outdoor adventures. In August 2000, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro; in December that year, he walked 400km in 10 days across India to commemorate Gandhi’s Salt March, which was undertaken in the 1930s to protest the colonial Salt Tax. Kana has subsequently led two groups—22 people in December 2004 and 15 in December 2009—to Everest base camp. Both groups comprised mainly young adults under the age of 23 with some school kids.
“It’s a huge responsibility,” he admits, “but these expeditions are my way of mentoring young people and setting them on track towards developing into the leaders of tomorrow. They are taken out of their comfort zones and encouraged to think differently and innovatively, and to learn about themselves.”
Their trainer is Kana himself. “We train for about four months. The kids have to be at my door at 5am and show they’re disciplined and committed (do they know that their trainer is up at 3:08am precisely, six days a week, doing yoga and meditation?). You can’t simulate high-altitude conditions – it takes a lot of physical and mental preparation to enable you to face what’s there. By the time the kids write their exams in October and November, their parents tell me how focused and fit they are.
“We start the trek in Lukla, and once we’ve reached our destination at Kala Pattar, we’re 5,600m above sea level—that’s three times South Africa’s highest altitude and at freezing temperatures of about minus 20 degrees. We walk for about eight hours a day.”
All four of Kana’s children have joined these expeditions; two of them have gone both times.
So what happens on the trek? “Organization is key. The children are divided into groups of four and we operate according to certain acronyms. There’s the WAR (Watch and Review) Committee, whereby the sherpas ensure that the children are hydrated, are eating their meals and generally coping. ICU refers to any problems that arise—if so, steps are quickly taken to resolve the problem. For example, a weaker child is placed at the front and stronger climbers behind.”
What about the risks? “There are always risks, but we measure them in relation to the circumstances. This does not stop me as I believe there’s enough in place to assist when I need it.”
And measured against the rewards, “it’s a hugely satisfying experience—with a stunning view. On a deeper level, it centers me. Unlike the boardroom, mountains are vast areas of peace where all is still and nothing matters. It’s about pushing one’s limits.”
Yet he also draws distinct parallels between climbing and corporate life. “Both demand teamwork, risk and knowledge management, excellence, leadership and resilience. Both require you to master your emotions and focus on the task at hand. You have to determine how you are going to react to people and circumstances.”
How does this define his managerial role at PwC? “People rank high on my list of priorities and I have an empowering management style.” He’s not paying lip service; he has, at different intervals, headed up the HR, transformation and corporate social responsibility arms of PwC. “The firm invests heavily in skills development programs, and it shows: our students consistently rank among the country’s top 10 achievers.”
<div id="attachment_52" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-52" class="size-large wp-image-52" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kana12_1-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />CEO of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southern Africa, Suresh Kana, Johannesburg; 3 August 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
Kana’s other enduring passion is promoting good governance. The double dips of corruption and unemployment are of great concern. “Our credibility is at stake at a time when we desperately need foreign direct investment for growth and jobs. Corruption is nothing but a burdensome tax on the poor; it’s unacceptable.”
Nevertheless, he remains upbeat. “I believe that wisdom and truth will always prevail. It’s incumbent on a leader to be optimistic while recognizing what challenges you face. You become an authentic leader when you’re accessible and engage with people, aligning them to a common vision.
“At the World Economic Forum in Davos last year, South Africa came out tops for having the best accounting, auditing and corporate governance standards, as well as the best stock exchange regulations.
“We need to have this mindset of excellence all the time. This means planning for crises and having structures in place for disaster recovery—not unlike the WAR Committee and ICU processes that occur on our mountaineering expeditions.”
&nbsp;
What would he say to other CEOs who merely play golf? “Whether it’s chasing a little white golf ball or a little white tip of a mountain, it’s what makes you wake up in the morning and look forward to your day.”
He’s looking forward to going to the South Pole next: any takers?

Tag: PricewaterhouseCoopers

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Me & My Money: Dion Shango

Growing In Leaps And Bounds

Growing In Leaps And Bounds

The Rebirth Of Africa’s Capital Markets

Nando’s: Not A Headless Chicken

A Plucky David Banking On Beating Goliaths

The Attitude And The Altitude