What’s your one top tip for doing a deal?
Something I learnt while working at Brait and continue to learn at Bright On Capital is when investing in a business, assess and understand the quality of the “jockey” (leader of the business) you are backing. A great jockey can navigate a business through the good and, more importantly, the bad.
What was your first job?
My siblings and I worked in various roles at my dad’s supermarket during all our school holidays, from grade 8.
How much was your first pay cheque, and how did you spend it?
R15 a day. I got paid the day before we went back to school and when back at school, I completely indulged in pies, doughnuts and Cokes for a few days. I was properly over peanut butter sandwiches and Oros.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?
My mom gave me my greatest life lesson when I was 13, when she said learn to adapt as you never know what life may throw at you.
If you could fix only one thing in South Africa, what would it be?
I would focus our economic strategy on enhancing the country’s competitiveness and improving its productivity. In all our economic decision-making I would ask, how does this enhance our competitiveness.
What’s the most interesting thing about you that people don’t know?
I have 22 brothers and sisters. And for some reason I used to hide this fact at school, a fact that I now know is one of my greatest blessings.
What’s the worst investment mistake you’ve made?
I declined a job offer to lead a small PSG subsidiary because of dumb salary expectations, and I failed to pay proper attention to the proposed share incentive scheme
What’s the best investment you’ve ever made? And how much of it was due to luck?
Co-founding Bright On Capital. I still don’t completely understand why our key investor took the decision to back us, when all we really had was a cool pitch deck and an unnecessarily complicated Excel model.
What is the hardest life lesson you’ve learnt so far?
It never really gets easier, but it does get better.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Patience.
What is something you would go back and tell your younger self that would impress them?
I would tell him about my incredible team, family and friends.
Was there ever a point at which you wanted to trade it all in for a different career? And, if so, what would that career be?
Pretty much every week, but I can’t think of anything else I would rather do.
If you were President Cyril Ramaphosa, what would you change, or do, tomorrow?
Create a more flexible labour market regulatory framework, particularly to accommodate the volatile growth of small businesses.
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