Once again this year I judged the EY World Entrepreneur Awards Southern Africa and it gave me an opportunity to appreciate that even amid all the challenges we face as a country and region, we have made great progress in building great entrepreneurs, and black economic empowerment has played a key role.
These awards started 20 years ago, with Adrian Gore being the first winner to enter the EY Southern Africa hall of fame. Since then there have been a number of amazing entrepreneurs - to name a few, Patrice Motsepe (African Rainbow Minerals), Stephen Saad (Aspen Pharmacare) and Ndaba Ntsele (Pamodzi Investment Holdings) - and this year continued to add to this illustrious list.
Even though the backstories of each finalist were available to us prior to judging, to hear how they started out with dreams, ideas and passion to make a difference became alive.
It is then that I realised the importance of hearing such stories, even if only to appreciate just how much the South African landscape is changing thanks to these entrepreneurs and their acumen in taking advantage of opportunity.
We have seen a transformation across all boundaries, including women entrepreneurs, who are excelling.
One such example among this year's finalists is Christi Maherry, who co-founded information security business LAWtrust. Christi has grown the business exponentially from a two-person operation in a borrowed, shareholder's office, to a digital security business that touches the lives of all South African citizens and continues to grow globally.
Another is Simphiwe Mehlomakulu, who, in 2003, formed the Reatile Group, investing in the petroleum and energy sectors of the southern African economy. Simphiwe's personal vision started with the selection of the official company name, "Reatile", meaning "We are growing" or, more directly, "We have grown".
— The landscape is changing thanks to these entrepreneurs.
The success and continued growth of Reatile is a direct result of Simphiwe's perseverance in fulfilling the group's vision of becoming the leading local private-investment holding company in the industrial and energy sector of southern Africa. As an independent thinker Simphiwe creates investment opportunities where some only see risk, uncertainty or possible failure.
"Entrepreneurs are people who are risk takers. They have no fear of dealing with ambiguity. Entrepreneurs must be patient and exercise a great level of tolerance," says Simphiwe.
Then there's Andries van Heerden. His entrepreneurial journey began quite suddenly when he was fired from his job, and it was that moment that paved the way to the establishment of Afrimat. Guided by his vision to consolidate a fragmented aggregates industry before the construction boom of the mid-2000s, Andries has developed Afrimat into one of the most successful companies in the construction industry.
We also have Lindani Mthwa, who founded Siyanda Resources, a disruptive mining company, in 2005. It is run by mining professionals focusing on steel raw material, energy raw material and industrial raw materials. They produce ferrosilicon and chrome and do gold smelting.
One thing these entrepreneurs have in common is that they have not just built successful businesses. More importantly, neither have they forgotten the communities in which they operate. All of them spend an inordinate amount of time and money in supporting those less fortunate than them.
This proves that one can achieve almost anything if given the opportunity - actually, no, if they take the opportunity.
This year, EY honoured Adrian Gore with the lifetime achievement award, which I think was apt and deserving. He not only created a mega-company, he keeps disrupting industries that he enters. It started with the medical insurance company, then insurance, and soon it will be banking.
These few examples show that we can build globally sustainable companies from right here at home.
• Khumalo is chief operating officer of MSG Afrika and presents 'Power Business' on Power98.7 at 6pm, Monday to Thursday
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