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Bonnke Shipalana: Poster child of executive excellence for profit

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Bonnke Shipalana
Bonnke Shipalana

Bonnke Shipalana is by no means new to the limelight, in fact, as the chief executive officer of a prominent communications company, he has become one of a few notable faces of executive excellence in that space.

However, though he has established himself well as an author, a motivational speaker and a communications guru, as the boss of The Communications Firm (TCF), Shipalana has managed to remain humble and it is easy to see why when one sits down for an interview with the Limpopo-born disruptor.

Speaking to City Press from TCF head office in northern Johannesburg, Shipalana relates how he has managed to continually reinvent himself, even before his decade-long stint as the chief executive of TCF.

“I was born in a rich environment, not a rich family,” he said of his humble upbringing in Tzaneen, where he went to the local Dududu Junior Primary School, then Ritavi senior primary and he later matriculated at Hudson Ntsanwisi High School when he was just 15.

It was at Ritavi that he was initiated into entrepreneurship when he sold popcorn and sweets, but he reckons there was really no need to sell because his parents were not struggling to make ends meet. “But I loved it because I enjoyed convincing people,” he says.

“I only got accepted to one university in the country because of my poor matric results. I applied to all universities in the country,” he says, elaborating on how he ended up enrolling for a Bachelor of Commerce in accounting at the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE), now the Nelson Mandela University.

At UPE, as a condition for his enrolment and because of his poor mathematics marks, he had to upgrade his results. In his first semester, he passed all courses except mathematics and that meant he could not register further.

He said that, when he arrived at UPE, it had only two Tsonga-speaking people and it was the dawn of the country’s democracy in 1994.

“It was challenging, you didn’t feel at home with either race.”

He then had to register at a local technical college to upgrade his mathematics marks. “I had to sit in a classroom with builders and that was one of the most humbling experiences in my life,” he said, adding that he opted to enrol at a Port Elizabeth-based college instead of back at home because he was embarrassed.

The following year he reregistered at UPE and he immediately started working at a tuck shop.

I worked at the tuck shop until I bought it and eventually I had four res tuck shops
Bonnke Shipalana

After completing his bachelor’s degree, he proceeded with his honours and got his first job at a bank as an electronic banking trainee.

“Although I had the tuck shops, getting a job was important because the tuck shops for me were the beginning not the end.

“I was not going to take a seed and assume that it was a fruit, and that’s exactly how I looked at the tuck shops,” he says, pointing out that within six months of running the shops, he had generated R50 000 in profit, giving him a lot of financial freedom.

He paid his own way to go and spend a semester of his honours degree at a business school in Sweden, an investment that proved worthwhile.

“When I returned, I told my friends I wanted to take 10 years off and return to business after and that’s exactly what happened,” he says.

He then joined SABMiller as a sales representative, frequenting shebeens and taverns for product promotions, got promoted and moved up to Johannesburg.

It was tough when I got to Jozi. I remember I even had to sell my car radio at some time to pay rent, but when I got promoted to brand manager things were better
Bonnke Shipalana

As a brand manager, his profile skyrocketed as he worked on some of the most popular campaigns with the most popular musicians in the country.

After five years of promoting beer at SABMiller, he joined PepsiCo as sub-Sahara marketing manager and 18 months later joined Cell C where he spearheaded the biggest campaign in the history of that company, including the launch of the Mandela-branded mobile network starter pack.

He also headed up a comedy talent show that discovered some of the household names that are in the country’s comedy circuit today.

When co-owners of MSG Afrika – Given Mkhari and Andile Khumalo (who was already his friend from his time at SABMiller) were looking for a chief executive to head up TCF, both coincidentally suggested Shipalana’s name.

A decade later, he prides himself on having kept the company afloat, increasing its market share significantly and, best of all, having changed the communications landscape.

“To survive you must solve other people’s problems. Life is about serving,” he says.

“Before you get money, know what you want to do with it before new money brings new ideas,” he says of the biggest money lesson he has ever learnt.

As a businessman, he holds very dearly the fact that he has never not paid salaries, never attracted a scandal and has employed people who have gone on to do greater things, even at other companies.

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