Finance Indaba CPD TV: Vusi Thembekwayo's essential 2017 keynote on change and transformation

first let me thank grime of the team at CFO so that before inviting me to speak here for the second year I was here last year and my topic was quite contentious and for those of you who don't know what happened is so I came last year and I spoke a lot about why the things we're doing in developing entrepreneurs in this country we're not going to work I spoke about why finance professionals were a part of the problem in how we really diversify the country's base I spoke about why the structure of the economy was wrong exclusive by its nature and built on the premise that you can only build the economy by keeping the majority of its people living below the quality of life they could design and live for themselves with we then took the video and posted it online and for the first two months of the video being online are subjected to all sorts of racist vitriol it was absolutely the most fascinating thing to watch but as I imagine is the nature of South Africans the message kind of caught wind and people kind of came onto the bandwagon and then a dialogue a real dialogue developed about where we are as a country and what needs to happen so before I start let me make these couple of disclaimers if I may first I can almost guarantee that all of you will be offended by something I'm going to say black white other it's the first bit of offense just then so I can almost guarantee at some point or other I will offend almost every single person in this room that's the first disclaimer the second disclaimer is this I spent a decade of my life getting on the platform and telling people what they wanted to hear and then I had an awakening in my life when I realized that when you tell people what they want to hear they don't do what they have to do so part of the responsibility the obligation we all carry in all of our spaces is to have the courage to speak the truth now all of us have a sense of truth but for most of us the truth is the things we say in our cars with our partners with our kids sitting in the backseat the truth is the thing we say in our bride with our friends on the Saturday when we talk about them and the state of the country and the corruption and how bad things are in a public platform where we are exposed to all sorts of perspectives nationalities races genders and all kinds of biases we dare speak the truth and then the third final bit I love my country I do but I think one of the things that hold us back as South Africans is we love to pretend the past didn't exist in fact it's a South African pastime we're really good at this we're really good at pretending our past is an imagination a manufacturer of people that are trying to push a certain political agenda the reason we do this is because if we pretend for a moment it wasn't as bad as they say or we pretend for a moment it wasn't as vast as they say then we don't have to own the responsibility of what that past has brought into our present consider for a moment if you will your life today is nothing more than a manifestation of events in the past your perspective your education your history your financial background the decisions you're making where you live all of that is predetermined by the history of where we come from those of you here who are in Africa because you come from Zimbabwe are probably here because of the most recent history of your own country as a Zulu man I know that I owe my lineage there only to the Zulu people but also the Swazi people that's my birthright it is a split of my lineage and even at a personal level I own that I am in counting because it is a migrant province the history of how my grandfather my great-grandfather first moved here moving from Swaziland and then moved into boom Alana from boom Alana into Alex from Alex into benoni that history is predetermined by the fact that this province is a migrant province I cannot stand here 32 year old man educated with a master's from the UK and say to you well I am just because I am rubbish I am because the history of the people who have brought me to the space I am in has predetermined where I am today if you want to understand how you fix the future you first need the courage to confront the past so today we're gonna do some courageous things is that okay and then finally we're gonna have some fun I'm gonna make a lot of jokes some of them about you most of them about you actually actually all of them about you good so I couldn't title the presentation just because it's tough but I wanted to start by understanding this question what does transformation mean in the first place and when we talk about this thing called transformation in building a South Africa what do we mean are we transformed when we take a hundred year old Bank and put a black female as the CEO is that transformation are we transformed when you take a boardroom of one of the large for auditing companies in a partner network of 250 partners and you say 40% of them are black is that transformation or is that simply change consider if you will for a moment the transformation is when we begin to really construct the things we are constructing for the purpose that were intended in a country of 55 million citizens which South Africa is today there is an unemployment rate by the narrow definition of 28% 27.7% narrow definition 40% broad definition that is to say of every 10 people for our unemployed of every 5 to 4 young black people growing up in the northern provinces so from kind of where we are all the way to Limpopo just close on to the border of with Zimbabwe is for young black people growing up in the northern provinces their probability of finding employment is 16.8 percent of all they have abysm a trick for young white men growing up in the southern provinces specifically the Western Cape Cape Town here their probability of finding employment of all they have is a metric is 82% 82% we're qualifying and graduating matrix today they're coming out of our public schooling system with a matched literacy and we're saying to them if you get a 33% pass markets math literacy you are equivalent to the world's demands of labour for those of you who wonder what Malusi has done the research on this a 33 percent pass rate in maths literacy by today's standard is equal to what was in my day grade 9 standard grade mathematics 41% so just to be clear the overwhelming majority of South Africans going to the public schooling system who are overwhelmingly what race are coming out of a public schooling system that says to them you can go into the world of work and not have the ability to construct a complex algebraic equation and we deem it that you are fit for the world of work how about wait someone needs to explain this to me I swear the Education Department is run by black people I swear I mean I swear I'm not sure but I swear I swear I swear remember there's an Iceland so the question is have we changed or have we transformed when you take a price fixing scandal the likes of which we saw in the milling in bread industry and you consider for a moment if you will that the CEO of one of the large milling companies operating in the bread sector was a black male at the time at which this thing was happening can you explain to me how that happens have we transformed or have we changed you see it today it's the most fascinating thing see in my environment I work with large organizations and I try to convince them I spend my time convincing them to diversify the supply chain by giving opportunities to people have not had them in the past in almost always the procurement professionals sitting on the other side of the chain will say yeah but I can't give a 20 million rand IT supply contract to a company that was started two years ago they don't have a track record now they say to them have you considered for a moment that was once upon a time SA P didn't have a track record you know there was a time Microsoft didn't have a track record what do you think these organizations were created by God from the beginning of time and on the eighth day God invented Lenovo so there is a set of standards that we use for some people we don't use that set of standards for other people have we changed or have we really transformed I used to sit on a board of two listed companies it was fascinating one of them was an affordable housing business in the affordable housing environment specifically you raised low-cost capital you build affordable houses and you sell it to people who are caught in what we call the middle they're not middle class so they can't afford typically bank funded loans at expensive rates in the suburbs but they make more than more than enough money to be living in the townships and they don't want to live in that space the kind of caught in this hybrid space the space between and even in that environment you'd be fascinated absolutely fascinated how finance professionals working in that space we're using risk and pricing models that were developed for well complex environments at high cost of capital for an affordable housing space and then we've got yeah but why can't we find people to buy the houses well one cuz the cost of capital is high and then when you find the person to buy the houses wanting to see that why is default rates so high well I wonder the default rate is high because if the cost of capital is high and this person works in an uninvited LEEP demands flexible labor and by the way South Africa you miss your three payments three payments on your house installment they will repossess that house quicker than you can say bank loan but you gave the loan to this person knowing they work in a flexible labor environment they've been a mine laborer for 20 years they work deep in the trenches for 20 years they've done it the mind goes through a bad cycle the commodity Buster boom they retrench a few workers in the mine labor is out of work for two years and you repossess his home why because the people who constructed the risk model in the mitigation models of how we issue assets back the finance using the assets and at what point we recall the asset back from a bad consumer themselves were not transformed I can guarantee you if you walk into the risk functions of those organizations you will find professionals of color in those spaces but we say we are transformed you see transformation is not substituting black with white transformation is transforming the reason by which you exist in the first place that's transformation the combatants are quiet let's go to the macros I'm a masters in economics so this wouldn't be a economics class if I didn't have some stats of data this is just for the finance professionals to prove to you that I'm actually smart it's not just numbers let's start at the macros instead at South Africa for a minute 56 million people our GDP per capita is the highest of the province followed by Egypt and then after that Morocco but we have a GDP per capita of $5,200 there there about we also have close on 20% the size of our population sitting in the middle classes this is why we are the most forthright financial market in the continent simply because we have a large middle class with a high GDP per capita 90% of the citizens living in this country have access to electricity not all the time and it's not cheap but you have it and just last year a hundred and eighteen FDI projects flew into South Africa what that means is the global economic environment likes our story it does let's look at another country it's good in Nigeria now as a person who does business an idea we're busy setting up our fund in Nigeria now we've just gotten conditional approval let me tell you if you are not in Nigeria you are not in Africa it really is the true story you land in Nigeria in Motala Airport it's my favorite place to go you land in Motala Airport and as you land in Matala Airport typically you move from mainland Lagos over the bridge which is an eight-lane freeway bridge from mainland Lagos into Victoria Island where all the business gets done VI it's called as you come out of the airport there is a massive sign at the top of the airport this says no loitering no standing no waiting underneath it about a thousand Nigerians loitering standing and waiting why because I've come to learn in Nigeria the law is a recommendation it's not really like stop don't stop pay don't pay think about it but what are the macros Nigeria is a province of 180 six million people it's a country of 186 million people it's um it's multiples the size of South Africa but then you consider its GDP per capita only 2200 bucks half that of South Africa so even at a macroeconomic level if all you did was adjusted normative the GDP per capita of Nigeria to sa just at an acceleration to catch up right what would effectively happen as the Nigerian economy would by easy measure overtake the South Africa is the largest economy in the continent by easy measure then you consider we have a 20 percent middle class Nigeria only 10 percent if you're not in Nigeria you're not in Africa you know only 60 percent of Nigerians have access to power but for those of you have not been Nigerians also have to power cuts every single day it's a part of the system of Nigeria - power cuts in Lagos every single day one at eleven o'clock in the morning and another between three and four o'clock every day for most people you look at this environment and it doesn't seem like a kind of environment where you want to do business I made a Nigerian entrepreneur who makes computer hardware and machines and what is really gotten really good at is making computer hardware and machines that will that will not cut or charge surge power and burn the Machine CPU just because of the power cut so whereas most of the other manufacturers we're not willing to look at it as an as a an innovation of sorts he understood his environment in his built a business transformation regardless of what skin color he is he's understood the environment and is fitted his solution for the environment he's in let's go somewhere else Ghana love Ghana anyone here ever been to Ghana no one one - the most beautiful country in the continent bar none and I say that because they have the most beautiful women in the continent bar none and I say that because I have no well so Ghana's got the population of 28 million people GDP per capita one point 1500 size of middle-class 20% what's gone is real challenge the CD is too strong as a currency it's four times the strength of the r and in fact you everyone understand the Ghanaian currency it's always the middle point between the rand and the dollar the CD is just too strong Ghana also last year and a double deficit both a budget deficit and a trading deficit so it's a real problem for Ghana but when you consider the economic potential of Ghana in unlocking western Africa it's a phenomenal place to be in and to do business and lastly the heart of Africa if you understand the soul of our continent you must go to Kenya anyone you ever been to Kenya by the way any Kenyans in the room no one loved Kenya absolutely loved it 48 million citizens in Kenya thousand four hundred GDP per capita 17 percent size of the middle class 60 percent access to electricity so if you looked at each of these four countries as we call them in our firm the Four Horsemen and you compared them to their European counterparts so if you looked at a South Africa size of our financial markets as of our complexity of our South African market you probably compared us to a Finland or Sweden if you looked at a Kenya for instance and the size of that market size the middle class you'd probably be comparing it to a Hungary if you compared those countries to those to the European counterparts you know from a resource perspective and an access to world markets perspective we are not challenged yet our economies continue to consistently lag behind their economic potential the real question is why and the answer is because rather than focus on the substance of what transformation means we focus on the form of what it looks like who's in the room do they speak the right English do they round the arse or do they say comrade because if it looks like a duck sounds like a duck then surely it can't be a pigeon and until and when you and I are able to move beyond what transformation looks like to what it is we will be held back by the issues are forementioned hmm so how do we get here so God's been good to me it's really been good to me I live in a fantastic estate it's probably the most expensive estate in counting I'm living no I mean me I'm fine me I'm very well no I live in a beautiful beautiful estate without quoting names but as you come out of my state you turn right 300 meters from where I live as deep slit just 300 meters now the problem here the problem for me as I see it and I understand it is simply this what is the difference between my children who grow up in this centre of middle-class opulence with access to all sorts of things 50 megabit per second Wi-Fi for instance we have running through our estate and a kilometer just down the road counterparts of theirs same race same age without bread on the table what is the difference if you watch the South African news often now and more often than not you'll see service delivery protests have you ever noticed when you watch this lefke news and you seeing a service delivery protest you would never see a service delivery protest as half attended you get that right like a service delivery protests were concerts it would be full all the time we'd be filling up the dome every day with just a number of people attending service delivery protests but hold on let me tell you who goes to service delivery protests hands up if you're in the room and you've been to a service delivery protest protesting see this is it when you're in middle class citizen who has to worry about paying a home car and credit card you busy engaged in economic activity you do not have the time to engage your service delivery protest so when you're watching a service delivery protest rather than see a group of people who are in nuisance understand that what you are seeing is a class of people for whom the economic promise of South Africa does not exist it hasn't been realized it's an academic concept when a minister stands up and says let the rain fall and we'll pick it up you should worry less about the minister making that statement and worry more about the people who cheer because you see if I have no rands if I've never had the rand its decline or appreciation is a nick is a is an academic construct to me so let the rain fall we'll pick it up do you see the broad question about how do we bring the majority of our population into a South Africa that delivers for them is not so that you and I are seen to be doing the right thing it is so that you and I can sustain our quality of life because if you think the walls where you live are high enough that the electriss-- electrical tidge you run is strong enough let me tell you when the masses make a decision to climb over those walls it will not be high enough and you will not have enough voltage history has proven it from the decline of the French Kingdom all the way through to the decline of the Egyptian President just a decade ago that sooner or later a margin of people who are in the majority left outside of the economic system will topple the economic system that keeps them repressed it fascinates me that finance professionals think their job is to pass debits and credits or to sign off audit reports that's not your job your job is how do you get 40% of a population of people in the country with sixty million people into the mainstream economy how the hell do you do that that's your job your job is how do you get your organization your job is how do you get your organisation your CEO to understand that we have one point seven trillion rand sitting in cash in the balance sheets of organizations listed on the journal book stock exchange excuse me but how dare you how dare you go into deep throat sell bread at 1 R and take 40 cents margin 20 20 cents and keep it and you can catch and think you can keep it on your balance sheet who the hell do you think you are then you have the audacity the unmitigated temerity to talk about a no growing economy you want to build the mall of Africa and you're not building factories you want to tell us about a no growing economy and then we say we have transformed transformed what and for who see my problem is I'm not a politician I don't carry political cards my view is politicians of the will of a centipede they will change their minds as soon as the odds endure and the game changes in their favor the worst thing you can give a politician is your loyalty politicians like entrepreneurs every single day should earn your vote they should spend their time keeping market share by delivering on their promises yet so many of us are caught in the political discourse of what it looks like how many black executives in the room how many female how many transgender we have not thought about substance over form transformation is not changing blackness with whiteness or whiteness with blackness it's getting the organization that was going into markets selling expensive loans to poor people and keeping them poor to stop doing it that's transformation so why don't we do it to understand why we don't do it you need to understand how did we get you how did we get here hands up comrades if you have land here hands up if you want the land I love the land question I do I I really love the land question and I'm going to make a point that I'm almost sure we'll get me destroyed on the social media because you see the problem with social media is it on social media people are more interested in looking to be woke than being woke that people are more interesting and critiquing critical thought than actually analyzing and understanding it do you see if you are obsessed over owning land you're stuck in the first industrial complex of how we build industries land labor capital the three factors of production the most valuable company in the world today is Apple the second most valuable company in the world today is Amazon where does an Apple and Amazon own land Kumba dates show me where think about it differently everyone in this room talks about the example of mobile money transfer is coming from Kenya this fantastic innovation called in pacer by the way the Investor ecosystem has transformed how Kenya's exists and I will show you what they've done some of the investments we've made an offer him that's true transformation but where did the entrepreneurs Adam best focus on owning land now this is not to say the pursuit for land is not the right pursuit but the question is are we pursuing the land purely because it must be given back because it was taken or are we pursuing the land because we believe we can turn it into a productive asset of value that that includes these 40 percent of people sitting on the side of the economic system were unemployed well are we just taking the land because we want to take something and this is just a question it's not one but for which I have the answer now let me tell you why the land question for those of you who wonder is so contentious when I started my first business I did I went to the bank I made the cardinal mistake of writing a business plan I never should it was a waste of time so no way I wrote the business plan then I went to the bank because I was employed and I said to the bank I'd like to lend some money for my business and the bank the banker went through my business plan and then called me back about three four days later and the bank at the time had an arrangement to the organization a state funding organization called Coulomb whose role was to provide soft finance to soften the risk rate for the bank and the bank was supposed to plug in the harder more debt based finance and he said to me so Cola can potentially do 25 percent of the amount that you're asking but for the other 75 percent we need you to secure the 75 percent so I said sure with what said well do you have land yeah that's what they said to me and I said well uh I mean I don't at the time and I genuinely didn't I said no I don't my mom has a home and I said where is the house my mother lived in and does today cuz my mother will never leave she's one of those people she will never leave she's a community person my mom lives in a Township and purely because we live in a Township and the bank wasn't satisfied with the rate of appreciation and property value growth the bank declined the loan for me to start a business yet today that same Bank is the unmitigated temerity to phone me and ask me if I want to have be their wealth client can they do some offshore investing for me same bank same brand I'm almost certain same credit people what is the difference the difference is the bank understood and worked my credit model based on the second industrial complex of thinking he must have an asset the asset must be one we can feel and touch then he's worth taking the credit risk so that's why the land question is important we'll come back to that in a minute a second one is anyone here familiar with a pencil test yeah for those of you who don't know a part of how in the past we used to distribute what race you were is if a pencil was taken and stuck into your hair and it set you were black if a pencil was taken and stuck into your hair and it's set but tilted and slid you were colored and if a pencil was taken and stuck into your hair and slid off completely you were white that was throughout the 50s 60s 70s and almost all of the 80s the bad news is today all of you here still have pencil tests you just don't know it you're not carrying pencils when I got up here how many of you here saw a man getting up or a black man getting up when I started speaking how many black people heard a brother speaking humph we're two speaking or a coconut speaking sounds funny right but I wonder when did I become a coconut when hmm was I a coconut when I watched my father get gunned down nine bullets in front of me was I coconut then I wonder was I coconut when I watched my mother work two jobs just to keep us in model Siskel's was I a coconut then was I coconut when I had to come into an arrangement with my mother that for my standard 9 in Miami tricky I was gonna get all A's because I knew she couldn't afford to pay to keep me in the model C school and if I got all A's she would fight with the principles to keep me on the premise of my academic performance was I a coconut then was i coconut when I started my first business and slept in my office for seven months was aiya coconut then when did I become the coconut you see it isn't whites needing to transform all of you here need to transform all of you you need to convince white that it isn't better because it's white and you need to convince black that it isn't different because it is black you are not a white person or a black person you are this thing called a human being and you have the right to self express self determined and self defined as you so wish if you want to twang go for it if you want to be woke do you but how dare I infer my preference of what it means to be you because of how I define you where I come from doesn't define who I am it's just where I come from these pencil tests we use every single day we use them every single day we use them every single day when those small businesses come to pitch for opportunities and we don't give it to them when we run programs about who gets employed in our firms and it's only people that look like us that get given the economic opportunities yesterday I had a meeting with the partner network of one of the big four audit firms and one of the partners says to me you know we'd really love to get more black skills into the firm but the challenge we have is skills man and we have a problem with skills now mind you the person that said this to me was black so I said to him do you know if this was 1996 and you told me you couldn't find black talent because you couldn't find the skill that would be a well-made argument but 25 years into a new dispensation if the skills don't exist you don't blame the people who don't have the skills you blame the people who are not transferring those skills that's the real problem when I was in Investment Banking let me tell you what used to happen a transaction would walk in through the door and if it was a great transaction new kind of work that every finance professional used to work for I can almost guarantee you that almost all of my white colleagues got to work on that transaction the black colleagues had to fight for space to be in the transaction because you were given the scrap work you were given the work everybody did every day now five years into a trajectory if my white colleagues get exposed to the right quality of work for five years what do you think happens in five years they get their skills so when you turn around and say we can't find them they don't have the skills Yeah right they don't have the skills because you've not created a platform for them to acquire those skills do you know why Fran Chuck is called Fran chalk so when the Dutch ran the western capers we had it today the Dutch knew that the climate of the Western Cape was particularly keen to farming wine the problem was the Dutch didn't know how to farm wine by luck there was a group of religious refugees running away from France they were called a French Huguenots and they ran first into the area of South Africa where the British were and the British chased them out why cuz at the time the British and the French had a No an agreement of collaboration so these French humanoids sailed further south and arrived that was then the Cape of Good Hope and when they arrived there they found the Dutch and they negotiated with the Dutch they said to the Dutch we need a place to live and the Dutch said to the French if you teach us how to farm wine will give you a place to live they went and found an area in the Western Cape it looks like a corner on the map and they gave it to the French French and Dutch is ponche corner is woke French oak was because that's where the French was stationed in exchange the French taught the Dutch part to farm wine the reason why today the best wine farms in the world come from the Western Cape is not because the people of the Western Cape who are predominantly male and white were born with us Gordon viewed gift of farming wine no it's because they were taught and given time and learned this skill scheme is acquired exposure time builds the expertise so I ask the question again are we changed or are we simply transformed but I mean really really changed so what holds us back what really holds us back let me just spend a moment quickly on this change versus transformation question so what is the difference then it put its you this way change is how the Frog becomes starts out the tadpole grows eats morphs the tail disappears legs emerging becomes the Frog the same piece of matter that started out the tadpole is the same in substance and form that ends the Frog change linear transformation is how the caterpillar becomes the butterfly starts out the caterpillar decides it doesn't hike it's life incubates in hives off disappears into small little cocoon and when it emerges the resulting butterfly looks nothing like the Frog that's the key that the caterpillar that started you understand this is the real South African challenge is how do we create caterpillars in all of our spaces and in all of our environments that become butterflies how do we really transform but do it properly do it properly old neutral did it in Kenya they bought a lovely old man's business dr. Mwangi they bought his business called UAP why because when Old Mutual first try to enter Kenya they didn't have the local market or expertise so the winton found the old man was running the largest distribution insurance business in East Africa called UAP and they bought his business but even then you know what Old Mutual didn't then take their business model and force it on the you ap management team quite the contrary they said you have local market expertise we simply have global product competence so why don't you tell us how this thing is gonna work real transformation not the look of it real transformation the guys at you ap determined a strategy they determined capital preservation they determine product deployment product development market entry they determine all of the strategies they make the decisions real transformation substance over fall the reason we can't because many of us get stuck in false positives and I feel a pity I really do for black executives today I really really do I think it's tough for many black executives today because many black executives get caught in an environment where they have to be seen to be black enough to deliver value and white enough not to deconstruct the system as it exists yeah I asked a friend of mine the other day a black executive I said can you explain to me how come all of you black CEOs have white assistants what's that about that's just a question but it was just an observation said how's that work like what happened Miriam doesn't get the job like what what was that about and it took him a while actually he went and gave it some thought two days later he phones me says we'll see I have not been able to sleep because of that question you asked me I said why he said I've been an executive for 15 years I've been in the c-suite four of them have been the CEO of a listed company all of those 15 years my assistants of the white I said I know why and he gave me an answer that I think was the most brutal answer and honest in its truth he said because I exist in a system of whiteness he says my counterparts are white my fellow CEOs are white and to exist in that system of whiteness I must myself bring around me elements of it now the question I asked him is if you do that can you really play a role in transforming the system you're blinded by the spotlight you know the problem of the spotlight right if I was standing here in this room were dark and the spotlight were on me almost all of you can see everything I do and I can't see anything you do that's the spotlight syndrome that's the first false positive the second false positive why we don't transform is we have a logic that impedes transformation we've looked for reasons to support why we cannot transform and we find the logic it actually impedes it the very first bit of logic I've heard organizations say well you know what is the business imperative for transformation sharmi heart transforming our business helps us build a better business how do we make more profits little but no you don't transformation and profitability are not the same question you shouldn't even be having these conversations transformation you do because you must do profitability you do because it's the reason you're in business but if you say to me you're not gonna transform your business cuz you're not gonna make more money you're doing it for the wrong reasons man that's on the one end do you know what it looks like on the other extreme it's that company that knows that to get the tender it must have black executives so it goes and creates a trust in a structure and it takes a community deep slit and gives them shares which they never owned black executives that it gives a couple of seats to a few mercedes-amg s and then it says this is the organization that will pitch for government work and typically they will call it public sector has nothing to do with the rest of the business stands alone hived off and that's where we keep black talent every single South African organization today that is a public sector enterprise most typically you will find black people in public sector do you know why because the organization is saying whether implicitly or explicitly you black people go talk to your black people now go talk to your government get the tenders and bring them but we we are going to make the computers it will be will engineer the computer will make the car will build the furniture will do the job you are just the sales arm and then in 10 years time when all these black people have done is sell your goods and make you and sell your products and have no technical expertise to run your business you go why don't we have black skin I'm an substance over form you wanted the look or transformation not it in reality not it in reality cool so what's the burning platform and I want to end with this I want really want to end with this when grime asked me to speak here I said the first I took this on with a bit of trepidation and I'll tell you why because there are some of you in the room I can tell are visibly uncomfortable visibly I could point you are to just won't there are some of you in this room who are completely disengaged typically the white people are uncomfortable the black people who are benefiting from a system that they know is not serving the purpose or in are disengaged you don't want to hear what you're doing is wrong why because you must pay your bond month end that's the reality here is the burning platform I have three kids that I know of no rely of three there was one then we did a DNA no no no I have three kids my oldest of Aussie is seven verses to get it was it he's bossy they're fair there is a lineage this thing so my oldest versus seven or March is five and my youngest two more is two months movies amazing by the way he's this big and he's got the strongest legs you've ever seen like he could squat more than me I pick him up and I hold him and he looks at me cuz and then he kicks up he's got these strong amazing legs a real Conqueror really lives up to his name so here's my problem I could live elsewhere in the world I don't want to I really could I just don't want to I could think about changing countries and live here for half the end somewhere else for half day I don't want to do that either I want to be here but I'm also clear that I don't want to keep driving into the township on the Saturday so that my friends with whom I grew up see me drivin in the crew convertible and they don't have it you see I do that as most black professionals do I go to the township to show the people that I grew up that I made it as a measure of my success is their failure not their success yeah so here's my problem and I want you to tell me if you reconcile with this I worry about how do I make sure how do i voice September I'll make sure that in 20 years time my children can go to a world of work that doesn't have quotas how do I make sure that my son who's a phenomenal athlete in 10 years time can get selected for the provincial team and it has nothing to do with his skin color how do I make sure that my daughter who does who's a ballerina she does ballet my daughter asked me daddy did you do ballet I was like no where I'm from there was no belly no dough and this is why daddy didn't you have teacher Christie I said well let's just say people that look like just a Christie were not there some of my daughter's visit teaching me how to do ballet but I worry about how do I make sure that the world my daughter goes into she can become a fully expressed ballerina not worry about her race not worry about her gender not worry about her past or her history she can fully good knives and reconcile with her potential how do I give that opportunity not only to my daughter but to that kid who lives 400 meters down the road in deep slit so when they meet with my children in the world of work they meet and are both equal to work and compete that's the burning platform transforming South Africa is not about color it's not about what the person looks like it's about making sure that all of us in the spaces we exist do the things that need to be done today so we can have the country you want to have tomorrow Graham asked me to share this with you so I will when I was 17 years old I won the world champion public speaking and I came back and two weeks later my mom received a letter from the Nelson Mandela Foundation and now Mandela had asked me to come and meet with him so the day of the meeting came and was school holidays and my mom sent me to go and meet with Nelson Mandela during school holidays my mother dressed me in school uniform during school holidays black magazine no standard knotless so my mom sends me to go and meet with Nelson Mandela now I come from a Township called wat Ville you walk about 300-400 meters from where I live to the nearest taxi so I walk 400 meters to catch a taxi from what Ville to Benoni station I caught a separate taxi from Benoni station to Benoni town with the lakeside molly's another text from lakeside mall all the way through to Joburg station then a separate taxi from jo'burg station - how - whenever dropped off in Houten I walked 7 kilometres to get to Nasser Mandela's office so the point I'm making is I was much lighter than this I just walked so much in the Sun this happened I was like Trevor Noah's complexion so I get to Nelson Mandela's office and I walk in and there is a lady at reception I was actually thinking about it the other day the lady's name was dude - there's this lady at reception I went in and said hi I'm here to meet with Nelson Mandela and she went and looked at a book and she said are you Lucy I said yes she said thank you you can wait here and she picked up the phone and she phoned Nelson Mandela's Phe phone Zelda which phone Zelda and Zelda came and Zelda said hi are you mr. VG that damn moon that dumb witch just by the way on the point of transformation my fellow white South Africans if you live here and have lived here for all your life I don't know how to say this to you but you have but I mean zero excuse not to know how to save black names you have no excuse do you know the first sign of acknowledging somebody's humanity is just a name that's why when you make somebody a prisoner you remove their name and you give them a number you stripped them of their humanity it's not Vashi it's Lucy it's not on belay it's Billie but the blacks are like yeah not that one that's tough she's not that one so anyway so she comes to meet me she says mr. Bieber will meet you just now okay she walks me to mandela mandela study no data by the way if you don't know how the most beautiful study he really did as he walked him through the study here this double door you opened the double door and you walked in was this long deep study and on either side from the floor to the ceiling were wooden cupboards with books all along the cupboards like a lawyer's chamber right on the floor was a persian carpet right as you entered all the way to the back and right at the back of the of the of the study was this beautiful sort of french pan window you overlooked the window there was a fountain that ran down koi pond stunning and in the middle of the room he had this quaint little chinese table with three chairs on it she says please take a seat mister medieval with you just now okay I said okay she then says to me mister Vichy can I get you something to drink now my mom said if they ask you for something to drink from Donna tell them you won tea not coffee said Y says no because tea is high tea you see coffees come on is-is-is yes I don't drink coffee today so so I sit here can I have some tea bang she looked at me ask me that question that makes every single black person uncomfortable she said would you like jasmine or el Grey I was like you don't have drink or maybe joke or Jana put up your hand if the first time you had a Jasmine an algorithm was like when you started working yeah you're laying is all of you man some of you still don't know jasmine and haha he just wrote it down like what is that chief listen so I love this country I'll tell you the first time I was in a boardroom iced it blew me away very first board meeting I had I'll never forget their made tea and there was they were circulating around the little sugar thing you know the sugar thing and it had those small little teaspoons now where I'm from sugar is a rare thing so when you can have it you have it I'm a game with this like tiny little teaspoon and I kept thinking do I pour that much as I want or do I pour what like oh my wife comes back anyway so she went and got me Tina she brought me the tea with eat some more biscuits I mentioned they eat some more biscuits cuz I thought there was a bit of racial profiling I mean I didn't ask for them you know as I need some more has anybody ever been to Willie's and they serve those shortbread biscuits you bought hey that thing is just it's a moment it's like half the size and ten times the price just eat some more so anyway I sit I'm waiting for data to come for the meeting and I keep picking up the cup to drink it now because I'm nervous every time I pick up the cup my hand shakes and I spill a little in the saucer when I put the cup down it's it's residue on the water I pick it up the water spills right I did this two or three times and eventually the water started spilling on my white shirt so I stopped trying to pick the cuppa I started leaning into the cup to drink to drink it and then by this time might eat some more biscuits had gone all soggy so you can't eat those either so anyway here I sit waiting for that tiny little mess now most people don't know Nelson Mandela was a giant I don't mean a set of these sort of human sense I mean physically the man was a giant I'm six-two I'm one hundred and two kilos I can stand my own in a scrum Nelson Mandela was six five when I met him I wear size 11 shoes he wore size 13 the man was a tank he really was so you all here walk with the ball of your foot first dad I walked with the heel of his foot he had an incredibly heavy walk you heard him coming so just picture the scene I'm sitting drinking this cup now I can't drink so I start leaning in and as I leaned in I'm looking to the door to make sure no one walks in as I said because that wouldn't look right so I lean in and then I heard where is he of course I get nervous and then I heard mr. didn't move Madiba he's in the study okay okay then hurt go go go get to the door he pushes it open walks in and he stands feet shoulder-width apart looks I mean he says my son come here now my father had died recent to that so and nobody had called me my son since my dad died so he calls me my son and I swear to God - my tummy like pulled knots and then then my throat clogged up my face got really really hot and my eyes started getting like heavy and watering and I remember thinking to myself you cannot as a Zulu man let it cause him and see you cry [Applause] it's like don't do this so so he stands there he does this and as I was about to start crying I stood up I lepton him and as I hugged him at my height my face was on his sternum he gives me this big bear hug we sit down he starts congratulating me on winning the World Championship and public-speaking tells me all the stuff he knows and then we start sitting at his system I've got one hour I've gotta tend to some state business after this I was hoping we could spend some more time together I really apologize then he says so let's get going now when my mother sent me to the meeting she gave me a specific set of instructions she said to me look smart sound intelligent don't embarrass me I suppose the three hallmarks of how we all raise children and I felt the only way I could do this was if I say nothing the whole meeting I just keep asking probing questions so we started the meeting and all I did as I asked him questions I asked him about where he grew up I asked him about his relationship with his father awesome art the first time he moved to how ting how he met o R Tambo how that relationship was and then I asked him have you any regrets and he said only one now in his tribe what da da was royalty and for people of his tribe when your firstborn son passes the Father and if the father is absent the father's brothers must bury the son if they don't the son is doomed to eternal damnation he'll never make it to the Hereafter that's the belief when the doctor's son passed he was on Robben Island he went and asked the government to release him for one day to bury his son and they said to him if you renounce everything you've said against apartheid would let you go he didn't renounce it and he never got to bury his son think about that sacrifice so we come to the end of the meeting and he looks at me and he says you're no they said you are a speaker I said yeah about that he says but man you have not spoken just ask a question ask a question then he before he said anything there was a knock on the door and it was Zelda which is her peeped in and said mister mister Madiba you need to go now I must live but before I go have you any final questions so I asked him the question I want to leave with you today I asked him this I said what is your hope and your expectation for South Africa and South Africans he said South Africans need a little bit of faith I asked him what his faith he says faith is the ability to see the invisible to believe in the impossible and to trust in the unknown I've just had the privilege of standing at a place that was built by my ancestors but not for my ancestors in a country that kept my people repressed for four centuries because somebody had the faith to believe it was possible yours and my responsibilities to leave here today resident always that they can rob us of our hope and our enthusiasm but the one thing we must keep is faith that one day we will all have the country we desire thank you very much you

Channel: CFO South Africa

Views: 162,260

Keywords: Vusi Thembekwayo, Finance, Disruption, Investment, Transformation

Id: DQyfwgmLcos

Length: 57min 29sec (3449 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018