Just six months after being appointed by the JD Group to develop new retail outlets in Africa, Marco van Niekerk was summoned by his boss.
He was investigating Nigeria at the time, but flew home immediately to find out what was happening. Thankfully, it was good news, with a request to take over as the CEO of Incredible Connection.
The post had been vacant for months since Dave Miller resigned, but after dismissing other candidates, the board decided to relocate newcomer Van Niekerk into the job.
When he was offered the new role, Van Niekerk felt he had two options: be very excited about it or pretend to be excited. The third option was saying no, but that wasn't a sensible one. "Telling your CEO 'no' is a very clear fork in the road," he says. But he admits he wasn't instantly thrilled.
"I had been appointed for a very specific role in new business development. That's acquisitions, integration and expansion, so it's very strategic and very exciting. I had to travel a lot in Africa and I like that environment."
He asked for a day or two to do some research, then realised Incredible Connection was rather appealing. "The moment I started researching it, I liked where it was positioned and it screamed it was a great opportunity."
A waiter interrupts to offer us drinks, and when Van Niekerk orders water, I ask if he's a health freak. He certainly looks it, and he is, by doctor's orders.
"I've had cancer a few times in my life, and it's one that spreads," he says, still bearing the scar of a skin operation on his nose. "I don't have the option of not living healthily. I lead a very outdoorsy life. I play polo and clay pigeon-shoot and I have a private pilot's licence. So I'm always out in the sun and maybe I didn't take care of myself in the past."
A pragmatic person
He's only 34, and has lived with cancer since his early 20s. "It's not debilitating, and the benefit I have is that I went through aggressive chemotherapy at 22, so it's not a new movie for me. I've seen this movie before. I don't spend time worrying about it," he says.
"I'm a very pragmatic person. If I can work on it, I will. I go for therapy and screenings so I'm doing what I can, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If something is going to happen, it's going to happen. The only thing I worry about is how it's going to affect my family but I plan for that. Right now, I'm in complete remission."
My parents are really hard-working people who tried to give us the very best in life, but they weren't the sort who could send you off for polo lessons.
Playing polo and holding a private pilot's licence gives the impression that he comes from a wealthy background. That's not true, he says, although his parents pushed him to be an achiever. "My parents are really hard-working people who tried to give us the very best in life, but they weren't the sort who could send you off for polo lessons. They tried to expose you to the things in life you aspire to."
His mother worked at Macsteel and Van Niekerk was awarded undergraduate and postgraduate bursaries from the company, with no payback clause committing him to work there afterwards.
His first job was at a bar in Hatfield while he was studying for a B.Com and an MBA at the University of Pretoria. "I had a fear of never achieving anything in life, so I ended up working ridiculous hours," he says.
"The owners made me the manager of two of their restaurants, so I was working during the day and studying at night. I wasn't attending too many classes but it worked out well and when the restaurant was sold, I made a little money."
Enjoy the moment
I ask why he was afraid of never amounting to much, and he says: "I can't even begin to answer that. The fear has left me now and I'm very comfortable where I am. It's important to have ambition but ambition can be just as destructive as it is positive. The moment you get fixated on the next thing, you forget to enjoy the moment. I don't have a plan of where I want to end up. I just want to make a huge success of this business. I'm having fun and I'm not thinking about the next step, so that fear is gone."
His route to Incredible Connection was varied, with him founding a flower-exporting business, taking a job with Morgan Cargo, and working at Iliad as a manager.
The moment you get fixated on the next thing, you forget to enjoy the moment. I don't have a plan of where I want to end up.
He hasn't always felt confident about the positions he was climbing into, he admits. "I remember my first board meeting at Iliad. After 20 minutes, I thought, 'What in the world have I done?' I'd given up shares in a private business, left a very successful company and exposed myself to this completely foreign world."
He joined Iliad for the chance to work with its CEO Ralph Patmore, who he regards as a mentor. He joined the JD Group for a similar reason, to work with founder David Sussman and CEO Grattan Kirk, two entrepreneurs he admires enormously.
"You have this massive company with the founders still in the business, with their entrepreneurial flair backed by the strong global presence, so you have this amazing structure," he says. "From the first week, I fitted in with the culture. It's 100% traders. Often a big corporation is 100% red tape, but here you can get a decision within minutes if necessary."
Van Niekerk is good-looking, well-groomed, smartly dressed, polite and intelligent, and sprouting a touch of individuality from a frizzy little goatee. There's something about him that's the consummate salesman, too - earnest, enthusiastic and convincing. I half expect him to open his jacket to reveal an array of smartphones for sale, with a cluster of cables or contracts on the other side.
He sees himself as a change agent at Incredible Connection, with plans to implement more staff training, open more stores in rural areas and hone its efficiencies.
Customers now do their research online, so when they walk into a store, they are already well informed. They don't need a salesman who reads the spec off the product tag, they want a touch-and-feel experience with oodles more information. "They want someone with an in-depth knowledge of what this product will do for them and how it will work with everything else in their lives," he says.
African expansion
He also plans to expand into Africa, and his six months as new business development manager with the JD Group taught him a lot about the complexities of African markets. If you spend in dollars but get paid in cedi, you can go bust very quickly, he says.
Van Niekerk has been married for eight years to Jana, with a three-year-old daughter and another baby due this year. Jana no longer works, after discussions about how to raise a family, with Van Niekerk dedicated to his career and reluctant to commit to dad duties.
He didn't think he would enjoy being a father, but he grins and says he does. "I wondered if I was suited for parenthood. Our lifestyle didn't really cater for it. We were often overseas or having a weekend away, but you lose that selfishness when kids arrive," he says. "It really didn't interrupt my life because my wife enables me to focus on what I need to focus on. We sat down and came to an arrangement. I said I could commit to being at home every night for bath time, but I couldn't commit to picking them up from school."
For the first time in his life, he is happy for all the right reasons, he adds. "I'm happy because I'm really energised about the opportunities and I can't stop thinking about what to do. My wife is extremely happy because I'm extremely happy."
It's obviously a good space for him to be in, with enough challenges to keep him busy, mentally alert and living for the moment, not worrying about the future.
First published in the December/January 2013 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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