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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 11 2012 01:50 | LAST UPDATED Feb 11 2012 01:50 |
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In this section: Ross Johnson, Vuyo Jack, Sylvester Chauke, Sarah Rice, Vishal Koovejee and more...  Managing director of amaAmbush Productions, Ross Johnson, has successfully combined his musical talent and his aim to “make a difference to as many lives as possible for the better” into a serious business proposition. The company, through its three arms -- the academy, the band and amaAmbush products and services -- promotes and teaches African music, specifically the music of African marimbas; performs to a global audience; and finally makes and manufactures the instruments themselves. Passionate about Marimba music, Johnson believes whole-heartedly in its ability to transcend the cultural boundaries that divide South Africa, calling it a “catalyst for unification”. Johnson began busking with other musicians in Cape Town as a 10 year old and it was during his five years of street performing that he was exposed to the marimba. By the age 16, he had formed the band amaAmbush and by his matric year he had begun teaching marimbas to schools around Cape Town. He has since expanded his work to include courses for teachers. Johnson graduated with a degree in music from the University of Cape Town in 2006 and has travelled to Malaysia, Italy and the United States to lecture on music teaching techniques and African music. amaAmbush has played with the likes of the Soweto String Quartet and SnowPatrol, as well as performed for international celebrities such as Jamie Oliver and Richard Branson. In 2008 he received an award for his contribution in the field of Youth in Arts and Culture from the premier of the Western Cape and was a finalist in Cape Talk/ Nedbank Small Business Awards.  CONTINUES BELOW Being young in South Africa “means you are excited about the country and aware of the opportunities created by the fluidity of our current state rather than put off by the challenges,” says Johnson. -- Lynely Donnelly Lunch spot: The Foodbarn, Noordhoek  On a Friday six years ago the three-month pregnant Sarah Rice was retrenched from her position as an account manager for a technology public relations agency.The following Monday, she opened her own agency. Rice started Sentient with two people, two laptops and one dial-up connection. Soon she was celebrating the birth of her healthy baby boy, a thriving business and a newfound love for the malarkey that comes with being an entrepreneur. No stranger to the challenges faced by being a business owner, Rice has survived it all. Clients such as Gartner, Mimecast and Technology Concepts are all recipients of the talent her agency offers, yet her biggest accomplishment to date is doing “what other agencies say they can do.” -- Jane Steinacker Lunch spot: Manna Epicure, Cape Town  Vishal Koovejee can be described as something of a Renaissance man. Either that, or doing just one thing bores him. At 28, he made parter at Deneys Reitz, where he developed expertise on the narrow and lucrative field of competition law. This knowledge helped him launch Salsa, an outbound tour operator that focuses on supplying global land arrangements, in October 2006. Currently Koovejee is a director at Cliffe Decker Hofmeyr in the firm’s competition practice, using his extensive experience in all areas of competition law, in particular merger regulation. Koovejee once had opportunities for another career as well. He played keyboard for the Silhouettes, the band that played for the ANC’s electoral campaign. He still dabbles, and is working on an album with a prominent South African producer. -- Eamon Allan Lunch spot: Trumps, Sandton, Johannesburg  Nontwenhle Mchunu plans to create Africa’s first world-class chocolate brand using local products. And she’s well-poised to do just that. She became interested in chocolate on a cooking course in KwaZulu-Natal, which focused on desserts. Mchunu eventually made her way to one of Europe’s top culinary institutes, Leatherhead International, where she learned from the world’s leading fine-chocolate makers. Then she came back home to see if she could make her own batch of top-notch chocolate. In 2008, Mchunu won South African Businesswomen’s Association Regional Business Achiever Awards in the social entrepreneur category for her newly established company, Ezulwini Chocolat. Already, South African supermarket chains and hotels, such as Pick n Pay and Protea Hotels, have begun to retail her products. -- Eamon Allan Lunch spot: Jardine, Cape Town  Karen Loxton has every woman’s dream job: she’s paid to shop. After exploring careers in psychology, IT and photography, Loxton worked as a port shopping guide in Miami from 2004 to 2006. Her job was glamorous; she shopped for rare gem stones, Swiss time pieces and jewellery. When she returned to Johannesburg in 2007, she found that the personal shopping industry was almost non-existent and decided to launch her own company. Loxton took business lessons over coffee and the phone from friends and acquaintances in the fashion industry and soon Famous Fox, her personal shopping agency, was born. She has established herself as a “shopping sensei”, with a huge and diverse range of clients from all races and age groups. She is also interviewed fortnightly by CNBC Africa on all things fashion-related. -- Qudsiya Karrim Lunch spot: Allora, Sandton, Johannesburg  ‘We will get the change we want from Nando’s.” With these words from the mouth of a puppet effigy of Julius Malema, Sylvester Chauke was propelled out of the advertising drawing room right smack into the political ring. His advertisement, which appeared on television in the run up to the 2009 elections, had the Youth League demanding the offending piece of advertising be removed from the airwaves. In response, Nando’s blanked out Malema’s face and disguised his voice, granting the Youth League a pyrrhic victory. If anything, the controversy added to the campaign’s success, says Chauke, who worked with advertising heavyweights FCB and Ogilvy before joining Nando’s. The ad was intended to inject the elections with a sense of fun and energy and put the Nando’s brand squarely in the middle of any dinner table conversations prior to the poles. Chauke says the Youth League’s reaction was unfortunate because it made “them appear more emotional than rational”. But the experience left Chauke -- who lives by his personal motto “stand against bland”— upbeat about South Africans, the majority of whom he says have a great sense of humour. “We need to laugh at ourselves,” says the University of Johannesburg graduate who has lectured at UJ, Varsity College, AAA and Bond University. Ultimately Chauke managed to get the Youth League to do just that. The catering of choice for their election party: none other than Nando’s. -- Lynlely Donnelly Lunch spot: Nambitha, Orlando West, Johannesburg  In 2005, Sacha Matulovich and his partner Pepsi Pokane made their big break when they won the contract to produce Afro Café for SABC2. No small feat for two guys who had never produced a television programme before. About 200 episodes later, the phenomenal success of the production speaks for itself. And now their work has spread across the continent. The music video Matulovich produced for Motorolla, using seven of Kenya’s top artists, won the award for best collaboration at their 2007 Kisima awards, equivalent to South Africa’s South African Music Awards. The business has now diversified into audio and advertising ventures as well. The secret to their success? Matulovich says the young creatives who are always a part of their ventures is what makes their work pop. -- Jane Steinacker  If you can’t find Brandt Botes behind his desk, you’ll probably find him taking pictures of abandoned buildings. “I love the creepy factor of it,” he says. After a BA Fine Arts degree at the University of Stellenbosch, Botes started his career as a graphic designer at Orange Juice Design. Now he’s group head of graphic design at The Jupiter Drawing Room in Cape Town. The internationally award-wining design department has clients such as Musica, Design Indaba, Sanlam and Windhoek Breweries. In his free time, Botes hones his craft as an illustrator, and his works have appeared in magazines and books such as Creative Review, Print and A Decade of South African Design Excellence. Botes was invited to be a judge at the 87th Art Directors Club of New York last year and he recently participated in the 2036 group exhibition at the 2008 Saint Etienne Biennale in France. -- Karabo Keepile Lunch spot: Brewers & Union, Heritage Square, Cape Town  In March 2009, Vuyo Jack was chosen as one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum. He has been a long-time adviser to government on the architecture of black empowerment laws and codes, and is the co-founder and chief executive of Empowerdex, the BEE advisory and verification company. A chartered accountant by training, he formerly lectured at the University of the Witwatersrand. Jack recently started a media company and has authored two books. He’s also involved with The Children of Fire charity whose aim it is to help young survivors of burn injuries in Africa.-- Eamon Allan Lunch spot: Primi Piatti, Rosebank, Johannesburg  At 33, Tsakani Matshazi is one the coveted few young, black chartered accountants in the country and she has made it her mission to make sure that the number grows. Matshazi runs the finances at one of the country’s empowerment investment companies, Izingwe Capital. She completed her BCom degree at the University of Cape Town and passed her qualifying examinations during her first year of training in 1998. She has worked at the Eastern Cape Development Corporation, a company that assists black economic empowerment and small, medium and micro enterprises. She serves on the board of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and is chair of the Chartered Accountants Charter Council, mandated to grow the number of African chartered accountants to reflect the country’s population demographics. She is also a director of a BEE rating agency, Empowerdex (Pty) Ltd. -- Mmanaledi Mataboge Lunch spot: Home sweet home TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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