“People coming to this thing should be asking themselves, ‘How is this going to change my life?’” says entrepreneur Richard Ndlela, as he sips on a cappuccino inside a Porsche Centre outlet in Lonehill. Ndlela, who first grabbed public attention as a contestant in The Apprentice SA, is one of the speakers at the Lifestyle SA Festival, titled Celebrating Black, which takes place on May 17 and 18.
Ndlela, a member of the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists and a presenter for Car Torque, is here to test drive the new Cayenne GTS, a R900 000 SUV he intends buying (against his father’s wishes).
For now, though, he passionately explains his reasons for getting involved in the annual event, which he hopes will become a national platform showcasing new opportunities in black business and consumer trends.
‘I guess what the organisers liked is the attitude I bring to business,” he says. ‘The first talk I gave in Cape Town [in the first leg of the event] was how to bring African values to modern business. This time it’s to discuss black innovation.
‘We’ve had the first phase of BEE, now what?” he asks rhetorically.
‘We can’t keep borrowing from banks to buy into existing white companies. For real empowerment we’ve got to go back to basics,” he says, citing veteran business person Vuli Cuba as an inspiration. ‘Back to basics” for Ndlela means ‘creating your own business” from scratch.
When he speaks, about anything it seems, Ndlela gets excited in a way that breathes new life into tired boardroom truisms, such as ‘they must buy you first”. Truisms are something Ndlela dispenses liberally, making it easy to imagine a stack of self-help books on his shelves. By day he is the chief executive of Easytime Mobile, an airtime distribution and vending company he founded with two partners in 2005. Last year Motseng Investment Holdings bought a 50% stake in the company, enabling it to expand its operations to the larger Southern African Development Community region. He describes Easytime Mobile as a ’tissue-paper” idea that first came to him during a business trip to England in 2004.
Ndlela wants to try out the Cayenne himself. But, on the way back to his Rivonia offices a few minutes later, he decides he wants to sit in the backseat and be chauffeured by Jacques Labuschagne, the salesperson, who hypes up the car’s attributes, while Ndlela admires the engine’s hum and fantasises about closing a deal in his ‘expensive boardroom”.
Although Ndlela has a taste for expensive cars, he is also interested in expanding his business, wealth creation and leaving a legacy of more than just material items. The company is expanding to include point-of-sale terminals, which, he says, will help unemployed youth.
Ndlela likens the post-apartheid era to a war in which black people need to be financially fit to survive. He says Easytime was formed with his savings and some collateral he pooled together with his partners.
If two million ‘Afropolitans” put their money together, they could have their own banks, property portfolios, bond originators and cellphone networks, he says. ‘When we celebrate next year, we must celebrate the steps we have taken to achieve those goals.”
For Shiru Githiomi of Human Element — the founding company of the Lifestyle SA Festival — the event was born out of frustration about how black people are depicted in the public sphere. ‘We are still either portrayed as the BEE fat cat or the maid,” she says, talking on the phone from Cape Town. ‘We are saying to brands: ‘Speak to me, but apply your mind and your budget to marketing. Don’t be afraid to be decadent, because decadence can also be respectful.’ Some companies go about marketing in a cheap and nasty way. At exhibitions they come in, spend as little as possible and ask you to buy, buy, buy.”
Because a significant chunk of the event centres on issues of representation, it is fitting that Mohale Ralebitso, chairperson of leading advertising agency Jupiter Drawing Room in Johannesburg, will also have his say. Ralebitso, Given Mkhari and Simphiwe Mdlalose collectively own a 51% stake in the Jupiter Drawing Room (Johannesburg), one of the the largest black-owned stakes in the larger South African advertising companies.
Mkhari and Ralebitso believe the company has galvanised the local advertising industry. ‘We are now seeing a more balanced reflection in the South African market place. Before you could be forgiven for thinking you’re in a country with not too many black people,” says Ralebitso at the company’s headquarters in Rivonia. ‘The concept of sexy, beautiful and intelligent can come from any race group. You don’t always have to reflect the target market you’re selling to, but you can’t constantly not reflect a people’s culture.”
For Githiomi it is important that the festival sets its sights beyond simply helping marketers and advertisers in their quest to ‘mine the black diamond”, a segment that is viewed as gullible and insatiable. Whether ultimately significant, there appears to be a symbolic shift in terminology used to describe the black middle class. ‘Afropolitan” emerges as the preferred choice by the organisers and sponsors, as evidenced by sponsorship from a bi-monthly title of the same name. ‘An Afropolitan is someone who is African and cosmopolitan. It is not necessarily about race,” says Sean Press of Contact Media, the company that publishes the magazine. ‘It is someone who is a trendsetter, who is fashion-conscious and proud of his or her culture but who is future-focused.”
While there is often a negative connotation associated with black middle-class spending, Kura Chihota, an agent from Leapfrog Estate Agency who will also talk at the fair, says most of that acquired debt is good debt, (believe it or not): ‘A recent Unilever study showed that 86% of that debt is mortgage debt — R8,60 of every R10 owed is owed on a house,” he says. ‘The first quarter FNB Barometer showed that up to 49% of all buyers of property were black and, in my experience, they are up to 60% in some areas. So the future is black. And the acquisition of assets is the cornerstone of the country’s wealth.”
At best at this weekend’s fair the new black spenders will be shown how to build empires on informed choices.
The Johannesburg leg of the Lifestyle SA Festival, entitled Celebrate Black, sponsored by Johnnie Walker, Lexus and MTN, runs at the Gallagher Estate from May 17 to 18. The event will include live music — especially for the thirtysomething set (Ringo, Jimmy Dludlu, Thandiswa Mazwai) — fashion shows by Bongiwe Walaza and Ottimo-Mpho, sponsored hospitality lounges and panel discussions. Entry is R150 at the entrance. For more information visit wwwlifestylesafestival.co.za