A model CEO for the new SA
When he was first offered the job of CE of Telkom a year ago, he said thank you, but no. I have had this independently confirmed.
“I always wanted to run a properly listed company,” he says now, implying that at first glance, the heavy state presence in Telkom kind of spoiled the whole thing.
But the head-hunters came back. For a guy ferreting away among the minefields at Transnet at the time, it is probably no surprise he was finally persuaded.
It’s probably important to point out that Molotsane was recruited and not “deployed” by politicians, but that doesn’t mean he sees his role in purely commercial terms. “I came here to make a business that is going to last,” he says quietly. “What success we have here contributes to the economy. I have a responsibility to develop this country.”
That is a strain throughout the interview. Molotsane wants to do good and make money.
It is probably no surprise that as a black executive in SA he would feel that way, and, to the extent that he is one of many, the country is fortunate.
I ask him about enrichment and he reminds me that he doesn’t have any share options in Telkom yet, although he expects to get some soon.
Sitting by the pool at Johannesburg’s hideously sumptuous Saxon Hotel, Molotsane would be the first to admit he’s come a long way.
He grew up in Atteridgeville, near Pretoria, with his grandparents. His mother had moved to the US. Molotsane was to follow her, but not before being swept up in the student unrest of 1976.
He spent 210 days in solitary confinement after being arrested. He was just 17, he remembers. “I was beaten by policemen. It was one of the most painful periods of my life.”
I start to ask more but he suddenly gets up and walks away. It is safe to presume he is trying to bring his emotions back under control. When he does come back, he is even more hale than before.
“It makes you strong,” he says of his confinement.
You get the feeling Molotsane has been getting a grip on himself like this, willing himself to succeed, for all of his 47 years.
It’s interesting, because he has managed to place himself at the very pinnacle of South African business without ever (at least obviously) ingratiating himself, or joining a political party or becoming mired in the get-rich-quick controversies that dog black empowerment. Partly, that is, because he has pedigree.
In reverse order, he came to Telkom after spending two years at Transnet running ports, Metrorail, Petronet, Freightdynamics Transtel and Transwerk.
Before that he was CEO of Fedics for four years after being recruited from Nampak. He worked in sales at Eskom and as a systems engineer at IBM.
The fact that his mother was in the US took him there after his release from prison. He came back with bachelor degrees in engineering technology and business from Toledo University in Ohio and an MSc in Business from Hood College in Maryland. He does not, thank heaven, try to fake an American accent.
Telkom clearly turns him on, and he enthuses about it and his plans without paying any due to the notion that, ahem, it might be a bit of a bully in the market and, certainly, a little wanting in the customer service department.
The general view of the new Telkom management under Molotsane is that while the old lot under Sizwe Nxasana were cost-cutters, the new guys are growers. We will, of course, see what happens in due course.
But what about complaints that there can’t be proper competition in telecommunications in SA until Telkom’s infrastructure is wrestled from it somehow?
“We’re not letting go of our infrastructure,” says the emphatic CEO. “There is enough space and room for all of us to compete.”
He also makes the cute point that he, arguably more than anyone else, is going to be held responsible for the success or otherwise of the second network operator, which has been licensed to compete with Telkom.
Yeah, right. Why is it that this new Telkom sounds exactly like the old one? Somehow, the monopoly has to have a finger in every pie, ja?
“The team that I have is not insecure,” says Molotsane. “It’s ready to share knowledge.”
Yes, but how easy is it for the old hands to pull the wool over a new CEO’s eyes and make the case for survival as a monolith?
“I do my own homework,” he says. “I delegate, but I don’t abdicate. (My team) know that if they give me the wrong information, I will find out. And when I do, I will make you very uncomfortable.”
That is the only aggressive thing he says in a two-hour discussion but, like many people who have learned to control their emotions (remember the 210 days — that’s more than 5000 hours — in solitary), he leaves you in doubt about how nice a guy he really is. There has to be steel in there somewhere.
Within days of him arriving at Telkom last year, he was swept up in a full-scale mutiny. One of the senior managers at the company had been promised the top job and Molotsane found himself faced with executives refusing to do what he asked of them.
So he fired them, causing a rumpus in the media and no doubt putting down a marker should anyone else at the company have a mind to challenge him.
Molotsane says he likes the media. His grandfather used to make him read the Rand Daily Mail and, while he isn’t active in politics, he cares about it. Looking around, I ask, at the levels of poverty and rising anger about the lack of delivery, is he worried for the future of the country?
“I worry that we have (yet) to find a way of delivery (to the poor),” he says. “We don’t have time. We have to hurry (or) you’ll get people who take the law into their own hands. We have a situation here that we must correct.”
Molotsane just may be a model CEO for the new SA. Married, with one daughter (currently head girl at a major private school in Johannesburg), his personal values are reassuringly middle class.
And his sensitivity for the rest of the country is, I feel as we part, sufficiently ingrained, for his actions as a businessman to always make a broader impact. That’s a good thing these days.
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