Picking a successor
Two candidates have emerged as front runners to replace Vodacom Group CEO Alan Knott-Craig when he steps down next year after more than 15 years at the helm of the cellular group. Knott-Craig will not renew his contract when it expires in March 2009.
Two internal executives — group COO Pieter Uys and Vodacom SA MD Shameel Joosub — are the most likely to take the hot seat from Knott-Craig. Both have been at the cellular group since the mid-1990s.
Knott-Craig, whose health has suffered in recent years — he has had a number of heart attacks — is credited with building Vodacom into one of the country’s largest and most profitable companies.
He told the FM last year that Vodacom had a good management team and would manage fine without him. “We have strong first- and second-tier management. Whether I’m here or not, it doesn’t matter,” he said at the time.
The two candidates most likely to replace him (it’s possible, though unlikely, that Vodacom will seek an outsider to replace Knott-Craig) have deep knowledge of the group and the industry.
Uys, 45, who has been COO since 2004, is also a previous MD of Vodacom SA. He joined Vodacom in 1993 as a member of the initial engineering team.
The younger Joosub, 37, joined Vodacom in 1994 and has held various positions in the group. He was named MD of Vodacom SA in 2005. Before that he was MD of Vodacom Service Provider Company. Joosub, who has been a group director since 2000, founded the Vodacom Equipment Company, the group’s former handset distribution company.
Analysts polled by the FM say both are suited to take over from Knott-Craig, though age and experience may count in Uys’s favour.
Irnest Kaplan of Kaplan Equity Analysts says it won’t be easy replacing Knott-Craig, who some people regard as the father of SA’s cellular industry. “He is an exceptional man,” Kaplan says. “He started Vodacom and built it into what it is today.”
Kaplan describes Uys as a “thinker”, soft-spoken but with a deep understanding of the industry. Joosub, on the other hand, is a “trader”, more in the vein of Knott-Craig. “People who have dealt with Shameel in business have said he is incredibly sharp and pays huge attention to detail,” he says.
Either man could lead Vodacom, Kaplan says. “Both men have a good understanding of the broader picture. I have seen Shameel in action at the regulator and he is formidable.”
Both men have MBAs. Uys also has a BSc and an MSc in engineering from Stellenbosch University. Joosub holds a bachelor of accounting science (honours) degree from Unisa.
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