Cellular19.08.2024

The man who built Vodacom

Vodacom’s co-founder and first CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, the man dubbed the father of South Africa’s cellular industry, almost missed his calling in telecoms for a career in journalism.

Born on 8 May 1952 in Oudtshoorn, his family had a long history of owning and running small newspapers in the Eastern and Western Cape.

His grandfather had been editor of the Worcester Advertiser and then bought the Graaff-Reinet Advertiser. His father was sent to Oudtshoorn to run the Oudtshoorn Courant and the Het Zuid Western.

Newspapers were the family business and passion, and Knott-Craig learned the ropes from experienced newsmen — including working with the old hot-type presses up close.

“One of my first holiday jobs was to clean the spaces between the letters — getting quite high sniffing turps for up to eight hours a day,” he said in a 2007 interview.

Had it not been for his father’s advice against pursuing a life in journalism, South Africa’s telecoms landscape may have looked very different today.

Knott-Craig completed his compulsory military service in the navy, which he said was a big mistake as he was seasick for a year, and then went to university.

He enrolled for electrical engineering because he could get a bursary from Telkom and a spot at the University of Cape Town.

He graduated cum laude in 1974. Years later, in 1988, he earned a Master of Business Leadership at the University of South Africa.

Knott-Craig joined Telkom after receiving his engineering degree to work back his bursary and ended up spending the bulk of his career at the company.

In 1991, after more than fifteen years at Telkom, the new chairman, Jack Clark, asked him to look into the feasibility of cellular phones for the South African market.

Knott-Craig analysed the analogue and digital cellular systems on the market at the time and concluded that South Africa should leapfrog the older systems and settle on the GSM standard.

According to Knott-Craig, South Africa became the first country outside Europe to adopt GSM.

Vodacom’s executive team in the year 2000. Knott-Craig is near the centre.

This all happened amid furious negotiations between the ANC and NP that would lead to South Africa’s first Government of National Unity.

Knott-Craig said the minister responsible for telecommunications at the time did not believe Telkom should control the new cellular industry.

He named former state enterprises minister Dawie de Villiers as the man behind the decision, although Piet Welgemoed was the Minister of Post and Telecommunications at the time.

The ANC was suspicious of the NP’s intentions, arguing that it was seeking to privatise telecommunications ahead of the 1994 elections.

It was agreed that Telkom would hold a stake in the new cellular operator and that a share would be sold to a trade union.

“Initially, we had discussions with a team that included Dr Nthato Motlana and Andile Ncaba. This process was an education for me. My generation had grown up fearing the ANC,” Knott-Craig said.

“It was wonderful getting to know the negotiating team and seeing just how well the new SA could work. It gave me great hope for the future.”

In the final stages of the negotiations, now-President Cyril Ramaphosa and former defence minister Roelf Meyer helped put the finishing touches on Vodacom’s revised licence.

As Knott-Craig tells it, the pair popped into and out of Codesa meetings at the World Trade Centre, where they were writing South Africa’s new constitution.

Vodacom was born on 19 May 1993, with Telkom owning 50% of the company, Vodafone holding 35%, and Johann Rupert’s Rembrandt having 15%. The BEE stake would only be claimed later.

Vodacom launched 3G in 2003, offering much faster mobile data speeds. In 2006, it introduced 3G High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which offered speeds to rival Telkom’s ADSL services.

Curiously, it took years before any union took up the shares that the ANC had negotiated so hard for.

Marcel Golding and Johnny Copelyn of Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) eventually bought the 5% stake in 1996.

HCI was an investment arm of the South African Clothing & Textile Workers Union. It paid R118 million for its stake in Vodacom and sold it back to Vodafone and Rembrandt (then VenFin) in 2002 for R1.5 billion.

Once Vodacom had been formed in 1993, Johann Rupert asked Knott-Craig to fly to Europe and meet one of Richemont’s top branding people, Leon Crouse.

Knott-Craig’s major achievements include convincing shareholders to spend millions on advertising campaigns to promote Vodacom’s products and services, even before the company was launched in 1994.

He believed that first-mover advantage was essential in establishing a strong brand, allowing them to dominate the South African mobile market.

Vodacom’s “Hello, Vodacom!” and “Yebo Gogo” ads are legendary, and they firmly entrenched the brand as iconic in South Africa.

Alan Knott-Craig (right) with Johan Engelbrecht, Andries Delport, Chris Ross, Pieter Uys, and Barry Vlok in the front row in 2003.

Under Knott-Craig leadership, Vodacom put tremendous focus on innovation and was behind many world firsts in the mobile industry.

There was a firm focus on network quality. Knott-Craig was fanatical about having the best mobile network in South Africa and went to extreme lengths to achieve it.

There are many stories about Knott-Craig experiencing a dropped call while driving and immediately raking the head of networks over the coals for the issue.

Knott-Craig was never content with a sub-par network and always had to outperform his biggest rival, MTN.

The battle between Vodacom and MTN became so fierce that the late President Nelson Mandela had to step in to resolve the dispute between the two mobile operators.

This battle for network supremacy was excellent for South African consumers and the country as a whole.

Knott-Craig also laid the foundations for Vodacom’s stable leadership.

Vodacom’s leadership in 2005.

While Knott-Craig only officially became Vodacom CEO in 1996, he was the company’s leader from its founding in his capacity as Telkom’s senior general manager of mobile communications.

He served as Vodacom’s leader for about fifteen years, until Pieter Uys succeeded him in October 2008.

Uys was Vodacom’s chief operating officer (COO) before stepping into the CEO’s shoes and had been with the company since its founding.

Before being appointed COO, he was also general manager of Vodacom’s South African operations and managing director of Vodacom South Africa.

Uys served as CEO for four years before handing over the reins to current Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub in 2012.

Joosub joined Vodacom in March 1994 after completing his articles and held various positions within the company before he was appointed CEO.

Before getting the leading role, he was Vodacom South Africa’s managing director for six years and Vodafone Spain’s CEO for three years.

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