The South African who went from shoe-cleaner to Google country director

Alistair Mokoena went from a sneaker-cleaning business, which he started with his friends in school, to being the Country Director of Google South Africa.

While Makoena previously never worked in the tech industry, he started learning about business from an early age and now has over 25 years of marketing experience at some of South Africa’s most notable companies. 

Alistair Mokoena grew up with his brothers in Ga-Rankuwa. His father, who played professional football for the Kaizer Chiefs in the 1970s, was a teacher, while his mother was a nursing professor at a university. 

“The family was surrounded by teachers and nurses and all sorts of professions,” he said on the Weekend Breakfast show with Gugs Mhlungu. 

“I remember seeing my paternal grandfather graduate with a postgraduate degree when I was the age of six or seven.”

Growing up with these examples, he knew that he would likely grow up to work in teaching, medicine, law or business.

His older brother loved the American medical sitcom Doogie Howser and set his sights on a career in medicine. 

“Dissecting birds and mice and stuff… I realised then that I didn’t like the sight of blood. So that wasn’t for me,” Mokoena said.

“But I watched a lot of LA Law, and I thought Blair Underwood was amazing.” So, young Mokoena made up his mind that he would become a lawyer.

However, his interest in business was piqued when, after his father’s soccer career ended, he opened a shebeen where Mokoena worked here during his school holidays.

“Now, that’s an incredible business because it’s a microcosm of large organisations. It’s customer experience, it’s sales, it’s marketing, it’s supply chain management – because you’re ordering, you’re replenishing stock, and you’re selling with a smile,” he said. 

The business grew from a shebeen to a licensed tavern to a distributor business and eventually became a bottle store. 

The experience he gained here taught him about the value of money, financial management, working with people, trust, and customer experience.

“So, I knew that I have this business in my blood and perhaps one day I might end up in business,” Mokoena explained.

Mokoena attended Mmabatho High School in Mafikeng, where he unexpectedly gained some business experience. 

“I get to boarding school and there’s a little bit of initiation, and these older guys are making us wash their sneakers. I saw a business gap, and I came up with a little sneaker-washing business,” he said.

A few years later, when MC Hammer was really popular, Makoena and his friends had another business idea. 

They decided to sell MC Hammer pants at their school, using one of their friend’s sewing machines and knowledge about how to make clothes. 

After completing his high school education in 1992, he was torn between pursuing business and law and settled on studying a BCom Law and LLB at Rhodes University. 

At the time, the vast majority of students were white, and he and his friends felt the entertainment on campus wasn’t diverse enough. 

And so, he once again took advantage of this business opportunity.

“We started a little events company, throwing parties and hiring venues and just making sure that there’s house and Kwaito and, and hip hop and all kinds of music being played,” he said.

When he graduated in 1997, he was still unsure about whether he should go into law or marketing. 

He decided to research the top 100 JSE-listed companies’ CEOs to understand their CVs, wanting to model his journey after those of successful people.

“I was 19 or 20, but already I was thinking about the journey ahead and what I want to achieve,” he told GIBS Business School.

Seeing that so many CEOs had backgrounds in both law and commerce reassured him that he was on the right track. 

At the time, he had a choice between doing his legal articles at Braamfontein or working as a marketing trainee at Unilever in Durban. 

“With sea views, it was a very easy choice,” he jokingly said. 

At Unilever, he gradually worked his way up to brand manager, a position he held until 2001, when he left the company. 

Mokoena joined Tiger Brands in January 2002 as a Senior Brand Manager and held this position until April 2004.

That year, he became Marketing Manager at South African Breweries. He worked there until 2008, then moved to Cadbury, where he worked until 2010.

During this time, he earned an MBA from MANCOSA and began guest lecturing, which led him to pursue a PhD. 

In Johannesburg, he founded Birds Eyeview Marketing Consultancy, serving as Marketing Manager until 2011. 

He then became Managing Director at FCB International before going to work at Ogilvy Johannesburg, where he became CEO in 2017.

Joining Google

In April 2020, Mokoena was appointed Google’s Country Director for South Africa, replacing Luke McKend, who had left the company in 2018 to head up LinkedIn for Africa.

“I joined Google because I was attracted to what Google is doing and the impact it has on society,” Mokoena explained. “It’s a really cool company to work for with amazing products and great people.”

As the leader of the local team, Mokoena’s role includes people management, acting as Google’s spokesperson, and serving as a strategic advisor to stakeholders and customers. 

He also oversees the commercial side of the business, helping brands engage consumers online by efficiently meeting their marketing and media objectives. 

Being passionate about education, he has also helped Google bridge the digital gap in Africa through various projects, including 40,000 new developer scholarships and programmes to support Africa’s small retail businesses.

“My job evolves every week.” Although, he joked that his children think he simply speaks for a living. “As far as they’re concerned, I talk.” 

“But really, my job is fun,” he said. “If you set yourself the ambitious kind of vision or purpose of trying to make a difference, there’s no end to what you do, right?”

“I don’t want to brag about being busy. I don’t think being busy is a great thing. I think for me, I really just want to make a difference. And, if I’ve got things in my life that give me energy, I don’t get tired.”

Mokoena’s LinkedIn profile shows that he left Google in July 2024.

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This article was first published by Daily Investor and is reproduced with permission.