Three men who took Vodacom from small operator to titan

Alan Knott-Craig, Pieter Uys, and Shameel Joosub have taken Vodacom from a small operator to a global telecommunications powerhouse.

Vodacom was founded in 1993 as a joint venture between Telkom, the UK’s Vodafone, and Johann Rupert’s Venfin.

In 1993, South Africa’s cabinet ministers authorised two cellular licenses after it decided to create a competitive mobile market.

Knott-Craig, a Telkom executive at the time, was leading the investigation into cellular phones for the South African market and became Vodacom’s first chief executive.

Knott-Craig’s major achievements include convincing shareholders to spend millions on advertising campaigns to promote Vodacom’s products and services.

These promotions happened before the company launched its first mobile offerings in 1994, giving it a big head-start against MTN.

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

Under Knott-Craig’s leadership, Vodacom focused heavily on innovation and was behind many world firsts in the mobile industry.

With more and more South Africans needing connectivity, Vodacom launched Vodago, its prepaid service.

This made the mobile network more accessible and affordable, allowing people to control their spending while getting connected.

There was a strong 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.

His uncompromising demand for excellence helped Vodacom to exceed its initial growth projections of 250,000 subscribers within ten years.

By 2000, Vodacom had over three million users. This growth accelerated and helped Vodacom become the largest telecommunications company in South Africa.

Under his leadership, Vodacom expanded its presence to numerous other countries, including Lesotho, Mozambique, DRC, and Tanzania.

The mobile operator, a technology leader in Africa, was the first to launch products like 3G and LTE in South Africa and on the continent.

Knott-Craig also created an exceptional management team, including former Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys, current Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub, and former CTO Andries Delport.

He led Vodacom for fifteen years until his right-hand man, Pieter Uys, succeeded him in October 2008.

Pieter Uys as Vodacom CEO

When Telkom decided to launch a mobile operator in the early nineties and put Knott-Craig in charge, Uys was one of the first employees to join him.

Uys moved to Vodacom in 1993 and was a founder member of the mobile operator’s engineering management team.

He transferred to the radio systems and planning division in 1995, where he played a major role in the first phase of the planning and rollout of Vodacom’s GSM network.

At the time, the Vodacom mobile network rollout in South Africa was the fastest in the world, which showed Uys’ engineering prowess.

He helped make Vodacom the largest mobile operator in South Africa, a lead the company still holds today.

Uys was also responsible for the successful launch of the Vodacom Internet Company, which quickly became a leading Internet service provider.

This was the start of a 30-year journey in which Uys was a key figure in bringing Internet access to millions of South Africans.

Uys quickly rose through the ranks at Vodacom and held numerous executive positions, including managing director of Vodacom South Africa.

He was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Vodacom Group in April 2004 and chairman of Vodacom South Africa in 2005.

During this time, he accomplished something his competitors said was impossible: launching 3G broadband access by Christmas 2004.

In October 2008, Uys took over from Knott-Craig as Vodacom’s chief executive. Under his leadership, Vodacom continued to dominate mobile broadband access in South Africa.

Vodacom and MTN were in a race to be first with technologies like HSDPA, HSPA+, and 4G, and Uys ensured they won.

In his last year as Vodacom CEO, the mobile operator added millions of new data users, bringing the total number of data customers in South Africa to 12.2 million.

Uys also focussed on getting smartphones into South Africans’ hands to give them access to the Internet.

The year before Uys stepped down as Vodacom CEO, the number of smartphones on Vodacom’s network grew an incredible 55%.

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

Shameel Joosub as Vodacom CEO

Shameel Joosub joined Vodacom in 1994, only a year after the company’s founding and the same year it launched its first mobile services.

Over the next decade, he would climb the ranks and eventually earn the position of Vodacom South Africa managing director, which he held from 2005 to 2011.

He briefly served as Vodafone Spain’s CEO from 2011 to 2012 before taking over the mobile operator.

Under Joosub’s leadership, Vodacom launched several industry-firsts, including the country’s first commercial LTE network and first 5G mobile network.

Outside of South Africa, one of the company’s biggest successes over the past decade has been the growth of its mobile money service, M-PESA.

Joosub has received numerous awards for his achievements as CEO, including the MyBroadband Telecoms CEO of the Year in 2023.

In the financial year he took over at Vodacom, the company reported revenue of R69.92 billion and a net profit of R13.22 billion.

In its latest annual results for the period ended March 2024, revenue stood at R150.59 billion, and profit had increased to R19.26 billion.

During his tenure, Vodacom’s subscriber numbers across Africa also jumped from just less than 59 million to more than 200 million.

Joosub has received numerous awards for his achievements as CEO, including the MyBroadband Telecoms CEO of the Year in 2023.

He has also received an honorary doctorate from the Central University of Technology in recognition of his exceptional contributions to business and telecommunications.

Joosub said while the company and industry changed, Vodacom’s purpose remained unchanged for the past three decades: to ensure everyone is connected.

“We have remained resolute in delivering societal value through a wide range of initiatives that change the lives of people,” he said.

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