4 minute read
ROYAL HUSTLERS
Samuel “Ninja” Ndahangwapo on the value in giving
"When One of Samuel Ndahangwapo's biggest passions is training and developing people to prepare them for greater roles within their organisations. We recently had this inspiring Namibian come into the 99FM studios as a Royal Hustler and got to hear about his journey to becoming one of the country’s most outstanding accounting professionals.
GETTING TO KNOW THE MAN BEHIND THE NAME
Born and raised in the northern town of Oshakati, Samuel, like many Namibians, eventually found himself in the capital city to pursue his studies.
He comes from a big family of 20 siblings. Now he has been married for 11 years and has a beautiful family of his own with four children. Like many parents, the pursuit of making his family happy and being able to provide for his children are his biggest motivations in life. “After I got married and got kids, just realising that there are people who depend on me – that encourages me every single day,” he says.
And if you have ever wondered what the story behind Samuel’s nickname “Ninja” is, he happily shared it with us. As a child, while he was in primary school, Samuel was introduced to martial arts, something he grew to love tremendously. In fact, he loved it so much that he was soon enough passing the skills he acquired to his less privileged friends in the neighborhood, teaching them all the moves he was learning. “In my classes, everyone started calling me Ninja and that’s basically how I got the nickname” he recalls fondly.
Today, Samuel still loves martial arts and spends much of his free time with it. In fact it has become a family affair that he now enjoys with his wife and children.
CAREER
His biggest dream as a youngster was to work in a bank as an accountant, and even though this dream was almost derailed in high school, fate continued to steer him towards his dream profession. “I had a terrible experience in Grade 10 with accounting as a subject and I wanted to run away from it”, he recalls.
Samuel joined PWC in 2008 where he now serves as an Audit Partner and Manager of Assurance Services. He is an Experienced Service Manager and has a long working history in the accounting industry. Skilled in Enterprise Risk Management, Income Tax, Management, Risk Management and Auditing, Samuel is a capable accounting professional with accounting qualifications from the University of Namibia and Rhodes University in South Africa.
As someone who has been involved in training and developing others throughout his career, Samuel, an inspiring mentor to many, has spent much of his career grooming rising professionals in the industry. This started when he tutored fellow students while he was at university – something he considers to be his first “side hustle”.
Teaching and mentoring continue to give him a sense of adding to the lives of those who are trained by him. “I want to invest the little that I know in someone else’s life,” he says.
LEADING EXAMPLE
Focused, resilient and determined to succeed, Samuel is an exemplary professional who strives for excellence in everything he does. On how he remained consistent after so many years, he points to his strict plan for every single day: “The first thing one must realise is the limited amount of time that everybody has. How I stay on top of what I do is scheduling all the activities that I need to do, identify which is most important and then make sure that I spend my most productive time on that.”
He adds that in the accounting profession, staying ahead of industry developments is another way of staying relevant.
Samuel is focused on what is important in life and maintaining a spirit of giving – something that was inspired by the lessons he learnt from his father. “Most of the time we focus on taking instead of giving. My father was a mechanic who gave his life to train young people in his garage. From him I learnt to focus on what is really important in life. So, with every encounter that I have, I think of what I can give to that individual in terms of monetary value or skills instead of just asking what I can get from them.”
Noting that many of the challenges we face as a nation are rooted in a culture of taking instead of giving, he nevertheless remains hopeful about the future of Namibia. “We need to start being sustainable, to start industrialising and consuming what we produce ourselves. Once we get to the stage where we as citizens move to the mindset of producing everything that we consume, we will have done a good job.”
