PROFILE: GIDON NOVICK

GIDON NOVICK (BCOM 1991, BACC 1993), FOUNDER OF KULULA AND FORMER CEO OF COMAIR, HAS BEEN FASCINATED WITH FLIGHT HIS ENTIRE LIFE AND IN DECEMBER HE LAUNCHED HIS NEW AIRLINE, LIFT.

BY HEATHER DUGMORE

Gidon has flown countless times, but says each flight is still exciting for him: “It’s not new technology but it’s amazing technology and it epitomises what humans can do – create machines that transport people around the country and world. It’s an incredible enabler that facilitates human connection and one of the biggest human aspirations – to explore and travel.”

The aviation industry has of course been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Six thousand commercial aircraft are parked around the world doing nothing,” says Gidon. His response to this crisis is characteristically counterintuitive – he started a new airline.

“The opportunity was to make use of aircraft that weren’t doing any work and partner with owners who are willing to allow the aircraft to be used on a variable cost basis.” Lift was launched in December 2020 with two routes: Johannesburg-Cape Town and Johannesburg-George. The airline’s partner is Global Aviation, which has sophisticated maintenance and COVID-protocol capability and a good track record over 20 years.

Gidon and co-founder Jonathan Avache created a “customer obsessed”, agile operational model for Lift. Where Kulula introduced low price air travel, Lift has introduced value added air travel with innovations including flexibility with free booking changes and cancellations, Vida e Caffé on board and happy hour on the afternoon flights.

He says two key business elements he has always pursued are agility and adaptability, both essential in a COVID and post-COVID world. “Our operational model allows us to upscale and downscale our flights and routes as demand dictates. We currently offer the Joburg–Cape Town route but during the December holidays we added the Joburg-George route.”

Building “a brilliant team” is key for Gidon. He looks for smart, enthusiastic people with plenty of energy. “You quickly pick up how energetic someone is from their walk; if they walk slowly I get worried.”

Flying and running airlines is second nature to Gidon whose family were shareholders of Comair for decades. His chartered accountant father, the late Dave Novick (CTA 1960), was one of the early founders of Comair and played a vital role throughout his 50-year career, first as an accountant and subsequently as MD and then Chairman until 2011. Gidon, in turn, was with Comair for 13 years – as Co-CEO and founder of Kulula.

Kulula was launched in early 2000 shortly after he returned from the US, where he did his MBA at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago. “I went there with my wife Lindie for a few years, always with the intention of returning,” he explains. “I spent a fair amount of time studying Southwest Airlines, which was the first really innovative airline model from not only an efficiency and cost point of view but also a cultural point of view. Founder Herb Kelleher's leadership strategy included offering low fares to its passengers, eliminating unnecessary services, and predominantly using a single aircraft type. Meeting him in person had a profound impact on me.”

Another influence on Gidon was technology: “It was the early days of the internet and companies like Amazon were emerging in the US. At Kellogg I had the opportunity to meet business leaders and learn about what they were doing and how technology and the internet were going to completely change business. Flight and travel were among the earliest industries to be impacted by the internet, with online booking in particular and direct customer relations, as opposed to only working through traditional channels.

“At the same time, as a CA, I discovered a deep love for marketing, branding and company culture which all fit together. I was less interested in the hardcore analytical side of business and more interested in the culture, and leadership side, and when we came back home I wanted to test those skills. South Africa was ripe for disruption in the airline industry, which was quite restrictive in terms of the price points it targeted, excluding a big chunk of the market; only 1% or 2% of South Africans were using air travel and today it’s closer to 10%.”

Ahead of the launch of Lift, Gidon and Jonathan asked members of the public to suggest a name for the airline and received 25 000 submissions, with Lift emerging as the winner. Others included Ubuntu Air, FlyMzansi, and Gravy Plane, about which Gidon said “they must have confused us with another airline!”.

Lift’s head office is in Gardens, Cape Town in a shared office called Workshop 17, but the airline by its nature is a distributed business with an operations team in Johannesburg, and technical staff and crew at the airports in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Gidon, his wife Lindie and their four children live in Cape Town; they moved there five years ago after living in Joburg for 20 years. “Lindie is from Cape Town and we have the support of her parents here.”

Five months before the start of lockdown, Gidon joined a nascent food rescue non-profit called SA Harvest (https://saharvest.org/) which sources food that would have gone to waste. “I was deeply affected by the thought that every day 18 million South African men, women and children go to bed hungry and yet 10 million tons of food goes to waste here every year,” he explains. “This was an escalating crisis long before COVID, which then multiplied the numbers and brought huge attention to an issue that had somehow drifted off the consciousness of people and donors.”

SA Harvest drew inspiration from similar organisations such as OzHarvest in Australia, founded by a South African and one of the best food rescue examples in the world. Initially he had one truck parked outside their home in Camps Bay and they would collect food from Vida e Caffé and drop if off at a soup kitchen.

“But when COVID hit, SA Harvest was catapulted into massive volumes and in an instant we had to build every dimension, raise funds, hire key people, buy infrastructure, invest in technology and build a logistics system. Four months into lockdown we were operating at full speed, with Alan Browde at the helm. This year we will deliver five million meals though the food rescue process – and we are working with farmers and several of the largest food producers in South Africa, as well as about 100 beneficiary organisations.

“We now have a big operation in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban and an incredible team. I’m so excited about SA Harvest’s growth. Unlike most businesses whose core metric is profit, it is really rewarding to be part of an NGO whose key metric is community impact.”

Gidon also views investment in tourism as a key opportunity for social impact and creating job opportunities. “In South Africa we have a unique culture in terms of hospitality and treating people in a kind, generous way. There are a huge number of semi-skilled people with the right nature and willingness to learn and become service focused ambassadors in the tourism industry. We also have one of the most desirable tourism destinations in the world. Pre-COVID there were 1.5 billion tourists travelling the planet, which will take a while to return, but the opportunity for us in South Africa is huge.”

This inspired him to create a company called Lucid Ventures to leverage the 12J tax deduction incentive the government offers investors to encourage economic growth and job creation in the country. He launched Home*Suite Hotel – a group of boutique urban hotels they built from scratch in prime locations. “We have hotels in Rosebank, Johannesburg and The Cape Quarter in Cape Town, with a third and fourth set to open in Sandton and Sea Point later this year,” says Gidon. “Demand for hotels is still low, especially in Cape Town; to compensate we have introduced an attractive long stay offering for our regular short stay guests.”

Also through Lucid Ventures’ 12J fund, Gidon and his team recently launched a retirement living fund focused on developing centrally-located luxury retirement living spaces with all the amenities for a growing proportion of healthy, fit, older people who do not identify with the traditional concept of retirement homes. “We saw an opportunity to provide something disruptive and more consistent with their current lifestyle.”

Gidon says he had a vast pool of talent from which to select staff: “Many talented professionals, particularly in the tourism industry, lost their jobs as a result of COVID. For us it was an opportunity to bring together bright, enthusiastic, energetic people together at all levels of SA Harvest, Lift, Home*Suite Hotels and Lucid Ventures. Additionally, there is a pool of talented senior people sitting in organisations where they just don’t have the scope to shine. They are given tight parameters and they get stifled by politics and overloaded with bureaucracy,” he explains.

“People thrive on being enabled to explore their own potential, make decisions and take responsibility for what they are good at. For me the most rewarding part of these ventures is seeing people getting into their own rhythm and flow, and becoming more brilliant than even they thought they could be. Organisations obviously need capital and regulatory issues sorted out but at the core it is about finding the kind of people who get things done and don’t waste time on politics.

“We all know that South Africa has massive issues that shouldn’t be underestimated but history shows that barring a nuclear wipe out, there is always opportunity to grow and flourish. Currently, politics and corruption are stifling us and this combination has destroyed many a country and it can do the same to ours if we don't sort it out. If we do, we have everything it takes to grow.”

STUDENT EXPERIENCE

“I loved my time at Wits. It was at the time that South Africa was finally becoming an inclusive democracy, and it was exciting to experience the activism on campus and the early transformation of the student body. The best course I did was international relations. I loved it. Winnie Mandela was one of the students in the class.

“My brother Dan Novick (BCom 1991), who is a few years older than me, was at Wits at the same time, as he had been to the army [military conscription service] before studying. It was special to be at university with him. As kids we fought a lot but at university we became the best of friends and graduated in the same year. He now lives in Australia and is a great entrepreneur, involved in property development, solar financing and gold recycling.”