ENTREPRENEURSHIP

BREAKING NEW GROUND IN BUSINESS

SARAH THABETHE, Chairperson of GrowthFin and Elton Charles Group and Director of SARMCOL, shares the wisdoms she has gleaned from the last two years in an extraordinarily challenging business environment due to Covid-19

Women all over the world have been breaking new ground for centuries – politically, in science, technology, arts, academia, activism and commerce. With every generation of fearless and powerful women that passes, it’s incumbent upon the next to take up the baton and keep running the race. It’s a responsibility that I, and many other women of my generation who I’ve had the pleasure of encountering, am fully committed to – the quest to forever break new ground and lay the foundation for future phenomenal women. Like most people, my start to 2020 was characterised by familiar new year’s resolutions – professionally and personally. I was determined to build on my successes of the previous year, while at the same time embracing what I had learnt through opportunities that didn’t go the way I had hoped. Filled with optimism about the 2020 year, I strategised – detailing my quarterly plans, areas of growth, possible investments and more – not knowing what March of that same year had in store for all of us: the devastating Coronavirus. This pandemic has had a shattering effect on all South Africans – we have all lost loved ones; people have lost their jobs and businesses have had to shut their doors – all of this against the backdrop of an already limited economic growth outlook. As the year progressed, it became apparent to me that I had one of two choices: either carry on feeling sorry about my derailed business plans and resolutions or use the pandemic year as a catalyst to do something innovative and benefi cial. I chose to do the latter.

MY INDUSTRIAL JOURNEY

A family investment opportunity dating back to 2013 introduced me to the, literally, “grubby” world of industrial rubber. I was appointed a Director of Dunlop Industrial Africa (now Dunlop Belting Products), the largest manufacturer of conveyor belts on the continent, and this marked the beginning of my industrial journey. Through this directorship I gained an understanding of an industry that had at the time, which is sadly still the case, very limited female participation and involvement. This directorship also introduced me to a leading German industrial rubber powerhouse in the form of Rema Tip Top Holdings, who were up until 2020, shareholders in the Dunlop business. Seven years later, the relationship with Rema Tip Top would yield a particularly exciting opportunity for me, the seeds of which would be planted in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. The South African Rubber Manufacturing Company Limited (SARMCOL), with its manufacturing facilities in Howick, KZN, is an institution in the South African industrial rubber industry. In April 2021, together with my phenomenal woman business partner, trading as our investment company, GrowthFin, we concluded a transaction with SARMCOL owners, Rema Tip Top Holdings SA. This resulted in GrowthFin becoming the 51% shareholders of SARMCOL and the fi rst majority black woman-owned, large-scale local manufacturer of rubber lining and industrial surface protection solutions in South Africa. Not ignoring my penchant for technology and an entrepreneurial life that exists beyond industrial rubber, GrowthFin also concluded a transaction with the Elton Charles Group. And specifi cally, for the purposes of this article, the development and imminent launch of HULA – an online gateway payment platform for the regular “Josephine Soap” trying to break new ground in any way they possibly can.

IN CLOSING

My truth about the years 2020 and 2021 is this: “The country was locked down, but our minds, hearts and socio-genderequality-seeking insatiable spirits will never be on lockdown.” I started this article with a quote from Angela Davis and I want to again highlight this particular line: “When Black women win victories, it’s a boost for virtually every segment of society.” The simple truth in this, is that our responsibility to this victory is compulsory. We have no choice. Not if we are to contribute to the shaping of a world where gender will no longer be a discussion; our girl-child will be our boy-child and vice versa; opportunity will be devoid of gender politics, and will rather be based purely on value and “the best idea or proposition”; and where breaking new ground will not be celebrated as a result of its ascription to the female gender, but rather as a life-changing and existence-altering proposition. Entrepreneurship is not for the fainthearted; it’s for those who continually dare to be innovative and see opportunity in everything. You need to have the ability to interpret failure and setbacks as steppingstones to success and be driven by the vision of creating a better world for this and future generations. We can all break new ground in our own small and big ways, while empowering and teaching others to do the same. In this way, we pass on the baton with the greatest possible chance of the next generation winning their race.

Black women have had to develop a larger vision of our society than perhaps any other group

SARAH THABETHE

Questions? sarah@growthfin.co.za