Profiles in leadership
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission’s Rory Voller celebrates innovation and creativity
“We don't speak enough to young entrepreneurs about how to manage a
business.”
Commissioner Advocate Rory Voller may not have set the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) on the road to using technology to make it simpler to start a business, but he is responsible for making the entity a highly evolved IT organisation. “We are a technology-driven organisation and we pride ourselves on that. If my systems go down for 15 minutes my phone won't stop ringing.”
The commissioner is sitting in a boardroom at the national office of the Department of Trade and Industry's Invest SA One Stop Shop. A few weeks prior the new space was overrun by school children who were guests of the CIPC for a World Intellectual Property Day event. Every year 26 April is set aside to celebrate the role of intellectual property in stimulating innovation and creativity.
Events such as these lie at the heart of Commissioner Voller's management style and his belief in the importance of collaboration. Over the next year, working with the Department of Science and Technology, the Innovation Hub and NIPMO (the National Intellectual Property Management Office), the CIPC will be rolling out a programme to entrench the idea of innovation in youngsters.
Educating children
“We do a lot of work in the university space because that's where a lot of research and development takes place. But we need to start encouraging it earlier.
“There's an organisation called the World Intellectual Property Organisation who have developed a programme on the full spectrum of innovation for school
children on the full spectrum, on innovation.
“We work closely with Science and Technology. We work closely with NIPMO and the Innovation Hub. We are rolling out a programme in partnership with Science and Technology working with school children. We're starting out this whole issue of entrenching innovation among kids.”
It's about education and changing culture, he says. Thinking back on the children he spoke to, he says many did not know that the Kreepy Krauly and Pratley Putty were South African inventions. Some did not know that the first heart transplant was performed in South Africa. And some were surprised to hear that South Africa has produced an entrepreneur like Elon Musk, a man busy disrupting multiple industries.
“Young people need to be shown, they need to understand the possibilities. Like I said to those kids, don't only think about being a lawyer, and don't only think about being a doctor.The world is moving. There is something called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is about new technology and being a disruptor.
“There are too many lawyers out there. I know. I am one.”
A passion for company law
Commissioner Voller has two law degrees, and had a career in the private sector before becoming a legal advisor at CIPC. He was a member of the team tasked with amending the South African Companies Act, the largest piece of South African legislation. “Amending is not the right word. Over eight years we changed it completely.”
He speaks as passionately about company law as some speak about cars or brag about their golf swing. He understands that as dry as most find the subject, it remains important to ensure an entrepreneur's effort is not hijacked.
To help educate business, and young first-time business owners, Voller and his team collaborate with the Department of Small Business Development. “Remember the CIPC's mandate, our legislated mandate, is one of education. It's in the law.The Companies Act says we must actively go out. We run indabas and workshops on youth empowerment and the empowerment of women. We get invited to youth seminars to educate entrepreneurs about company and intellectual property law.”
He, and his team, are not expected to discuss the substance of running a business.The responsibility of explaining how to manage a business, about cash flow and contracts and banking is the responsibility of the Small Enterprise Development Agency. “We shadow them. We are there to encourage small businesses to register. We concentrate on the regulatory side and how to comply with the Companies Act.”
Technology is changing the world
The Invest SA offices at the dti campus in Pretoria gleams. Its staff are knowledgeable, friendly and accessible. It shares not only space with the CIPC but uses some of the entity's technology as well. Visitors are helped through the Commission's speedy and easy registration process.
Automation, as it proves every day at the Invest SA office, is the future. The Commissioner was an early adopter. With him leading, the CIPC is undertaking a major automation project. “I firmly believe the future of delivery of services to the people of South Africa lies in automation. Using technology, using automation and assisting them to use those tools. We have a large population that is not internet savvy. We need to assist them as well.”
Straight through processing of companies, amendments to company information are tasks that can be done online on the CIPC platform. “We don't want people standing in queues for six hours to register a company. Business people have more important things to do, like running their business.”
The advocate's passion for what he does is obvious – and infectious. He talks of the importance of giving his team – he never refers to them as staff – the tools to do their jobs.
He encapsulates his management style using three letters – PCT. People. Collaboration. Technology.
He leads a team of 500 and believes, as Richard Branson does, that you take care of your people. And they in return will take care of your customers.
“The other management principle I believe in is something I believe all government departments need to take cognisance of: collaboration.You can't do what we need to do by yourself so you must be able to collaborate. So I actively go out and look for collaboration partners.”
Protecting patents
Commissioner Voller does not believe in micromanaging his team. There are long-term projects where managers are responsible for success. “When you build competency into the team, let them do what needs to be done because they have a way of doing it.”
Then there are strategic projects where he is more hands-on. Not because they are passion projects, simply because he believes success will make the CIPC better able to serve its customers.
“I'm driven by first-world technology and using that to improve the efficiency of the organisation. I'm also looking at where other countries are moving in terms of digitisation, automation and electronic services.”
He, and by extension CIPC, have been appointed to the exco of the Corporate Registrars Forum. At this global forum he is part of discussions on beneficial ownership “in other words, who owns what.”
He is also part of the discussion on the modernisation of registries. As he tells his team, the CIPC has to keep evolving, keep getting better. “We need to improve continuously. And how do we do that? Through the use of modernisation tools, the internet, e-services. South Africa has one of the most modern registration systems in Africa.We are starting to play a meaningful role with our peers on the continent.”
Commissioner Voller adds that the CIPC is more than just company registrations. They are responsible for patents, design trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property registrations as well. He begins to talk about another big project at CIPC, the Substantive Examination of Patents project.
The CIPC has always been an administrative body, without the mandate or skills to test the validity of new patent applications. But South Africa is now moving into a full examination site, with the CIPC as lead.
Registering a patent is expensive and time-consuming. If you invent a cell phone, the Commissioner says, you send it to a regulator to test that it is in fact new and unique. As an administrative body, the CIPC could not test claims, inventors had to go through a patent lawyer who sent the product for testing.
Once the CIPC begins accepting products for examination, inventors can go through them for testing and then lodge the patent with the global Patent Cooperation Treaty. “We'll be starting with biochemical, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. We've employed our first batch of examiners – Ph Ders and Masters in chemistry, youngsters running around the building. But we're gearing ourselves up. It's a huge project.”