Being part of the answer to big problems

Instead of just complaining, Mpho Sedibe puts her experience to good use for SA

IAM often inspired when I come across ordinary South Africans who are choosing to invest energy and skills in being part of the solution for the problems that plague our economy.

We have enough complainers and commentators; we need more pioneers and implementers.

One initiative often faced with mixed views is BEE, or rather the broad-based BEE initiative that it has evolved to. The policy is routinely criticised for anything related to its design, its implementation or even its after-effects of benefiting a limited few, with hardly anyone coming forward with solutions or proposing alternatives for the broader black beneficiary base.

Mpho Sedibe is an entrepreneur who decided to be part of the solution for implementing BBBEE. During her time in the corporate world, working for McKinsey, Allan Gray and Investec, she became increasingly disillusioned with how BBBEE was being implemented.

She noticed that the biggest gaps related to how corporates failed to understand the long-term commercial benefits that could come as a result of implementing the policy appropriately. She also noticed that many continue to view it narrowly as an ownership issue, discounting oth- INVESTING TIME: Mpho Sedibe uses skills for SA er key elements. As such, progress remained slow and long-standing institutional racism remained a reality.

Instead of joining the commentary on the topic, she left her corporate career two years ago and opened her own BBBEE advisory business called MOPSY.

It focuses on helping business leaders implement BBBEE in a way that helps achieve improved commercial success, while redressing economic inequalities inherited from the past. She has applied her skills as a qualified chartered accountant and business strategy specialist to contribute towards delivering an initiative whose benefits are still pending.

Sedibe saw that if the policy was not implemented in a commercially viable way, we’d continue to live in a country where businesses blocked its implementation, delaying its impact for black South Africans. BBBEE would continue to be seen as a challenge rather than an opportunity.

For example, one of her clients, a leading equipment multinational, reaped financial benefits by absorbing all of its South African operations into a joint venture with a local partner. Both the multinational and the local partner have been able to reap significant value.

Having been an entrepreneur for the past two years and having interacted with big business, Sedibe saw that her background in corporate life has made a big difference in helping her understand how to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Her background has taught her that relationships are everything and that as the MD, it is important to outsource various functions so that you have time to focus on actually building the business.

In fact, she cautions others who go into entrepreneurship with a blind eye. She notices many entrepreneurs entering the system and raising institutional funding, but not using the funds to deliver tangible economic benefits. Similar to gaps in the implementation of BBBEE-related policies, there are also gaps in the implementation of initiatives aimed at small and medium enterprises.

The goal should be to build somethe thing that makes it beyond mere existence. It needs to last to a point of profitability and continued growth.

Persevering amid challenges helped Sedibe to keep her business running. We need more entrepreneurs with staying power. This means striving to have enough, and not expecting to have it all — especially when the business is young.

By investing time and effort in the successful implementation of BBBEE, Sedibe sees herself as a “privately paid public servant”. That is what leadership should be about: making your mark in tackling our biggest issues.

Sikhakhane is an international speaker, writer and a strategist, with an honours degree in business science from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Stanford University. She also advises small businesses.