Family taught Hlapi the nitty gritties of running a business
Enterpreneur wanted to improve townships
Spending time job-shadowing his family members while doing business helped Tebogo Hlapi learn the tools of the trade at a young age.
With the exposure to the business and witnessing the impact his family had in changing people’s lives through business and empowerment, Hlapi established his own enterprise Nkoto Investments and Trading (NIT) in 2010.
Born 42 years ago in the small mining town of Bekkersdal on the West Rand, he says he was inspired by his late grandfather, Elias “Oom Vis” Hlapi, and his late mother, Ntswaki Hlapi, to pursue business interests.
That is what motivated him to start his own enterprise, providing ablution services for events and township ceremonies.
Today, NIT provides rented portable toilets to clients in various industries.
Hlapi says after seeing what challenges people who lived in informal settlements and pupils at schools faced with pit latrines, his mission became to bring dignity and privacy to community members.
He also supplies services to the department of education through modular classrooms and soup kitchen containers for the department’s feeding scheme projects.
Hlapi is also active in providing portable ablution facilities to churches, outdoor events, celebrations and funerals.
The businessman says it was not a walk in the park for him to establish himself as a formid-able entrepreneur as he faced challenges that almost saw him give up.
The cost and management and internal auditing graduate worked as a business analyst at Absa and at Anglogold Ashanti as a commercial leader, where he managed enterprise development section of the business before becoming an entrepreneur.