Craig Yeatman

ByWBSComms

Craig Yeatman

Current title
Group Operations Manager: Worldsview Holdings

Course at Wits Business School
Master of Business Administration, 2006

A defining moment in my career

I believed that I could work hard enough to earn a fabulous early retirement. I started a retail company in 1989 and my optimistic best mate helped me raise ‘capital’ by polishing up and selling my Hi-Fi system. More than a decade later, after a drunken lunch at which I confessed my need for large amounts of capital to fund a detour into distribution, another friend stepped in and wrote a cheque on a handshake. Five years later a third friend stepped in to run the businesses while I set out to complete an MBA. The MBA, along with trust in his ability to run the core business, gave me the confidence to detour into consulting and academia.

The reading, teaching and consulting work exposed me to an array of experiences outside of the first company I started, and equipped me to come full circle back to an executive role in the original business. I think people have trusted me because I worked hard, detoured when invited to, and kept trying to learn more. I think every detour turned out to be the main road, not a detour after all. The fabulous retirement is still under construction, and so I chop wood and carry water in search of a better way to get stuff done.

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