Jerry Mabena
ByWBSComms
J.R. Morgan said, “A man always has two reasons for doing anything – a good reason and the real reason.” At the end of 2009, I found myself at a crossroad in my entrepreneurial journey.
It seems like just yesterday when I moved almost 2 000km from home, Thohoyandou in Venda to Bellville in Cape Town, left a secure comfortable job in academia and joined Sanlam as a research consultant in their employee benefits division.
Independent from a very young age, I had one life plan, ‘to own my own knives and forks’ and never to rely financially on anyone else. After two years of pursuing a business degree at university, I dropped out.
In February of 2014, I joined a small consulting organisation as a senior project manager, immediately after I had completed my MBA. The organisation was in a start-up phase, had been in existence for about 18 months and formed part of a global corporation with the aim of establishing regional offices around the globe.
I was a really good social worker. I loved working in a community, doing long-term development work with individuals and groups. However, because I was a good social worker, I quickly became a manager of peers, then teams and projects, and ultimately organisations.
My appointment as managing director, Sasol Oil, in December 2006 was a defining moment in my career. Prior to this appointment, we had spent close to four years managing merger processes.