Takeshi Kimura
ByWBSComms
My career-defining moment presented itself in the form of a blessing in disguise. In 2001, after having graduated from WBS, I resigned my nine-to-five office job and decided to pursue my music passion.
I used to try candy-coat things, but no longer: giving birth is less painful, less bloody and infinitely quicker than getting your first novel published. If you haven’t been smothered under the avalanche of “Dear Author, Thank you for your submission, but …” slips by the time you find a publisher, you and your manuscript will still have to face the pitiless glint of your editor’s scythe.
I was in the hot seat in the M-Net boardroom packed with suits. At the end of the presentation, he asked me two simple questions – if we did this, what would be different the day after, and what is our right to win?
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.
After spending about ten years in corporate South Africa from 1981 to 1991, I was overlooked for a marketing position that became available. The marketing manager would not even allow me to be interviewed.
Having always had a deep interest in science, I first qualified as a chemist, and thereafter at a later stage as an engineer. In order to broaden my capabilities, I started to lecture evening classes at the Vaal Triangle Technikon, now the Vaal Institute of Technology.