Alan Knott-Craig

Alan knott-Craig (Sr) (born 8 May 1952, Oudtshoorn, South Africa) is a retired South African former CEO of Vodacom (1996 - 2008) and Cell C (2012 - 2014). Quotes Someone on a salary that barely covers his living costs has a powerful incentive to deny the truth. Faced with the choice of personal financial pain or lying, most people go with the latter. Most people prefer earning a salary to doing the right thing (ie: whistle blowing). As a rule, don’t expect someone who earns a salary to tell the truth regarding his industry. He is motivated to lie to himself and others. After my retirement on 30 September 2008, I received a letter from the Vodacom Group chairman on 3 December 2008, which said, and I quote, ‘the shareholders felt it necessary as a matter of good governance to engage in a publicly defendable independent process to investigate the allegations … and (after considering the report) the board has decided to close the matter.’ I am fully satisfied that I have done no wrong, and have acted properly at all times. Dealing with rejection is just a muscle. Everything’s a muscle,” he said. “Overcoming your fear of rejection is a muscle. The way you learn to deal with rejection is: you get rejected. You don’t do it by reading books or meditating or praying. I have come to the conclusion in my career that honesty is the best policy. I have, many times in my life, told fibs and lies, and exaggerated things, and I’ve regretted it afterwards. I got lucky, and I made the most of my luck,” he openly acknowledges, adding that having the same name as his well-known father opened doors in the business world that might otherwise have been closed to him. You’re actually helping other people, you’re trying to be helpful, you’re trying to make the world a better place around you; that’s a very helpful thing for getting you motivate. As for which markets aspiring entrepreneurs should try to penetrate, Knott-Craig’s advice is to look at which industries sport the highest profit margins, rather than the highest total revenue. An entrepreneur is like a mosquito, he says – rather than trying to look for a vein, rather look for the biggest, juiciest artery you can find. The Corona-virus lockdown is getting me down. It’s getting me depressed. It’s making me a bit scared. It’s not the curfew, or the lack of exercise, or too much time in a confined space with my family, or the alcohol & cigarette ban, or not being able to visit my parents, or not being able to go to work. It’s that I’m receiving increasingly desperate calls for help from people from all walks of life. Restaurant owners and golf caddies. Tour operators and waitresses. Professional sportsmen and domestic helpers. In the townships there are long queues of people waiting for food hand-outs. The situation is not getting desperate. The situation is already desperate. Desperate and stressful and scary and nerve-wracking. If I’m nervous, I know that some of you must be nervous too. So I thought I’d share with you how I’m personally dealing with my anxieties and fears in the face of the massive social, health and economic challenges that have been created by the Corona Crisis that is engulfing South Africa. Before I go on, let me unequivocally state I am no irrational optimist, nor do I in any way pretend to truly understand the suffering of most South Africans. From 1815 and the onslaught of Shaka Zulu’s raging impis that resulted in the deaths of between and 1 and 2 million people and scattered tribes across the whole of southern Africa; To the Second Boer War in 1899, which saw the introduction of the world’s first concentration camps, in which 28,000 Afrikaner women and children died of disease and hunger, 10% of the population at the time; To World War One in 1914 during which South Africa’s Prime Minister, Louis Botha, was forced to suppress a mutiny of one of his generals who wanted to support Germany; To the arrival of the National Party in 1948, the evil stupidity of Apartheid and the imprisonment of freedom fighters like Robert Sobukwe in 1960 and Nelson Mandela in 1964 for the crime of demanding a democratic government. When you don’t know what to do, do nothing. When you have nothing to say, say nothing. When you don’t know the answer, say so. Action for sake of action can cause more damage than inaction. Words for the sake of words will make you look foolish. Inaction and silence can be the better part of valour. When you don't know what to do In the event that you may have forgotten, when I ran Vodacom, my duty was to my shareholders, and part of that duty was to maximise shareholder value in a responsible manner which they had to approve as shareholders and directors, and I make no apology for that. Now that I do not work for them, I may express my opinion more freely from time to time. I believe that internet access should be a basic right, it should be viewed as another utility, much the same as water, or electricity. There are so very many reasons internet access should be a basic right, but aside from education, healthcare or finding out what the Guptas are up to, for me the most compelling motivation for #internet4all in South Africa is economic development. We see it in all the roll-outs we’ve done. Free or affordable access to the internet sparks economic development. Whether it’s as simple as someone going online to look for a job to start earning money, or listing their newly opened hair salon on Gumtree, people use the internet to access the economy. There’s a WiFi spot in Pretoria that now has a guy selling hot dogs alongside it, the free internet access brings loads of footfall, and the guy sells his buns with viennas in,Knott-Craig Jnr says with a laugh. There’s a much cited statistic that was put out by the World Bank about the growth effect of broadband, and I’ve seen it in Tshwane. Enable the access and everything flows from there. The reason I approached the government and asked them to start rolling out free WiFi in public spaces and poor communities, is because the telcos are never going to make internet access free. It is not their game, and they’ll never make it cheap enough for someone to not worry about how much they’re spending on data. It’s just not going to happen. I don't think my dad is the type of person who regrets things and it's a good lesson I learned from him. I do think that he really shook things up when he went back to Cell C, which was probably good for the industry and all of that. I'm not sure it was good for me, I must say. For that brief interlude in Vodacom and Cell C, I felt a little bit more space for me to operate and him coming back in made it a bit harder for me to do deals. In an interview Ever since we parted ways in 2012 – it's been over three years – I got involved with the Government. I started helping the Government roll out Wi-Fi in poor communities. I started a business a couple of years ago, called Hero Telecoms, which focuses on broadband. I've been very fortunate. I've met some great partners, found some new shareholders, and I've basically been following my dream, which is to be an entrepreneur and build businesses that make a difference and make money at the same time. In an interview I'm often in telecoms and it was what we discussed at the dinner table my whole life. I know it. I feel like it's in my blood. I love it but when I qualified as a CA, I didn't want to work for Vodacom and MTN wasn't hiring so at the time, I was looking for a job at banks. I just thought I'd go work for a bank. They also weren't hiring me. I had a chance to start a small business on the WASP industry and that was my angle in. For better or for worse, I love the industry. I want to play a role in this industry. My name comes with a lot of baggage. It's difficult to carve my own space out but at the same time, it's a privilege to be able to have a name like that. External links