Top businessmen share success tips

PASSION, skill, hard work, brain power and a bit of luck. A combination of these is needed to achieve business success.

Sharing these and other insights during the Professor Les Simpson Legacy Lecture at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University were three distinguished businessmen, all alumni of the university who studied under Simpson towards becoming qualified chartered accountants (CA).

Waco International Ltd chief executive Royden Vice, formerly managing director and chairman of Afrox, said there were no silver bullets or short cuts to career success.

"Passion is important. It is what will get you to the top. You need to work hard, but do not even think of it as work and enjoy what you do ... you need a framework to think strategically and develop it. You do not just wake up with it in the morning," he said.

Being qualified as a CA had given him the ability to get above the crowd in the early years to move up the organisational chart, Vice said.

Independent financial adviser Ian Scott, former executive director of Gautrain, said other important skills needed to make it in the business world were networking and communication. He advised the students to broaden their knowledge of other divisions in their companies.

Qualifying as a CA helped him have a wide knowledge base of skills, Scott said, not just to assist vastly different corporates, but also to advise them in a range of different services.

Fury Motor Group chief executive Marq Roberts, former sales and marketing head of Tiger Wheels, said he had gone into marketing early on, mostly because he was a CA. His bosses had wanted that skill to drive marketing at Delta Motor Corporation.

"Accountability in management normally is measured in financial numbers. As accountants we can read the numbers. You need to be able to look at the cake and know what [it will] taste like. We have a head start in business. More chief executives today [are] qualified CAs," he said. - Cindy Preller