entrepreneurism | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

What an amazing experience it was to sit next to Clem Sunter at the 5th anniversary of the Thursday Club lunch at Buitenverwachting yesterday, the guest of the wine estate’s PR consultant Sandy Bailey. At the lunch Sunter’s new book ‘21st Century Megatrends: perspectives from a Fox‘ was launched. Sunter was the first speaker at the Thursday Club at its launch five years ago.

We were welcomed with a choice of a glass of Buitenverwachting Blanc de Noir or Meifort (a blend of Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon). Sunter was already in the restaurant, and was happy to pose for a photograph, volunteering to move away from the glass door so that the light did not affect the photograph, clearly an old hand at this. We started chatting before the lunch started, and I received a quick overview of his talk, and learnt a lot more about him.

Christopher Sunter was born in the UK, the only son of a mother he was very close to, and went to school at Winchester College. At school Sunter played the guitar, and the first song he sang was ‘Oh my Darling Clementine‘, which led to his classmates calling him ‘Clem‘ after the song, and the name stuck. He went to Oxford, and there he started a band with his friend, called the Clem & John Band. His biggest claim to fame is the fact that the band co-headed a concert in Oxford at which the Rolling Stones performed as well, in June 1964, and he ended off his talk with this information. We were lucky to have Clem sing for us at the table, his face lighting up as he did so. He shared that he performed with eleven other CEOs at a concert at The Barnyard in Johannesburg last year, organised by Reg Lascaris, the proceeds going to charity. He sang ‘Peggy Sue‘ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes‘ at the concert, and ‘Peggy Sue‘ for us at the table too. Should his career as a scenario planner ever fail, which is highly unlikely, he can fall back into a career as singer! Sunter also is very funny, saying that every year for three weeks he lived in the home in which his mother lived before she passed away. Every evening they were served a glass of wine, and he told a funny story about the residents of the home which brought the house down as he started his talk. Sunter joined Anglo in London after university, and moved to Anglo Zambia in 1971, and then to Anglo South Africa two years later, serving as a Non-Executive Director of the company now, as well as consulting to corporates around the world as a scenario planner, and writing books. Sunter has owned a holiday house in Simonstown for a number of years already, and he and his wife plan to move to Cape Town next year, a ‘semi-gration trend’, he said. They live in Rosebank in Johannesburg and he said that he loves living in Africa, and feels completely at home in this country. Two of his three children live outside South Africa, one of them in Perth, which caused a laugh as I had asked him whether we need to pack for Perth again, which he now refers to ‘parched Perth’ due to the impact of climate change on Australia. Continue reading →

We have written about the odd titles given to the Franschhoek Literary Festival 2014 workshop sessions. One of these was the discussion about entrepreneurism, entitled ‘Business Bundu Bashers’. The alliteration in no way reflected what the topic of discussion was about!

Michael Jordaan, former FNB CEO, newly elected Chairman of WOSA (Wines of South Africa), and Chairman of Mxit (left), was the chairman of the panel of four writers, which had one hour exactly (well less to be exact, due to the slow microphone wiring) to discuss whether in essence entrepreneurs are made or born. Panelists were Peter Vundla (author of ‘Doing Time’), Angela Makholwa (a crime author and writing agency owner, who seemed out of place on the panel, despite her charm), Herman Mashaba (writer of ‘Black Like You‘, a play on words of his very successful African beauty product company Black Like Me), and Bertie du Plessis (writer of ‘Your Small Business Nightmare’).

Peter Vundla worked at Ogilvy & Mather for ten years many moons ago, and shared that he used to watch his white colleagues, thinking that he could run an ad agency better than they could. He called this process of learning by observation ‘Doing Time’, the title of his book. He went on his own, setting up HerdBuoys, our country’s first Black-owned ad agency, and they saw tough times initially, having their homes and cars repossessed, in not having any start-up capital. But nothing could break their determination to succeed. Books have been ‘the companions of my life‘, he said. Vundla said his autobiography includes (former President) Thabo Mbeki, his father, the current government, and HerdBuoys. He proudly shared that he brought the Zara retail outlets to our country, being the local partner of the international clothing store. He said that he is not afraid to say what must be said, even in his book, and he attacked the Franschhoek Literary Festival for most of the attendees of the discussion session being ‘White’. He called for a Soweto Book Fair! Vundla said it’s lonely to write a book on your own. For him it is not about the money he can make from a book, but about how many persons read it. The agency did well, taking on Coca Cola, General Motors, and Sprite as some of its top client brands. Makholwa said that the sale of the Continue reading →