LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

named it Morris Jones, and then were able to launch some really good brands.

      Ruda: Let’s walk through that slowly. What is it like to actually put yourself on the line? You’re no longer employed and getting a guaranteed salary cheque . . .

      Angel: Sure. So the big leap into entrepreneurship started with the ad business. In London I was working for the Saatchi brothers and that was wonderful. But coming back to open up the branch here, that was taking a risk. I did it with Nina Morris. She was the CEO, I was the creative director. The opportunity to buy out the Saatchi brothers was amazing, to name the agency after ourselves, and then running an independent shop, having to build it up. There was never ever a dull moment. We were taking risks everywhere.

      Ruda: How does one cope with that stress? Because I think that level of stress keeps many people tied to a corporate life – they just can’t give up the security.

      Angel: There was a combination of factors. Having a partner was really good. I miss having a partner now in the Homecoming role. So we took turns . . . you know, “It’s my turn to jump off the balcony and commit hara-kiri today because I’m so stressed,” and the other one would be more calm, so we’d take turns in that sense. Being a business owner, especially for a woman, enables you to have children and then to choose whether you’re going to go to your important meeting with a senior client or your just-as-important appointment to watch your daughter swim in a gala. We were lucky enough to build the business just as technology was allowing you to do business even while on the road. So the idea of being in a corporate and held to a nine-to-five role and not being in charge of my own destiny – it’s just unthinkable.

      Ruda: While I was with Carte Blanche, where I always worked freelance, I once had a job offer. I remember talking to someone about it, and I said, “I don’t know what to do! This is such a wonderful offer!” And she said, “Would you have to ask someone for leave?”

      Angel: That’s the big qualifier, isn’t it? So your choice was no, never!

      Ruda: (Nods) Because freedom is an amazing thing, especially for a woman.

      Angel: Definitely. I think we’re clever enough at multitasking to play the roles of the wife and the boss and the mother, and you can switch quite quickly into those roles during the day if you are in charge of your own destiny. It’s hugely rewarding. And the risk that comes with it, that stress attached, the highs and the lows – the lows are deeper but the highs are higher.

      Ruda: And Homecoming Revolution: you started it as a website. Why?

      Angel: Because I came back and realised that there was this perception that if you came back [to South Africa], you’re a failure, you couldn’t hack it abroad, while it’s completely the opposite. You’re seeing the opportunities and the ways that you could reconnect with people and really have an amazing business life and lifestyle and make a big difference by being home. That prompted us to start the website, and overnight it just blossomed. This was in the days before Facebook or Twitter, so our platform was used to express everybody’s love-hate relationship with South Africa. FNB gave us a sponsorship and we managed to grow a fully fledged team to run it. And then I had my very convenient mid­life crisis three years ago, and I wondered . . . my passion was Homecoming, my head was advertising . . . so I took the leap, sold my ad business – I sold Morris Jones – and stepped full-time into Homecoming Revolution and commercialised the entity.

      Ruda: What does that mean?

      Angel: We’re not a non-profit anymore; we shamelessly have turned it into a business and we’re repatriating South Africans to South Africa, but also Kenyans and Nigerians living abroad back to their respective countries – so we’re the brain-gain company for Africa. We introduce employers at home to African professionals worldwide. The trigger, the reason you return home, is friends and family, a sense of purpose and belonging, wanting to make a difference, and yes, your career. So we use all our emotive case studies and all the tools – practical tools involving property, schools, relocation services – to help people to come back.

      Ruda: So you are a placement agency and more?

      Angel: Yes, we’re a hybrid. People often can’t figure out what Home­coming Revolution actually is, because we offer all the marketing platforms for people to advertise to people abroad, and for those coming back we offer whatever products and services they need, as well as being able to place people. Most recruitment firms will work on a placement fee paid once a professional gets settled, but we operate on a much smaller charge for introductions. We see ourselves as the dating agency for corporates and talent. (Her smile widens.) We have these speed-meet events in London and New York and Nairobi and Lagos, where we bring together talent and employers for three-minute sessions and from there the employer will decide whether to hire or not. So it’s a different model, and it’s really working for us. We have this wonderful vision of this massive wave of repatriation back to the continent. In South Africa over the past five years [2010–2015] we’ve seen 359 000 professionals return home, and for each skilled person that comes back to South Africa, nine new jobs are created in the formal and informal sectors. So it really is rewarding stuff.

      Ruda: How do you sell it at the moment, in the midst of so much negative news?

      Angel: It’s been hard . . . we thought 2008 was bad. Obviously the worst time ever was during apartheid and then before the elections, when we really did think the country was going to burn. We find that in South Africa you will always have a love-hate relationship with being South African. I mean, in London I was this happy and this sad (gestures, her fingers two centimetres apart), so it was a very predictable life. Here I’m THIS happy and THIS sad (her hands fly apart), meaning I can be horrified and overjoyed in one day.

      We deal with people all the time who want to come back. We’re hearing people questioning: “Is this the right place?” “Isn’t it a bad time?” Crime, load-shedding, xenophobia – it’s all related. In South Africa at the moment we’ve got a crisis in our political leadership – there’s no question. I think this gives rise to other parties having a voice and being able to play a role. When I see, for example, the xenophobic attacks, I see a small pocket of radicals doing that, and then a massive wave of people saying, “Actually, that’s wrong.” So it brings to the fore the conversation about being actively South African versus sitting passively on the sidelines.

      Ruda: And here your life makes a difference.

      Angel: Ja, living here is so rewarding. I drive with my windows down, I chat to people on the street – I feel intensely alive. I look at my kids, Lulu this morning rehearsing her Zulu test and me being able to test her because she’s taught me enough as well, which is wonderful. Feeling that you can . . . we know enough people in different sectors, you can help to create change and make it happen. And you’re often a lone voice in the wind, but we’re encouraged by more and more people abroad who are saying, “I know South Africa has its problems, but I don’t want to wait until it gets better. I want to come home and make it better.” To be able to align your purpose with a business aim is amazing. I wondered if we would lose credibility when we became a business, but in fact we’ve gained it. People take us more seriously now.

      Ruda: Ja, because you’re putting your own salary on the line.

      Angel: Exactly. We’re now able to employ the best talent in the business and we’re at the high table with all the embassies and the public sector and different multinationals looking for talent, so it’s an exciting place to play.

      Ruda: On a personal level, tell me about your husband, Carlos?

      Angel: He’s a wonderful, wonderful husband. When he met me, I had Lulu already – I had this wonderful moonbeam of a daughter that beamed into my life quite by accident from one night. Most men were absolutely terrified and would run a mile, but this guy – the only other Christian Buddhist I’ve ever met in my life – he got me. (It took me a moment: she meant “got” as in “understand”.)

      So we’ve been married now for eight years. We’ve got a lovely little boy too, called Samuel, who’s seven. Carlos works across the continent; he works for Roche, the health-care company, as head of sales in sub-Saharan Africa.

Скачать книгу