'Humble' is the most common word used to describe ICT titan Hamilton Ratshefola, who at the time of his untimely death, was CEO at Gijima.
The ICT services firm announced the passing of Ratshefola, affectionately known as 'Mr H' in local ICT circles, on Sunday morning.
Mr H passed away at the age of 56 and since the announcement was made, ITWeb has been inundated with messages from numerous people from the ICT industry, who could not believe that the gentle giant was, indeed, no more.
He leaves behind his wife Mapule and their children.
I have been privileged to cross paths with Mr H on a number of occasions, and I was always impressed by his charisma and easy-going personality, an unexpected trait for such an industry giant.
If my memory serves me right, our first encounter was at one of the Institute of Information Technology Professionals of South Africa (IITPSA) President’s Awards ceremony, which honours IT professionals in South Africa.
Mr H scooped the coveted IT Personality of the Year Award back in 2007.
Influential businessman
That year, he was regarded as one of the country’s 20 most influential black businessmen, and Ratshefola was quick to point out in an article on ITWeb that his 17 years in the ICT sector had been a 'revelation and a roller-coaster'.
“I am extremely optimistic about the potential for future business growth in this country, which is full of opportunity. It just depends on whether or not you want to focus on things like crime or prefer to point out the possibilities,” he stressed.
“We appear to be a nation beset by many problems and few solutions. Under these circumstances, many business leaders have developed a fundamentally pessimistic mindset.”
Mr H was very vocal about two specific areas of concern: the ever-increasing competitive threat posed by countries like China and India – he said businesses had better `move faster if we want to compete’ – and black economic empowerment (BEE) in the ICT sector.
On the face of it, he said, BEE was all wrong and he felt that government needed to act quickly to rectify the situation.
“To grow any business, you need capital, but while capital can come and go, you cannot take skills away from people. There are far too many instances where investor money is flowing from a select few whites to a select few blacks. Take a certain large bank, for example. Valued at R40 billion, they sold a 10% stake to a BEE partner. Now that bank is valued at R120 billion, which means that the BEE partner’s investment went from R4 billion to R12 billion – an R8 billion profit from playing golf!” he quipped.
“To have sustainable BEE, we need to focus on the creation of skills and harnessing potential, therein creating an entrepreneurial environment rather than making the rich even richer. Capital and the transfer of ownership will not change anything overnight,” he added.
“We can’t perpetually keep hiring black over white. We now need to give white talent an opportunity at entry level for them to have an opportunity in this country.”
When I met Ratshefola at that particular IITPSA event, as one of the previous winners, he was a speaker at the ceremony. I was a novice in the ICT industry and Mr H made a great impression on me.
What caught my attention was how he demonstrated that black excellence had what it takes to occupy top positions in the ICT industry, an industry that has traditionally been dominated by white men. I was inspired! He was IBM South Africa’s country manager at the time.
Ethics and integrity
As reported by ITWeb Brainstorm in 2020, he learned crucial lessons in the ICT industry – ethics and integrity, and to eschew all forms of racism. He also loathed corruption.
Those principles saw him reject blatant expectations of bribery when he formed his own company, Cornastone.
After a decade of success at Cornastone, corruption came knocking, he told Brainstorm. “We started getting a lot of requests by government to do things that we thought weren’t appropriate, and more and more with every deal,” he said.
“I wasn’t winning deals I should be winning and that’s not an environment I wanted to work in. Without that ethical grounding, I’d have capitulated and absolutely been tempted during that era of corruption. But IBM’s background and heritage led me to sell rather than participate in market practices that aren’t ethical.”
I would meet Ratshefola again in 2018 at Gijima’s Midrand offices. He was still at IBM.
At this particular event, the private sector joined hands with the public sector to launch South Africa’s first government cloud computing platform.
Mr H played an instrumental role in making this happen, together with former State Information Technology Agency CEO, Setumo Mohapi, Robert Gumede, chairman of Gijima, and Alex Du, MD of Huawei Enterprise Group Business SA, among others.
I observed the chemistry between Gumede and Mr H at that boardroom table, so it came as no surprise when Ratshefola joined Gijima as its group managing executive in May last year, replacing Maphum Nxumalo, who had retired.
It was a match made in heaven, I thought, when the appointment was announced. I was looking forward to May this year to have a catchup interview with Mr H to gauge how he was coping with the new role after a full year in charge. He was always interesting to chat to. Sadly, I have now been robbed of this opportunity. His presence in the ICT sector will be sorely missed.
Ratshefola’s memorial will be held today. Click here for more details.
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