MYNTR SPOTLIGHT ✨🧐
“People Africa has something to learn from.”
This is…
Koos Bekker 🇿🇦
A South African billionaire media mogul, investor, and former CEO of Naspers, the man who transformed a small newspaper publisher into a multinational technology powerhouse and Africa's most valuable listed company. Born in 1952 and raised on a maize farm in the North West, he studied law at Stellenbosch and Wits before selling his house, borrowing money, and moving to New York for an MBA at Columbia Business School in the early 1980s. Today, he remains chairman of Naspers and Prosus, and has a net worth estimated at $3.4 billion.
🏆Founded M-Net, South Africa's first pay-TV broadcaster, in 1986, inspired by HBO and conceived as his MBA thesis, which evolved into MultiChoice and satellite broadcaster DStv, the first direct-to-home digital pay-TV service outside the US.
🏆Helped found MTN Group, now Africa's largest mobile telecommunications company.
🏆Appointed CEO of Naspers in 1997 and made the extraordinary decision in 1999 to forgo his salary, bonuses, and pension, instead taking stock options that tied his wealth directly to the company's performance.
🏆Led Naspers to invest $32 million for a 46.5% stake in a then-fledgling Chinese internet company called Tencent in 2001, arguably the greatest venture investment ever made; the stake is now worth roughly $100 billion.
🏆Retired as CEO in 2014 with Naspers worth $45 billion (a 3,667% increase since 1997) and returned as chairman the following year.
🏆Built an empire of luxury hotels and estates, including Babylonstoren in Stellenbosch (a Cape Dutch farm dating back to 1690) and The Newt in Somerset, UK.
If you're building a business, a career, or a life of impact, his experience could give you perspective on:
🎯How to identify emerging trends and take calculated risks before others see the potential.
🎯How to align your interests with those of your investors and stakeholders.
🎯How to trust your team and lead with a "hands-off" approach.
🎯How to look for good management and a strong team, not just a good idea.
🎯How to focus on solving real problems rather than chasing short-term profits.
🎯How to play the long game and resist the pressure for quick exits.
🎯How to try new things early, when you can still afford to fail and start again.
🎯How to find balance, building empires while also creating spaces of beauty and restoration.
Don't just admire the journey.
Borrow the experience.🔑
Get A Myntr.
One thing doing business in Nigeria has taught me is that sometimes you have to build before the structure exists.
If you wait for every contract to be signed, every process to be figured out, every approval to come through before you move, you will be waiting forever.
A lot of things I've built started with a relationship and somebody's word. You move on trust and then build the structure behind it.
This was a big adjustment for me coming from San Francisco because you're taught that the structure is what allows you to move. In Nigeria, sometimes moving is how you eventually get to the structure.
There's obviously a balance. You can't run a serious business on relationships and vibes forever. Eventually the contracts, systems, processes and governance have to catch up.
But I've learned to have a much stronger bias towards action here.
Sometimes the relationship has to be the foundation until you can actually build one.
Hey @Vuittots
You built GALXBOY around South African youth culture while competing with global brands.
What does an African fashion brand need to do to become globally respected without losing what makes it African?
DON'T BUILD YOUR FUTURE AROUND PROVING PEOPLE WRONG
Let your motivation come from what you want to create, not from people you want to impress.
A life built for yourself lasts longer than one built for revenge.