Phuti Mahanyele is going places under her own steam

Phuti Mahanyele is confident about her future - and the outlook for SA - as she quits CEO post

Phuti Mahanyele, who has been CEO of Shanduka, one of South Africa's wealthiest empowerment companies, for a decade, denies that she is leaving because of unhappiness over its pending merger with Pembani Investments.

The merged entity, worth R11-billion, will be led by MTN chairman and Pembani founder Phuthuma Nhleko. Nhleko will be chairman and banker Kennedy Bungane CEO.

Speculation that Mahanyele was less than entirely enthused about the proposed arrangement was fuelled by her impetuous announcement in November last year that it was off the table - followed by a hurried retraction the next day.

She also gave the game away somewhat during an interview this week with Business Times.

"I would have loved to continue with Shanduka on the trajectory that we were on, but obviously things have changed," she says.

Cyril Ramaphosa started Shanduka in 2001 and persuaded Mahanyele, who had already lined up a big job with Standard Bank, to become CEO in 2004.

He divested from the company when he became deputy president.

The prospect of having to surrender her leadership position to Bungane and accept an effective demotion can't have been easy for the exceptionally bright and ambitious Mahanyele, but she says this had nothing to do with her decision to start her own investment company.

She feels she still has something to prove to herself.

"Whilst I was the CEO of Shanduka, it wasn't my business," she says.

But she ran it?

"Yes, but now I would like to do it with partners that I select."

She concedes that she is leaving an organisation that has the potential to become "a black Anglo" for something that is presently rather vague and nebulous - and which, given the current economic climate, may fail.

"For some strange reason, and maybe I'm mad, I feel confident about it. I hope it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't," she said.

Mahanyele, 43, was born in Soweto and left for the US when she was 17 to study economics at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She followed this with an MBA at De Montfort University in Leicester, in the UK.

Once back in South Africa, she worked at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, then for the international infrastructure investment company Fieldstone in New York.

Mahanyele has received the most extraordinary international accolades. In 2007, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of its global young leaders. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal named her as one of the top 50 women in the world to watch. In 2011, she was named by Forbes as one of the 20 youngest "power women" in Africa. For the icing on top, she was named Forbes Woman Africa's 2014 businesswoman of the year.

She has clearly been singled out as someone expected to play an important leadership role in South Africa, and this makes her thoughts about the state of the nation and the way forward particularly worth hearing.

And somewhat surprising.

For example, she does not share the concerns of other business leaders about the kind of enabling environment the government is creating for business in the country.

Black economic empowerment has created the perfect enabling environment, she says.

"I've grown into the professional I am because of the environment that we've had in South Africa. I know we have challenges, but it's unfortunate that we don't spend more time looking at the positives that we have," she says.

Positives such as?

"The fact that we have the distinction of being one of 12 countries in the world where it's safe to drink tap water," she immediately fires back.

What about the growing number of communities protesting because they have no water at all, let alone safe tap water?

"Well, sure, I know. But we're still ranked 34 out of 192 countries worldwide in terms of infrastructure. There are so many positive accolades that South Africa has. I think, in terms of infrastructure, there is no doubt that we are number one on the continent," she says.

But what about the fact that the yet-to-be-implemented National Development Plan identifies infrastructure as South Africa's greatest challenge?

"Apart from the physical infrastructure, there is the mental infrastructure amongst our youth," she says.

What about the fact that the NDP identifies South Africa's appalling education system as another major structural impediment to growth?

"There's no doubt that we have a significant budget that goes into the education of our young people."

Indeed, South Africa spends proportionally more on education than just about any other country.

But is she concerned about the results?

"I am, and that is why one of the things Shanduka has focused on is education."

Shanduka has adopted more than 600 schools, she says. Mahanyele concedes that this a drop in the ocean, but puts the onus on the private sector - rather than the government - to do something about it.

"If a small organisation like ourselves can do that, imagine what much larger organisations could do if they were to adopt schools. If organisations in the private sector could be a lot more involved in dealing with the social issues that government is faced with, we could move a long way," she says.

But isn't this what taxes are for? And should business leaders such as herself not be putting more pressure on the government to improve its performance?

"Given the challenges, I think it's a lot faster for private companies to just adopt more schools and do more themselves to take things forward," she says.

"If you're going to start a process of pushing government to do more - I think government is doing a lot - but the private sector has ways of doing things in a more efficient and less costly way, and that is something they can bring to the party."

Mahanyele says she believes the private sector is not doing enough to support government initiatives.

"A number of private sector organisations are sitting on balance sheets and not releasing as much capital as they've done in the past."

That may be true, but isn't it for the government to create the right investment climate by, for example, providing electricity?

"It is a very difficult time we are facing in terms of power, but the reality is that we are still far above many countries on the continent," she says.

So why is the economic growth of so many other African countries much higher than that of South Africa?

"We're facing significant challenges in terms of having a smaller economy," she says.

Don't we have the biggest economy on the continent?

"Yes, well, OK. This is tough. The reality is that in the past many people did not have access to any power at all. Now we have a government that is providing power to all South Africans."