‘Do business honestly and serve your country’

“Work with people to challenge you, and you can learn from them. If that’s not in place, move on and get another career,” Absa Business Leadership Award winner Alan Fainman told guests at this year’s Absa Jewish Achiever Awards.

Fainman believes the secret to his success at Bidvest – he is divisional chief executive of Bidvest Services International – is that “we trade honestly, we have integrity, we make money honestly, and we put the money back into South Africa. And that makes me a proud South African.”

He accepted the nomination because he knew that his mother, Irene Fainman, who survived two concentration camps before being taken by the White Bus rescue mission to Sweden in April 1945 would be honoured to have her son be acknowledged at such a forum.

“I grew up in a household where prejudice and hatred were never tolerated unless you were a Liverpool soccer fan,” Fainman said. “My mother, a Holocaust survivor, whose story is well known in this forum, has no hatred for anyone. So this recognition is simply to give her nachas.”

Fainman has become the business powerhouse he is through being meticulous, punctual, driven, and having an eye for detail.

He believes his division is successful because he leads from the front. “We have no handbooks on governance, on initiation, of do’s and don’ts,” he says. “We say that your governance is in your head and heart, and if we have to tell you and teach you what not to do, well, you won’t fit in with us.”

Fainman had a few words of advice for aspiring businesspeople in the audience about so-called “work-life” balance. “Keep your family close, they are your foundation. Never lose them. Work hard. Give it everything you’ve got. That includes weekends, nights, public holidays, and yom tovs. As much as we talk about work-life balance, my view is that this is absolute hogwash.”

Fainman started his first shoe-repair business in 1982. He then went on to become an executive director of First Garment before joining Bidserv Laundry Group in 1996. For the next 28 years, Fainman would work hard to get to where he is today.

Said Fainman, “I’m humbled. Over the past 30 years, I’ve had the privilege to witness and contribute to our incredible growth from running a small laundry business making just more than R2 million to a division generating R4 billion in profit.”

None of this would have been possible without the vision of former Bidvest Chief Executive Brian Joffe’s vision, which has been taken from strength to strength by Joffe’s successors, he said.

“This is a lesson in business succession. Bidvest, I have no doubt, touches everyone in this room through our various businesses, but it’s not our size or success that gives me the greatest pride, it’s what we do in South Africa.”

Bidvest invests its profit back into the heart of South Africa, Fainman said, as the group feels responsibility for the South African community.

“We spend more than R80 million a year on corporate social responsibility,” he said.

Bidvest Services International is the largest profit contributor of the six divisions in the group. Fainman’s division manages all the company’s hygiene and management services, and employs 74 000 of the 130 000 in the group.

Bidvest Services International focuses on hygiene, washroom services, and facility management services which include cleaning, security, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), electrical, generator services, utility management, and all types of services that one would find within a building.

The division operates in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Spain.

No matter how big the operation may seem, Fainman believes in keeping a close relationship with all employees. “If you come to my head office, there’s about eight or nine people. That’s the model Brian Joffe founded back in 1988, and it’s the model we’ve continued today.

“I would like to create more and more jobs, in South Africa and every other territory where we operate,” he said.