Icon Brian Joffe gets Wits honorary doctorate

ANT KATZ

Brian Joffe, who graduated from Wits University as a chartered accountant in 1971, received an honorary doctorate in commerce from his alma mater last month. Joffe who heads the multi-billion rand Bidvest Group has, also recently announced his impending partial retirement as CEO.

Wits Chancellor, Mr Justice Dikgang Moseneke said at the graduation ceremony that Joffe, “who started the Bidvest Group from somewhat humble beginnings”, had turned it “into one of the leading corporations in South Africa, with a turnover of over R204 billion”.

At the graduation ceremony, the story was retold how Joffe had famously launched his entrepreneurial career in 1978 by borrowing R49 000 and purchasing an interest in a small pet food manufacturer.

A year later, he borrowed again, to acquire full ownership of the company and to expand it.

Within six months his business – using largely discarded machinery on a makeshift production line – held 15 per cent of South Africa’s canned dog food market. He subsequently sold this business to a major industrial group.

Joffe launched Bidvest in 1989 and built it into the colossus it is today. Bidvest employs more than 145 000, with the bulk – over 125 000 – in South Africa.

Moseneke said that Joffe managed to look beyond apartheid to a democratic future in which South Africa would again be integrated into the global economy,

Joffe bought businesses that others were eager to sell, consistently expressing his faith in South Africa’s ability to transform and grow. In the process, he developed a uniquely empowered business model driven by autonomous entrepreneurs, each responsible for growing their own operations.

Joffe is also a past-winner of an SA Jewish Report Absa Jewish Business Achiever award.

Instead, said the Chancellor, Joffe had built a diversified group with interests in sectors as diverse as food services, travel services and pharmaceuticals. “Rather than focusing on one market, Joffe built his group of companies on consolidating diverse markets,” Moseneke told the assembly.

The business Joffe leads, added the Chancellor, makes a sustained contribution to communities and worthy causes, locally and in all markets where its subsidiaries are active.

“It is estimated that over the past decade, Bidvest’s social investment has topped R540 million. The contribution of the Johannesburg corporate office alone tops R120 million.”

Moseneke highlighted the Johannesburg Chevrah Kadisha and ORT SA, as well as other corporate projects such as Reach for a Dream, QuadPara (to develop the potential of quadriplegics and paraplegics), Sagda (graduate development), Hear for Life, the Chefs Association, Wits University, Hospice, Bethany House, the Nkosi Haven and PinkDrive.”

Addressing the graduates, Joffe urged them to strive to make South Africa a better place for their children and grandchildren.

“We need to create South Africa for tomorrow – every one of us. And, if we manage to do that, we would be able to come back and stand up here. And, instead of you listening to me talk, you can do the talking, and tell everybody what you’ve done over the last 45 years,” he said.

South African business icon Brian Joffe fittingly has been awarded an honorary doctorate in commerce by his old alma mater, Wits University. Here Wits’ Chancellor Mr Justice Dikgang Moseneke, bestows the trappings of his honorary doctorate to Joffe – PIC: WITS UNIVERSITY