South Africa chased its greatest business giants away
Veteran investor David Shapiro believes South Africa has lost the kind of business titans who once helped shape the country’s economy, and argues that today’s corporate leaders are far more focused on survival than aggressive growth.
David Shapiro is a renowned stockbroker with over 50 years of experience on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
He managed a unit trust, the Twenty Ten Fund, which won three Raging Bull awards between 2012 and 2014 for its performance.
He has successfully navigated various market cycles, economic shifts, and technological changes. His experience and significant role as a business commentator are what make his opinions extremely valuable.
In an interview with BizNews, he said South Africa doesn’t have the kind of businesspeople that it used to have in the past.
Reflecting on decades in the market, Shapiro said those earlier figures were not just managers but people who influenced the direction of the economy and gave business confidence and direction.
Looking back, Shapiro said there is no single explanation for their disappearance, but he identified several forces that hollowed out South Africa’s corporate leadership.
One was overreach after exchange controls were relaxed, when companies rushed offshore without sufficient thought.
“We had some great leaders, but as soon as exchange controls opened, a lot of companies just went overseas without really thinking about it, and that caused a lot of damage,” he said.
Another was the impact of post-1994 transformation policies, which, in his view, fundamentally changed incentives and behaviour in boardrooms, resulting in stagnation.
Shapiro said the contrast between past and present leadership styles is stark. Earlier generations were prepared to take risks, challenge authority, and think long term.
“If we had the kind of business people that we had in the past, we’d have a different economy, if we had that energy, that foresight, the courage to do what they did,” he said.
Today’s executives, by contrast, are very, very competent, but largely unwilling to step outside their comfort zones.
“They’re not willing to take big risks,” he said, describing modern CEOs as careful custodians rather than ambitious builders.
Red tape is suffocating ambition in South Africa
He pointed to legendary figures such as Brian Joffe, Sol Kerzner and Raymond Ackerman as examples of leaders who put South African business on the map.
Ackerman, he said, was not just running a retailer but fighting the apartheid government and fighting for the consumer, creating a brand people loved.
He argued that today, efficiency has replaced inspiration. “You go to Checkers because it’s cheap. I don’t know if anybody loves Checkers,” he said.
According to Shapiro, one of the biggest reasons ambition has been replaced by caution is the regulatory environment.
“If you want to do anything in this country, they give you a rule book. They don’t open the doors for you. They don’t roll out the red carpet,” he said.
“Instead of enabling growth, regulation dictates how you’re going to build it, where you’re going to build it, who you’re going to employ, who your shareholders are.”
As a result, businesses no longer build factories, create ecosystems, and stimulate the multiplier effect.
This has transformed the JSE itself, which Shapiro described as having shifted “from being a stage for champions to a battleground for fighters.”
He added that companies are no longer striving to conquer markets but simply to cope. “They’re just fighting for survival,” he said.
Load shedding leads to solar panels, water shortages in tanks, and potholes to detours. “We just adjust to the circumstances rather than starting a revolution and saying, ‘We’ve got to change this.’”
Shapiro argued that modern CEOs are trapped in what he called a “compliance tragedy,” where the primary job is no longer to grow a business but to avoid breaking increasingly complex rules.
“The regulations just overwhelmed them. They just haven’t got the energy to go through it,” he said.
He added that businesses are now packed with compliance officers instead of front-end growth drivers, while criminals ignore the rules entirely.
Shapiro believes South Africa still has immense potential, but unlocking it requires a return to bold leadership and a mindset shift away from mere survival.
“We need to build up business people who are prepared to take risks, who are prepared to forge this economy,” he said.
Without those voices and that ambition, he warned, the country will remain stuck managing decline rather than chasing growth.
Loading ...