{"id":883842,"date":"2026-11-15T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=883842"},"modified":"2026-11-13T16:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T14:54:14","slug":"man-who-owned-shebeens-and-got-shot-received-r2-5-milllion-a-month-from-cell-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/883842\/man-who-owned-shebeens-and-got-shot-received-r2-5-milllion-a-month-from-cell-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who owned shebeens and got shot received R2.5 milllion a month from Cell C"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jorge Mendes, CEO of Cell C, received total earned remuneration of R29.309 million for the 2026 financial year, working out to approximately R2.44 million per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cell C’s 2026 Remuneration Implementation Report shows that this included R14.77 million in guaranteed pay, R28,000 in other benefits and allowances, and an R11.955 million short-term incentive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also received R2.556 million from the long-term component of awards made under the company’s previous Single Incentive Plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendes was also awarded R15.435 million in performance-based shares under Cell C’s new long-term incentive scheme. This brought his total awarded remuneration to R42.188 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The figures were disclosed in Cell C’s first integrated annual report, published on 1 October 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Mendes became CEO in 2023, his full remuneration was only publicly disclosed in 2026, following Cell C’s listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before its listing, Cell C was an unlisted company and operated under its own remuneration policy and committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its executive remuneration was therefore excluded from the relevant disclosures in Blue Label Telecoms’ annual reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendes received a short-term incentive after the company achieved 94% of its controllable EBITDA target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His individual performance was rated at 125%, with the remuneration committee concluding that he had exceeded expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee credited him with providing leadership through a critical period of transformation, helping Cell C complete its turnaround and position itself as a listed telecommunications business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Aki Anastasiou on the What\u2019s Next podcast earlier this year, Mendes explained that he grew up in a typical Portuguese household and started working part-time at the age of 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He initially worked at a liquor store on Friday afternoons and Saturdays, which helped him develop an entrepreneurial streak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I owned some shebeens, and I used to deliver to shebeens. I then got involved in liquor stores,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The turning point in his career <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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However, his business ventures took a turn when his business partner was killed during a liquor store robbery. Mendes was also shot, having been held up three times while working in the liquor trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience prompted him to reconsider his career and seek a safer working environment. While recovering, he applied for a position at a Teljoy call centre in 1994 after spotting an advertisement in a newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was a complete career shift. I had no real plan to become something significant in the ICT sector,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendes had originally intended to become an architect and studied technical civil drawing at John Orr Technical High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, his call centre job ultimately became the starting point of a three-decade career in telecommunications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of that career was spent at Vodacom, where he rose through the ranks and eventually became head of its consumer business unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After four years in the position, he left the company and took a seven-month break before accepting the challenge of leading Cell C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His appointment came at a difficult time for the mobile operator, which had been struggling under substantial debt and financial pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under his leadership, Cell C completed a major restructuring, migrated to a network-sharing model and returned to profitability. It subsequently listed on the JSE in November 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2026 financial year, revenue increased by 14% to R12.641 billion, while its subscriber base grew from 7.6 million to 8.9 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mendes said the company had rebuilt its network credibility, grown its customer base, and regained customer trust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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More photos of Jorge Mendes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jorge Mendes, CEO of Cell C, received total earned remuneration of R29.309 million for the 2026 financial year, working out to approximately R2.44 million per month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":883871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2121967715829100807","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2274567686696963","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18648825784002716","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[23107,42,853],"class_list":["post-883842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-blu-label-unlimited","tag-cell-c","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883873,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883842\/revisions\/883873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}