1. 12 Stimulating and inspiring quotes & stories of Penny Streeter
Pregnant and with two children, she (Penny Streeter, know she had to change her life, says Zimbabwe – born Penny Streeter
PENNY STREETER PERSONAL LIFE.
Contributed and compiled by Edgardo K. Welelo, Master of the Game and Founder & CEO of Udzungwa Mountains College Students Club of Entrepreneurship (UMCSCE) 30th April 2022 (Edgardo welelo@yahoo.com)
LEARNING QUOTES AND LESSONS FROM PENNY STREETER
1. “The children see the business as their sibling. When I (Penny Streeter) told one of my daughters I was thinking about selling Ambition 24 hours, she (my daughter) laughed at me (Penny Streeter) and said, “you would sell me first” – Penny Streeter.
2. “Business is a real thing where what worked yesterday is not necessarily working tomorrow. I (Penny Streeter) continuously have to keep reinventing”. – Penny Streeter.
3. “In everyone’s business, technology is the driver now. If your technology is not right at the cutting edge you will be dead and buried,” – Penny Streeter.
4. “When you grow your own business, it is your baby, you know it inside out. When you adopt other people’s children, they (other people’s children) don’t do things the same way. It is quite a learning curve and completely draining.” – Penny Streeter.
5. “The majority of very successful entrepreneurs have started with virtually no money. The biggest driver has got to be you. People always look for others to motivate them. But at the end of the day, when you are in business, you have got to be able yourself. And that is hard.” Penny Streeter.
6. “An original idea, a good business plan and hard work are far important than large amounts of finance to get a business started.” – Penny Streeter.
7. “Think big, start small and keep things very, very plain,”- Penny Streeter’s advice to young entrepreneurs.
8. “I (Penny Streeter) live in the mond set of that first business (Elite personnel recruitment Company). What happened then, could happen again. We are going through a global down turn again. The same principles of don’t borrow, have crappy furnitune, are still true in my business. We still have no borrowings at all.”- Penny Streeter.
9. “It does not feel any different, really I (Penny Streeter) never set out to make millions and millions of pounds. I (Penny Streeter) wanted to provide for my family, my business and do it successfully.” – Penny Streeter
10. “All the established agencies opened at 9.a.m and closed at 5 P.m, including all weekend. But health care requires shifts around the clock, and you don’t know in advance that someone is going to fall sick.” – Penny Streeter
11. “I (Penny Streeter) learnt everything from what happened with (Elite Personnel recruitment Company). We didn’t buy anything. Every Penny we earned we put back into the business.” – Penny Streeter.
12. “At home, there was no such thing as CANT. I (Penny Streeter) am lucky to be a confident person, so I had a strong belief that I could do it on my own. I know I had to,” – Penny Streeter.
PENNY STREETER BACKGROUND
• Born in Zimbabwe to British parents and educated in South America, Streeter, who dropped out of school at the age of 16, ended up in recruitment by chance. After moving to London as a young adult, she (Penny Streeter) trained as a beauty therapist but was soon looking for something more fulfilling. She (Penny Streeter) walked into an employment agency and requested a job vacancy. The company accepted her request and offered her a job. That is how Penny Streeter got into recruitment. A go–getter by nature, Streeter was quickly promoted to branch manager. When the firm opened a second outlet, she (Penny Streeter) hired her mother, Marion, to run it. Penny Streeter and her mother, Marion, used to compete with each other about bringing in the most sales. Unfortunately, one day both mother and daughter were fired – they cost the company too much commission. They had worked themselves out of a job.
PENNY STREETER FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS.
•The life of Penny Streeter, chief executive of healthcare staffing conglomerate A 24 Group, is the archetypal rags–to–riches story of a woman who was left with nothing, didn’t give up, started small, and made it big. Irked by the limits of being an employee, Streeter decided to go it alone. She (Penny Streeter) got a £ 30,000 ($ 46,611) bank loan. Her mother borrowed another £ 10,000 ($ 15,537). But their timing was bad. Within months of opening the office recruitment company Elite Personnel in 1989, the United Kingdom (UK) went into a major recession. Demand for her services dried up almost overnight. It was a complete and utter disaster. One day it was going well, the next day we had queues of people looking for jobs. They carried on and on, borrowing money, trying to dig themselves of this hole, and eventually went bust. By 1992, Streeter had lost every Penny and was spiraling into debt. The furniture and cars belonging to her luxury offices in a posh part of London had been repossessed. But it was not only bad timing that caused the company’s failure, it was also a “total lack of business experience.” She (Penny Streeter) had gone in, guns blazing and overspent. To make matters worse, Streeter’s personal life suffered a tremendous setback. She (Penny Streeter) went through a divorce which left her with nothing and pregnant with her third child was forced to move into a homeless shelter in a part of London her brother thought too dangerous to park his car. She (Penny Streeter) had it to rock bottom. Out of worry for the welfare of her children, she (Penny Streeter) thought how the hell could she over bring up her kids in that environment? They are going to be drug dealers!”. Streeter decided to give the recruitment industry another try in 1995, this time with only one asset: her determination. A value that her parents (Penny Streeter) instilled in her. “At home, there was no such thing as CAN’T. I am lucky to be a confident person, so I had a strong belief that I could do it on my own. I knew I had to,” she (Penny Streeter) says. She (Penny Streeter) started another venture, Ambition 24 hours Group. This time, she took a different approach. Instead of getting a loan to Kit–out opulent offices, she rented a rickety desk in a corner of the office of a car parts dealership. “I (Penny Streeter) learned everything from what happened with Elite Personnel. We did not buy anything. Every Penny we earned we put back into the business.” She (Penny Streeter explains. Streeter and her mother, Marion took turns working and minding their children. On weekends, they (Streeter and her mother) organized children’s discos to make cash. That is how they raised income. They would life really earn some money to pay for a newspaper advert to recruit staff to their books and pay their phone bill. They (Streeter and her mother) knew. They had to make instant money.
AMBITION 24 HOURS GROUP
• Ambition 24 hours first recruited for the financial services industry, but Streeter’s big break came when she (penny Streeter) spotted a market gap in 2417 medical starting services. All the established agencies opened at 9. a.m and closed at 5. P.m, including all weekends. But healthcare requires shifts around the clock, and it is not known in advance that someone is going to fall sick. Even though entering, a market saturated by successful recruiters was a risk, her groundbreaking model took off fast, supplying round–the–clock services across
England. It was the business that within a few years would turn her into one of the most influential entrepreneurs. Today, it has expanded into an umbrella group, the A 24 Group, which houses a range of independently run staffing agencies, makes a turnover of £ 70 million ($ 109 million) and is said to have generated £ 5.5 million ($ 8.5 million) in 2011 alone. Streeter and her Marion, are A 24’s only shareholders. The passion and love for that drove Penny Streeter back in the 1990s. It didn’t feel any different, really Penny Streeter never set out to make millions and millions of pounds. She (Penny Streeter) just wanted to provide for her family, run her business and do it successfully. Despite making more profit in a year than most firms do in a lifetime, Streeter has stuck to her – hard–earned motto of keeping it basic. A 24’s offices are simple. Penny Streeter still lives in the mindset of that first business (Elite Personnel). What happened then, could happen again. The same principles of don’t borrow, and having crappy furniture, are still true in her business. They still have no borrowings at all. Simplicity has become her philosophy. “Think big, start small and keep things very, very plain,” is Penny Streeter’s advice to young entrepreneurs. An original idea, a good business plan, and hard work are far more important than large amounts of finance to get a business started. “The majority of very successful entrepreneurs have started with virtually no money. The biggest driver has got to be you. People always look for others to motivate them. But at the end of the day, when you are in business, you have got to be able to motivate yourself. And that is hard”, she (Penny Streeter) pointed out.
PENNY STREETER ACCOLADES
• Penny Streeter was named confederation of British Industry (CBI) Entrepreneur of the year in 2003 and received Britain’s highest decoration, an order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to enter price’ three years later – drives the A 24 Group with a keen eye for cost control.
PENNY STREETER LEADERSHIP
• Penny Streeter has set up a flat management structure, with herself as chief executive, a finance director and the management of the group’s agencies straight below. “Flat management makes it easy to get to the heart of the business, without having to go through masses of chains of people. I (Penny Streeter) want to be able to communicate directly with the person who can make the maximum impact and change on that business immediately, she (Penny Streeter) explains.
PENNY STREETER DECISIONMAKING
• One of her most important decisions (Penny Streeter) was to move the company’s headquarters to South Africa in 2004, the Country Streeter spent her teens. With an £ 11 million ($ 17. 1 million) investment plan, she (Penny Streeter) set up sales and back office resources on the tip of the African continent to supplement her UK facilities.
• PENNY STREETER CHALLENGES
Although A 24 was extremely successful in the UK – it was Britain’s fastest–growing private enterprise in 2002 – the group had been suffering major staffing problems. Numerous employees had started to break away to set up their own agencies or join the competition, taking clients and databases with them. At the same time, Streeter struggles to find well–trained consultants, the group’s key asset. Penny Streeter realized that her moving operations to South Africa, could protect the business from theft and regain with South African staff what she needed in terms of service. If they had remained in the UK, it would have been slowly eating away at them. Initially, it didn’t look like the smartest move. The business took a dip and two years to recover. But then, Streeter made her next move and acquired Nursing Services of South Africa, the country’s largest temporary staffing firm, adding another star to her shiny belt of agencies. When they came to South America, it was like going back in time. They found existing nursing agencies were arrogant, not flexible enough, and had no service orientation. Twenty four – hour staffing also took off in South Africa. Today, A 24 is run from three centralized recruitment hubs in South Africa and the UK, plus smaller branches throughout both countries with 450 permanent employees and about 13,500 temporary personnel on its books.
2. ( 3 strong and stimulating quotes & stories of Pam Golding )
• A pioneering businesswoman who has built a formidable international business and who stands as a testament of the capability of women & role model
• PAM GOLDING PERSONAL LIFE
• Contributed and compiled by Edgardo K. Welelo, Master of the Game and Founder & CEO of Udzungwa Mountains College Students Club of Entrepreneurship (UMCSCE) 30th April 2022 (edgardowelelo@yahoo.com
• LEARNING QUOTES AND LESSONS FROM PAM GOLDING
1. “I (Pam Golding) started the company when South Africa was going through a recession and people said. I was crazy to go on my own. But I (Pam Golding) rarely take notice of things as recessions! I (Pam Golding) was determined to succeed and that Is half the battle already won. “ – Pam Golding
2. “It was this drive (determination) that led me (Pam Golding) to a strategic alliance with savills – a property group based in the United Kingdom with more than 200 offices around the world. This alliance has helped me (Pam Golding) expand in the Enter national market.” – Pam Golding
3. “My son Andrew Golding became chief executive of the group in 1996, and I (Pam Golding) realized that the company was in good hands – trying to achieve a balance between career and personal life has always been a challenge.” – Pam Golding
PAM GOLDING BACKGROUND
• From humble beginnings, Pam Golding attended the collegiate school for girls in port Elizabeth, before earning a degree from the University of Cape Town. Her early working days were spent selling the Treasure casket children’s books door–to–door. With the commission, she (Pam Golding) earned she took her mother on a trip to England. With time, she (Pam Golding) developed a knack for selling, which gave birth to her real estate career. More than 30 years later, the Pam Golding Group sells everything from franchises to hotels and has turned over more than $ 1.48 billion for the financial year, that ended in February 2012. The franchising of Pam Golding properties helped the company expand. The franchisees are given management training and support through the Pam Golding Training Academy. Pam Golding property management services manages 150 schemes at a market value of more than $ 1.46 billion. Golding herself has taken a step back from the business but remains its president.
PAM GOLDING FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS
• Pam Golding’s millionaire career, too, started out on a small stage in the 1960s in kenil worth, Cape Town, with a handful of agents selling houses around the corner – the first of which was a cottage. The business now has 300 offices; 2,500 agents and 30,000 properties, including a French chateau. It is the fruit of the forceful approach of a woman who invested in difficult times in South Africa’s history when companies like Barclays and General motors were pulling out. As the world locked South Africa with economic sanctions, Golding was opening an office in London, selling South African properties.
3. (15 strong and most powerful quotes & stories of Wendy Appelbaum)
• Business woman and philanthropist of South Africa who is said to be the richest woman in Africa with an estimated net worth of $ 183 million.
WENDY APPELBAUM PERSONAL LIFE
• Contributed and compiled by Edgardo K. Welelo, Master of the Game and Founder & CEO of Udzungwa Mountains College Students Club of Entrepreneurship (UMCSCE) 30th April 2022 (edgardowelelo@yahoo.com
LEARNING QUOTES & LESSONS FROM WENDY APPELBAUM
1. “The more you have, the more responsibility you have to share it with those who don’t .” – Wendy Appelbaum.
2. “I (Wendy Appelbaum) don’t think the point is how much you have got. The point is what you choose to do with it”, – Wendy Appelbaum.
3. “For me (Wendy Appelbaum) it is no – brainer. It is an honor and a privilege to give back to the society in which I live, “- Wendy Appelbaum.
4. “If you look at Harvard’s reserves, or elsewhere, it is because for most of the world’s rich, charity is much more about status than helping the less privileged. Philanthropy is a sign of success. A sign that you have spare capacity. It is what I (Wendy Appelbaum) call a pissing contest. Pure ego coming back in chunks.”- Wendy Appelbaum.
5. “Women have an intuition which men don’t have, and probably a softer side to us, on a certain level, where compassion does come in, it gives you a much more interesting and varied vision of the world. Men see the big picture, women see detail. And it is when the two work together that you get a much better outcome for the business. That is why congruent boards are much more successful. “ – Wendy Appelbaum.
6. “I am not a bra–burning feminist. I (Wendy Appelbaum) associate closely with Gloria because she (Gloria) has been able to maintain her femininity despite her belief in equality. I (Wendy Appelbaum) believe that women are equal to men if not better. There is nothing, aside from perhaps hard physical labor, that women just have not had opportunities.” – Wendy Appelbaum
7. “There are still some boards who really believe that women should be seen but not heard and who are taken aback when you give them an opinion, “- Wendy Appelbaum.
8. “I have never felt like a quota. If I wish something to be offensive, I make it offensive. Sitting on boards is not about making friends. It is about doing the right thing for your shareholders. Corporate governance, for me, is absolutely paramount. But I think it does bother other women in that they feel marginalized.” – Wendy Appelbaum.
9. “You just have to take a look at some of the women–headed companies in South Africa and their female representation. You would be deeply disappointed. Perhaps women don’t want to be seen as rocking the boat or showing prejudice. “ – Wendy Appelbaum.
10. “If you look at how many women are exposed, it is very low. There is no point in one woman sitting on 10 corporate boards and filling out long firms of conflicts of interest prior to meetings. That is nonsense. Women must get to the point where they widen the spread of individuals exposed at those levels. We are making slow progress in giving women the equal opportunities they so rightly deserve “ – Wendy Appelbaum.
11. “My father (The late Donald Gordon) was not interested in your opinion: he was interested in you as an audience. My father (The late Donald Gordon) needed to be told how clever he was all the time. There was that need for affirmation, which most serious executives need. They really need their ego stroked. That is why, when you look at corporations, very often the succession is not there because they had a bunch of yes–men behind them, telling them that no matter what they did, they were marvelous. And they love that. My father was no different.” – Wendy Appelbaum.
12. “I am not easily intimidated, by anybody. In fact, I can’t think of anybody that I find intimidating.” – Wendy Appelbaum.
13. “I would have found it almost impossible to work for my father; because we are so similar, we used to argue a lot,” – Wendy Appelbaum.
14. “Whatever I (Wendy Appelbaum) decide to do, I will drive myself insane until it is right, “- Wendy Appelbaum.
15. “I (Wendy Appelbaum) had four or five winemakers making wine for me. Not only did I look at the quality of the wine they made, but for a number of years, I interacted with them to see who I would go on best with. The winemaker is the one who grows the grapes to their best advantage. What I have to do as the entrepreneur is to give him every single opportunity to make the very wine he can, “ – Wendy Appelbaum.
WENDY APPELBAUM BACKGROUND
• Wendy Appelbaum is the daughter of the late Donald Gordon, founder of the Liberty Group, which later became a major insurance and investment emporium. Decades later, Gordon sold the Liberty Group to Standard Bank. Coming from a family of European immigrants who arrived in South Africa in the mid – 1920s with absolutely nothing, Donald Gordon knew from an early age he wanted to make money. All three of his children, including Wendy Appelbaum pursued their own business interests. Wendy Appelbaum had the benefit of growing up in a family environment when the glass – ceiling didn’t exist, where entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen were passed down to her (Wendy Appelbaum) and her brothers, Richard and Graeme, every day. It was her father (The late Donald Gordon) who taught her (Wendy Appelbaum) how to identify opportunity and maximize its benefit.
WENDY APPELBAUM FOUNDATION OF SUCCESS.
• Wendy Appelbaum was not accepted into medical school due to strict quotas on women at that time, and instead, she (Wendy Appelbaum) studied psychology, with economics as one of her subjects. But her interest in medicine became a lifelong passion, with a large chunk of Appelbaum’s – philanthropic investments going towards health. In the past 25 years, Wendy Appelbaum had sat on countless boards – most of them dominated by men. She (Wendy Appelbaum was deputy chair of IT and Retailing Company Connection Group Ltd and a trustee of investment holding trust the Tribune Trust as well as director of Sphere Holdings Ltd. Her very first seat, however, was on the board of her father, Donald Gordon’s Liberty Group, when she (Wendy Appelbaum) was made director of liberty Investors ltd, the group’s previously listed holding company. The late Donald Gordon appointed his daughter for that position in the early 1990s. Apart from his own daughter, Gordon never appointed a woman to a management position. He (The late Donald Gordon) also described businesswomen who didn’t speak much as “very clever”. Wendy Appelbaum never saw her father (the late Donald Gordon) put a woman in an important position, ever, and this frustrated her. Her father’s condescending attitude was an eye–opener that led her (Wendy Appelbaum) to become a feminist, with American women’s rights activist and author Gloria Steinen, one of her role models, who later became a friend. South Africa has had a slow start to acknowledge women’s rights and equality. The first recorded woman to work in an office was miss Letty Impey, who was employed as a secretary by Johannesburg solicitor Henry Lindsay in 1894. Much has changed since then for women, but not nearly enough. South African women continue to struggle for equity in both their personal and business lives. This becomes particularly apparent at the management level and in board rooms. Perhaps it is the constant head-butting with her father (The late Donald Gordon) that taught her (Wendy Appelbaum) how to stand up for herself. Perhaps it is the security of her family background and wealth that makes her undefeatable. She (Wendy Appelbaum) believes what made her strong and independent is that, apart from her stint as one of her father’s directors at Liberty, she was always an entrepreneur who worked for herself. Since then, she (Wendy Appelbaum) has proven herself many times as a businesswoman in her own right, with pretty much all of her ventures ending in success. She (Wendy Appelbaum) bought DE MORGENZON – the morning sun – a wine estate in midst of the Stellenbosch Winelands, 45 minutes from Cape Town, with her husband Hylton. The main vintage, a 2005 Chenin Blanc, became the first wine to get five stars in South Africa’s leading Platters’ Wine Guide. Business to Wendy Appelbaum is like a game, too, one that demands strategic thinking, passion, skill, and stamina. Going into the wine business has been one of the greatest challenges of her career. She (Wendy Appelbaum) is a trustee of her father’s Donald Gordon Foundation, one of the largest private charitable foundations in southern Africa, which includes the Donald Gordon Medical Centre in Johannesburg. She (Wendy Appelbaum) is also a trustee of CHOC (Children’s Hematology Oncology Clinics) and the Wendy Appelbaum Women’s Health Institute for the advancement and improvement of treatment for disorders affecting women.
WENDY APPELBAUM PHILANTHROPY
Wendy Appelbaum makes it clear that being rich comes with the heavy responsibility of giving back to society. She (Wendy Appelbaum) certainly takes this responsibility seriously. Philanthropy has been her focus and passion for years, with a large proportion of her charity work targeting women. Appelbaum has her fingers in many pies. She (Wendy Appelbaum) is a member of the Global Philanthropists’ Circle run by David Rockefellers daughter, Peggy, through her New York–based synergies Institute; a member of Harvard university’s women’s Leadership Board; the Helen Suzman Foundation as well as the International Women’s Forum and Women Moving Millions, an initiative started by Swanee Hunt, one of oil tycoon H.L Hunt’s daughters, who motivated 100 women from all over the world to commit a minimum of $ 1 million for women’s causes, raising a total of $ 187 million in only a few months. Wendy Appelbaum is surprised at how few rich women are involved in the world of philanthropy. The Appelbaums live in a beautiful mansion on top of the highest point of the farm, overlooking the vineyards and the far reaching, picturesque views of Stellenbosch’s rolling hills.
