Vuyo Mncedisi Norton Nkwali
Chief Executive Officer, Zaraco Group
Born
in East London
After a stint as a building and construction entrepreneur and working as a chief operating officer in a financial services firm and GM in an executive recruitment firm, Vuyo started a mineral commodity trading firm with focus on trading precious metals. During this time and while traveling throughout Africa, other opportunities opened up and serious networks also got established.
Zaraco Group is now mandated by several African gold and diamond mining companies to market and sell their commodities. In addition to this Zaraco Group has partnership agreements in 2 gold mining operations in Ghana and an oil and gas company in Namibia and is pursuing other opportunities elsewhere on the continent and looking for partners to develop some of these mineral properties.
Zaraco Group has now developed to have a broad commodity portfolio with metals as its core business and both petroleum products and crude oil. Vuyo is an energetic leader with great organizational skills, great communication ability, sales negotiation, people skills and operational excellence. These skills enable him to work with and lead people of different backgrounds and abilities and get the best out of them to achieve great results. Africa is Zaraco Group's terrain and market and we believe our all encompassing approach will enhance infrastructure, countries competitiveness and ability to attract investment and contribute to health, education, communication and stability.
Business Address
Vuyo Mncedisi Norton Nkwali's Professional details
Previous Position(s)
General Manager | Executive Recruitment | Z & M Recruitment
Cape Town | 2007 - 2008
Human Resources and Recruitment
My key responsibilities were to manage professional colleagues and other managers. I had planning responsibility and I had to be forward looking and have the company geared towards the opportunities unforlding as we move forward.
Other responsibilities were to set targets for the team and support them in achieving the targets. I also had to manage the labour broking division to ensure operational excellence and that clients were at all times happy.
Chief Operating Officer | CLP Holdings
Cape Town | 2005 - 2007
Accounting, Banking and Finance
CLP was a legal insurance business and the business portfolio later included third party products ranging from home loans and other short term insurance products. CLP was a start-up company and it grew to become the fastest company in its core business and provided a cost competitive alternative to existing offerings.
As the COO I played a key role in the development of the product range and the distribution to customers. My responsibility included sales management, people management, product development and general operational management. CLP grew from being a local player to competing nationally. The role also developed further confidence to tackle other senior roles and high profile positions. I left the company in 2007 from differences of strategy.
Building, Construction and Engineering
I founded Nortcor Construction after working briefly for a property development company. Nortcor from the onset targetted private sector jobs and we were able to grow our business entirely from households and sub construction work without public sector jobs.
This required a lot of courage as big contractors never took small black contractors seriously and househoulds especially white clients. After establishing a solid cash flow we then took on public sector jobs and expanded our operations to telecom installations. Sadly this business division impacted negatively to Nortcor's cash flow severely and to eventual death. However it was a huge learning curve and this is where I decided I will become an entrepreneur and grow successful businesses that impact positively to people.
Activities
Memberships
Young Entrepreneurs & Managers Association
Secretary General, 1992 - 1994
YEMA (Young Entrepreneurs & Managers Association) was a youth business association. The key objectives were to encourage young people to consider entrepreneurship as a career and to mobilise support structures and institutions to support this initiative.
As the Secretary General of a young business association in 1992 and at the chaotic moment in the history of SA, key organizational, communication and leadership skills were honed to YEMA's leadership. Some among young people questioned YEMA's advacocy of entrepreneurship when all others were focused on attaining political freedom. Most also believed the organization's ideas and activity was ahead of the time.
Irrespective, the leadership needed to be strong and determined in their objectives and the role of the Secretary General was primarily key. YEMA never enjoyed a sustainable existence but it managed to enable many young people to begin to think about post apartheid SA and its reconstruction. YEMA also managed to influence some of the leadership in the liberation movement to begin to think seriously about youth empowerment and youth entrepreneurship that key policies were advanced resulting from these deliberations.
YEMA made this contribution to SA and to young people in particular and the greatest legacy is that many of YEAM's members carried on with the torch contributing in further deliberations in how to go about advancing economic growth and youth empowerment in South Africa.
