Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Coal to cash: South Africa gets major boost for energy shift

      13 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      10 red flags for Apple investors

      13 June 2025

      Chief sub-editor wanted – help shape South African tech media

      13 June 2025
    • World

      Yahoo tries to make its mail service relevant again

      13 June 2025

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025

      Apple slams EU rules as ‘flawed and costly’ in major legal pushback

      2 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » SA Newsmakers of 2014

    SA Newsmakers of 2014

    By Duncan McLeod11 December 2014
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    SA-Newsmaker-of-the-Year---640

    Here they are, TechCentral’s South African Newsmakers of 2014. These are the individuals, in ascending order from five to one, who we believe were the most newsworthy in the technology and telecommunications space this year, for good reasons and bad.

    Also, check out our International Newsmakers of 2014, published earlier this week.

    5GoldingMarcel Golding and Bronwyn Keene-Young
    E.tv CEO Marcel Golding resigned in October following his suspension as executive chairman of e.tv parent Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) in a boardroom battle with his longstanding business partner, John Copelyn.

    HCI accused Golding of unauthorised share trading, saying he did not have board approval to purchase R24m worth of shares in technology company Ellies.

    Golding appealed his suspension in the labour court, but lost the application. He claimed he was being ousted in a battle over e.tv’s editorial independence, something HCI denied.

    In the same week, Golding’s wife, Bronwyn Keene-Young, who was chief operating officer at e.tv and its immediate parent Sabido, also resigned with a strongly worded letter slamming Copelyn. The letter exposed the extent of the breakdown in relations between Copelyn and Golding, who together founded the free-to-air broadcaster.

    In Golding’s defence, former cabinet minister Barbara Hogan also tendered her resignation from the HCI board, saying she was “uneasy with the proposition that the discontent with Marcel’s leadership can solely be attributed to the alleged unauthorised trading in Ellies shares”.

    In her resignation letter, Keene-Young said Copelyn failed to explain that he was “fully aware of the ‘Ellies shares’ matter and he did nothing about it until “all other attempts and threats to get Marcel to resign had failed”.  — RvdB

    4HlaudiZandile Tshabalala and Hlaudi Motsoeneng
    The terrible twosome installed at the top of the broadcasting studios in Auckland Park were hardly out of the news all through 2014. And for all the wrong reasons.

    SABC chair Zandile Tshabalala has spent the past few months dodging a parliamentary inquiry into whether or not she has a the qualifications she claimed she did when she was appointed. Unisa insists she doesn’t; she says she does but refuses to produce the evidence.

    A multiparty parliamentary committee has now recommended she be removed from office after finding her guilty on two charges of misconduct. She’s now taking the matter to court.

    All through 2014, Tshabalala continued to defend the SABC’s chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who has proved even more controversial than the chair of the board.

    In October, the Western Cape high court ordered that the SABC must suspend Motsoeneng and start a disciplinary process against him. This followed an application by the Democratic Alliance asking for an urgent interim interdict to have him suspended pending a review of the decision to appoint him as permanent head of operations.

    Motsoeneng has now vowed to fight the matter all the way to the constitutional court if necessary.

    In February, the public protector, Thuli Madonsela, released a damning report on corporate governance at the SABC and recommended that a chief operating officer be appointed within 90 days. In the report, Madonsela found among other things that he misrepresented his matric qualifications to the SABC.  — DM

    3MasekoSipho Maseko and Brian Armstrong
    With a share price up by nearly 500% since he took the reins a little over 18 months ago, Telkom CEO Sipho Maseko and his lieutenant, chief operating officer Brian Armstrong, are obvious candidates for our list of newsmakers. It’s not only investors who are excited about what the pair are doing, though. The company is finally focusing on its strengths rather than wasting money on costly side projects like expanding into foreign markets.

    It’s realised it’s monopoly over telecommunications in South Africa is all but gone and it’s starting to box clever against its competition. In Parkhurst and Parkview in Johannesburg, for example, it abandoned plans to deploy fibre to the home after residents chose alternative providers. Instead, it’s deploying LTE-Advanced in those areas using its extensive spectrum assets, in the process muddying the waters for the upstart fibre competitors.

    Belatedly, Telkom also appears to have realised that it must work with Internet service providers to grow its fixed-line broadband business. It’s decision to open its fibre-to-the-home network on an open-access basis to ISPs demonstrates this changing in thinking.

    The company still has a long way to go. It’s future success depends on its offering consumers a quad-play of services, including voice-over-Internet protocol telephony, television entertainment, and fixed broadband and wireless services. And it needs to do so at competitive prices, which means further cuts to unnecessary expenses (probably including further layoffs) while ensuring it maintains capital expenditure at a level that ensures it doesn’t cede too much of the fixed-line market to its rivals in the years ahead.  — DM

    2Kim-Reid-280Kim Reid
    When online retailer Takealot.com disclosed back in May that it had raised US$100m (more than R1bn) from its controlling shareholder Tiger Global Management, it was clear that the company was going to shake up the e-retail business in South Africa.

    That’s happened with remarkable speed. Just five months after the Tiger deal was announced, Takealot dropped the bombshell that it was to merge with Naspers-owned rival Kalahari.com in an effort to create an e-commerce giant in South Africa capable of taking on big bricks-and-mortar competitors and international e-commerce competittors.

    The man leading this change and consolidation is Kim Reid, a former Naspers executive and now CEO of Takealot. As far back as 2011, Reid has been promising to build Takealot into a R1bn-revenue business. The merged Takealot-Kalahari entity will simply be named Takealot, providing insight into which side is driving this consolidation.

    But what is Reid’s endgame here? Could he be dressing up Takealot in the hopes that a big international e-commerce retailer — Amazon, say — will buy it and use it as its vehicle into Africa. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos must surely have a plan for the continent. Could Takealot be it?  — DM

    14HawthorneRyan Hawthorne and Niel Schoeman
    There was much debate in the TechCentral offices about whether to make Takealot’s Kim Reid or these two gentlemen our newsmakers of the year. Parkhurst resident Ryan Hawthorne and Niel Schoeman, CEO of telecommunications start-up Vumatel, have, however, squeaked into top place for their pioneering work on bringing fibre to the home in South Africa.

    The story is well known by now: fed by poor Telkom broadband speeds in Johannesburg’s Parkhurst, residents, through their residents’ association where Hawthorne is technical adviser, went out to tender for the supply of a high-speed fibre-optic solution. A number of companies tendered bids, but the business went to Vumatel, partly on the strength of its open-access model, which allows competing Internet service providers direct access to the fibre network on a wholesale basis.

    Schoeman has led the project from the front and the company has now announced plans to expand fibre to as many as 50 more suburbs around the country. Vumatel has stolen a march on the big and lumbering telecoms incumbents, which are only now starting to wake up to the threat of an alternative last mile built by small, nimble upstarts.  — DM



    Brian Armstrong Bronwyn Keene-Young e.tv Ellen Tshabalala Ellies HCI Hlaudi Motsoeneng John Copelyn Kalahari Kalahari.com Kim Reid Naspers Niel Schoeman Ryan Hawthorne SABC Sabido Sipho Maseko Takealot Takealot.com Telkom Tiger Global Management Vumatel Zandile Tshabalala
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleDA seeks Icasa council minutes
    Next Article IS, MWeb deal greenlighted

    Related Posts

    MVNO boom is reshaping South Africa’s mobile market

    12 June 2025

    Watch | Lunga Siyo on Telkom’s big growth plans

    11 June 2025

    Capex clash: Vodacom, MTN and Telkom battle over network supremacy

    11 June 2025
    Company News

    Huawei Watch Fit 4 Series: smarter sensors, sharper design, stronger performance

    13 June 2025

    Change Logic and BankservAfrica set new benchmark with PayShap roll-out

    13 June 2025

    SAPHILA 2025 – transcending with purpose, connection and AI-powered vision

    13 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.