Читать книгу Tell Me Your Story - Ruda Landman - Страница 6

Angel Jones is the founder and CEO of Homecoming Revolution, a pan-African recruitment agency she started as an NGO in her ad agency to support (and entice) expatriate South Africans returning to the country. As she says, most of us have a love-hate relationship with our country. I found her absolutely inspirational, reminding me of Anton Rupert’s words when asked why he chose to live here when his business empire was centred on Europe: “Here my life makes a difference.” Angel and I spoke in Johannesburg in June 2015.

Ruda: You majored in economics at UCT [University of Cape Town] and then did a postgraduate qualification in advertising. What attracted you to that?

Angel: I always loved talking, chatting, telling stories. At school we were told that every second person wants to go into advertising and it’s almost impossible to do that, so I remember thinking that if I took economics at varsity, then that would give me that extra edge because I needed to know how to sell stuff. The economics at the bottom of advertising, not just the pretty pictures and the lovely words.

Ruda: So advertising came first, in your head, in your heart?

Angel: Always. My mother showed me a clever ad when I was young, an anti-mining campaign for the Kruger Park. And she explained the line to me that said, “We dig the Kruger Park, and they mustn’t.” She said, “That’s a pun, and that’s how it works,” and I was fascinated by the use of clever language up there on billboards.

Ruda: You worked in London for a Saatchi company, right?

Angel: That’s right. It was M&C Saatchi, the advertising agency named after Maurice and Charles Saatchi, the two original Saatchi brothers who walked out of the big Saatchi & Saatchi agency and took twelve people with them. I managed to get in as a runner. I was the thirteenth person to join them – literally running around during the day, fetching cappuccinos and dry-­cleaning for Charles Saatchi, and at night writing ads and practically sleeping under my desk. I managed to do that for a couple of months, then found a wonderful art director and again worked through the nights, and then finally managed to get a job in the industry, which was amazing.

Ruda: But after seven years you decided to come back to South Africa. Why?

Angel: I never meant to go away for so long. It was going to be a year or two of backpacking and then settling in London for a while, but after seven years . . . the trigger moment was . . . Every South Afri­can has that moment of wanting to return. I was lucky enough to see Madiba standing on the stairs of Trafalgar Square looking out over all of us and saying, “I love you all so much, I want to put you in my pocket and take you home.” And I burst into tears. I’d been getting letters from home all the time, about a shiny, new, bright South Africa . . . I grew up very conscientised; I had never been proud of my flag or the colour of my skin. Madiba was released when I was at varsity, so the symbolism of now feeling proud and free was very big in my life. So that was my trigger moment. I returned home to start the M&C Saatchi branch of the ad agency here.

Ruda: When was that – in 1994?

Angel: No, ’94 was when I just arrived in London, ironically enough. Madiba spoke at Trafalgar Square in the late 1990s. I arrived back in South Africa in 2000. Then we started the business, but we also started a non-profit agency called Homecoming Re­volution. We built that up as a non-profit in my advertising business. We bought out the Saatchi brothers, in fact, and named it Morris Jones, and then were able to launch some really good brands.

Ruda: Let’s walk through that slowly. What is it like to actually put yourself on the line? You’re no longer employed and getting a guaranteed salary cheque . . .

Angel: Sure. So the big leap into entrepreneurship started with the ad business. In London I was working for the Saatchi brothers and that was wonderful. But coming back to open up the branch here, that was taking a risk. I did it with Nina Morris. She was the CEO, I was the creative director. The opportunity to buy out the Saatchi brothers was amazing, to name the agency after ourselves, and then running an independent shop, having to build it up. There was never ever a dull moment. We were taking risks everywhere.

Ruda: How does one cope with that stress? Because I think that level of stress keeps many people tied to a corporate life – they just can’t give up the security.

Angel: There was a combination of factors. Having a partner was really good. I miss having a partner now in the Homecoming role. So we took turns . . . you know, “It’s my turn to jump off the balcony and commit hara-kiri today because I’m so stressed,” and the other one would be more calm, so we’d take turns in that sense. Being a business owner, especially for a woman, enables you to have children and then to choose whether you’re going to go to your important meeting with a senior client or your just-as-important appointment to watch your daughter swim in a gala. We were lucky enough to build the business just as technology was allowing you to do business even while on the road. So the idea of being in a corporate and held to a nine-to-five role and not being in charge of my own destiny – it’s just unthinkable.

Ruda: While I was with Carte Blanche, where I always worked freelance, I once had a job offer. I remember talking to someone about it, and I said, “I don’t know what to do! This is such a wonderful offer!” And she said, “Would you have to ask someone for leave?”

Angel: That’s the big qualifier, isn’t it? So your choice was no, never!

Ruda: (Nods) Because freedom is an amazing thing, especially for a woman.

Angel: Definitely. I think we’re clever enough at multitasking to play the roles of the wife and the boss and the mother, and you can switch quite quickly into those roles during the day if you are in charge of your own destiny. It’s hugely rewarding. And the risk that comes with it, that stress attached, the highs and the lows – the lows are deeper but the highs are higher.

Ruda: And Homecoming Revolution: you started it as a website. Why?

Angel: Because I came back and realised that there was this perception that if you came back [to South Africa], you’re a failure, you couldn’t hack it abroad, while it’s completely the opposite. You’re seeing the opportunities and the ways that you could reconnect with people and really have an amazing business life and lifestyle and make a big difference by being home. That prompted us to start the website, and overnight it just blossomed. This was in the days before Facebook or Twitter, so our platform was used to express everybody’s love-hate relationship with South Africa. FNB gave us a sponsorship and we managed to grow a fully fledged team to run it. And then I had my very convenient mid­life crisis three years ago, and I wondered . . . my passion was Homecoming, my head was advertising . . . so I took the leap, sold my ad business – I sold Morris Jones – and stepped full-time into Homecoming Revolution and commercialised the entity.

Ruda: What does that mean?

Angel: We’re not a non-profit anymore; we shamelessly have turned it into a business and we’re repatriating South Africans to South Africa, but also Kenyans and Nigerians living abroad back to their respective countries – so we’re the brain-gain company for Africa. We introduce employers at home to African professionals worldwide. The trigger, the reason you return home, is friends and family, a sense of purpose and belonging, wanting to make a difference, and yes, your career. So we use all our emotive case studies and all the tools – practical tools involving property, schools, relocation services – to help people to come back.

Ruda: So you are a placement agency and more?

Angel: Yes, we’re a hybrid. People often can’t figure out what Home­coming Revolution actually is, because we offer all the marketing platforms for people to advertise to people abroad, and for those coming back we offer whatever products and services they need, as well as being able to place people. Most recruitment firms will work on a placement fee paid once a professional gets settled, but we operate on a much smaller charge for introductions. We see ourselves as the dating agency for corporates and talent. (Her smile widens.) We have these speed-meet events in London and New York and Nairobi and Lagos, where we bring together talent and employers for three-minute sessions and from there the employer will decide whether to hire or not. So it’s a different model, and it’s really working for us. We have this wonderful vision of this massive wave of repatriation back to the continent. In South Africa over the past five years [2010–2015] we’ve seen 359 000 professionals return home, and for each skilled person that comes back to South Africa, nine new jobs are created in the formal and informal sectors. So it really is rewarding stuff.

Ruda: How do you sell it at the moment, in the midst of so much negative news?

Angel: It’s been hard . . . we thought 2008 was bad. Obviously the worst time ever was during apartheid and then before the elections, when we really did think the country was going to burn. We find that in South Africa you will always have a love-hate relationship with being South African. I mean, in London I was this happy and this sad (gestures, her fingers two centimetres apart), so it was a very predictable life. Here I’m THIS happy and THIS sad (her hands fly apart), meaning I can be horrified and overjoyed in one day.

We deal with people all the time who want to come back. We’re hearing people questioning: “Is this the right place?” “Isn’t it a bad time?” Crime, load-shedding, xenophobia – it’s all related. In South Africa at the moment we’ve got a crisis in our political leadership – there’s no question. I think this gives rise to other parties having a voice and being able to play a role. When I see, for example, the xenophobic attacks, I see a small pocket of radicals doing that, and then a massive wave of people saying, “Actually, that’s wrong.” So it brings to the fore the conversation about being actively South African versus sitting passively on the sidelines.

Ruda: And here your life makes a difference.

Angel: Ja, living here is so rewarding. I drive with my windows down, I chat to people on the street – I feel intensely alive. I look at my kids, Lulu this morning rehearsing her Zulu test and me being able to test her because she’s taught me enough as well, which is wonderful. Feeling that you can . . . we know enough people in different sectors, you can help to create change and make it happen. And you’re often a lone voice in the wind, but we’re encouraged by more and more people abroad who are saying, “I know South Africa has its problems, but I don’t want to wait until it gets better. I want to come home and make it better.” To be able to align your purpose with a business aim is amazing. I wondered if we would lose credibility when we became a business, but in fact we’ve gained it. People take us more seriously now.

Ruda: Ja, because you’re putting your own salary on the line.

Angel: Exactly. We’re now able to employ the best talent in the business and we’re at the high table with all the embassies and the public sector and different multinationals looking for talent, so it’s an exciting place to play.

Ruda: On a personal level, tell me about your husband, Carlos?

Angel: He’s a wonderful, wonderful husband. When he met me, I had Lulu already – I had this wonderful moonbeam of a daughter that beamed into my life quite by accident from one night. Most men were absolutely terrified and would run a mile, but this guy – the only other Christian Buddhist I’ve ever met in my life – he got me. (It took me a moment: she meant “got” as in “understand”.)

So we’ve been married now for eight years. We’ve got a lovely little boy too, called Samuel, who’s seven. Carlos works across the continent; he works for Roche, the health-care company, as head of sales in sub-Saharan Africa. I don’t travel as much anymore – he does a lot more of that. We make sure we’re there for the kids in the mornings, and when we get home from work we eat dinner together every night, we’re hands-on with them all weekend and we’re very aware of how lucky we are. We’ve just moved to a lovely house near the Johannesburg Zoo, and we give thanks all the time. We are very, very aware that in South Africa this Gini coefficient [measurement of income inequality] is probably the biggest in the world, and we remind our children just how lucky we are. I feel very blessed.

Ruda: A relationship doesn’t just happen by itself – it either goes up or down. How do you keep yours strong?

Angel: Every night for the past ten years we’ve known each other, we sit down to say, “My high about you is this, my low about you is this. And what I’m looking forward to with you is this.” So that acts as a barometer. Every night we do a sort of a control-alt-­delete on how we’re feeling. Sometimes it is “My high about you is you; I don’t have a low about you,” or “My low about you is you, I don’t have a high.” It’s funny, the little things that count. “My high about you is that you brought me coffee; my low about you is that you don’t notice when I cook the food.” So that’s a great way that we’re constantly recalibrating where we are with each other.

Ruda: It’s awareness, hmm?

Angel: Ja, absolutely. I’ve realised his love language is very different from mine. His love language is more about tidying – isn’t that amazing? I’ve got this wonderful husband who decorates and tidies. He’s a Portuguese man, and he’s got this wonderful sense of home and decor. And my love language is very much words, and affection. We meet in the middle. When he wants to show me how much he loves me, he starts tidying up, which is the opposite of what I would do. It’s been a wonderful time. We’re lucky, we’ve got both sets of parents here and all our siblings are here. So it’s lots of family get-togethers . . . very big Portuguese family on his side; I’m one of four siblings on this side, so it’s a lot of loving each other’s families at the same time, which is also very rewarding.

Ruda: It’s not always easy, because you meet a person, but you marry the family.

Angel: Indeed. I’ve always wished that I spoke proper Portuguese. I once gave him a Valentine’s present, back in the day: “I’m giving myself Portuguese lessons, darling.” But they only lasted about five weeks and then I kind of lost track, so that’s one regret. One day I’ll make sure I learn Portuguese.

Ruda: Talk to me about your children. You say your daughter came like a moonbeam?

Angel: She was my little moonbeam!

Ruda: How did that change you?

Angel: For one thing I stopped wearing wings when I fell pregnant.

Ruda: What do you mean by “wearing wings”?

Angel: I used to wear these big, full-on wings made with feathers and fake flames and beads, and so people would come up to me and say, “Who are you, what are you?” And I’d say, “My name is Angel and I run an ad agency,” and it worked – shameless PR. I think having Lulu really relaxed me, because I was thirty-­three, I was flying solo, and I was thinking, I don’t know if any man wants to marry me, I’m too crazy and too intimidating and whatever. So by the time I had her, I almost felt that I didn’t need a man anymore. I sound terrible! And when I stopped looking, there was Carlos. Lulu and Samuel de-stress me. Coming home, playing guitar with them and reading stories is really amazing, and I feel so much more whole. You stress out about whatever’s not working, but then when you sit and you practice the G or the D7 chord with your boy, it really does focus your life.

Ruda: What are the most important values that you try to teach your kids?

Angel: Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. So every night: “Thank you God for . . .” We have our standard stuff we say thank you for, and then each child needs to think about what that’s about. Awareness of how blessed we are. Awareness that we’re all healthy, and that we go to wonderful schools and that we live in a beautiful climate. Awareness of how not every South African is as privileged as us, and asking what can we do? So always thinking about how you can make a difference. Music, dancing – we put up the music and we dance around. Family. Humility.

Ruda: Tell me about your home. Where is it?

Angel: We’re in Saxonwold, we’re very lucky. We had a big control-­alt-delete in our life about two and a half years ago, when we were thinking we can’t live in Jozi anymore, we must live in Cape Town. Looking back on that, I think it was a reaction to me wanting to get out of the ad industry and equating Joburg with my ad-world life. And so the only practical thing that seemed to be possible was to sell our house and move to Cape Town.

We didn’t actually move to Cape Town, but we sold our house, rented in Greenside for a year, got the kids into new schools in Cape Town and were just about to move, but then realised that we would be living on an aeroplane. I think if I was happy to be a soccer mum and not needing to work, then that would be different, we could live in Cape Town. But here we were thinking of taking the kids away from our friends and family, out of their schools, and then I was going to say, “Bye guys, I’m flying off to Lagos and Nairobi for work.” That was not going to work.

So, being able to have this kind of fresh look at Joburg was amazing, realising the diversity and the opportunity here and the great stuff we’re doing with Homecoming Revolution. It all meant that we bought a new house in Saxonwold and called it Cape Town, so we’ve moved to Cape Town. And it’s really great to feel that we’ve actively chosen to be in the city. Joburg has just been voted the coolest city in the world. So we see all the people fly in and out from all over the continent and from abroad and feel like we’re very actively Joburgers.