A long-form profile of Dion Mhlaba, the young CFO of the private equity firm RH Managers, which manages more than R1.4billion in assets, that I wrote for Destiny Man magazine.

1. 00 • DESTINYMAN • OCTOBER 2017

2. hlaba was only 29 when
he became the Chief
Financial Officer of
RH Managers, a private
equity firm managing a
fund of R1,4 billion (yes,
you read that correctly) –
more money than most people see in a lifetime. Two
years later, when the firm created the subsidiary
RH Bophelo and listed it on the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange, Mhlaba became the youngest black CFO
of a listed company. To put that into perspective,
consider a 2014 survey by the SA Institute of
Chartered Accountants (Saica), which revealed that
75% of directors in JSE-listed companies are white
and 93% are over 40.
Mhlaba’s the exception to a deeply entrenched
rule, thanks to sheer hard work and determination.
Those were essential qualities for an ambitious boy
who was one of six children of a police officer and a
housewife in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, a town
that’s not exactly renowned for its success stories.
According to 2016 statistics, its population of fewer
than 600 000 has an unemployment rate of 85%.
Earning first position in his matric commerce class
and third position overall proved to be Mhlaba’s
ticket out. However, as he discovered when enrolling
for a B Com in accounting at Rand Afrikaans
University (now the University of Johannesburg
(UJ)), it came with no guarantees. The partial
scholarship he’d received from the National Student
Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) wasn’t enough to
cover his tuition and living expenses, so Mhlaba
rolled up his sleeves and took a job at a call centre,
working eight hours a day to earn extra money.
“Holding down a full-time job while studying
was a strain,” he recalls. “My workplace was a long
distance away from the university, so I’d work from
8am-4pm and only reach the campus at 6pm. I
started attending night classes with part-time
students so that I didn’t fall behind on the material,
but my days were exhausting.”
However, he persevered and graduated – only
to face another obstacle: when the time came to
pursue his BCom Honours in Accounting (CTA),
the NSFAS refused to fund him any further. Mhlaba
turned to Jelvin Griffioen, an accounting
lecturer at the university, who was also co-
ordinating the Thuthuka Bursary Fund. The
fund is an initiative of Saica, aimed at enabling
more black professionals to qualify as chartered
accountants, and it was through this that Mhlaba
paid for his accommodation.
“I could tell from the first time I met Dion that
he was a very serious and deserving student,”
recalls Griffioen. “He’d already come a long way and
overcome quite difficult circumstances, so when
he came to us for assistance, it was a no-brainer.”
Griffioen even went a step further, helping him
secure financial support from auditing firm KPMG
to help pay his tuition fees.
CORPORATE CULTURE SHOCK
The day Mhlaba completed his CTA, he received
phone calls from four different auditing firms, each
offering him a training contract he could take up
immediately. The young graduate chose to do his
articles at the one that had helped him through
university – KPMG.
Having officially entered the corporate world,
he could finally start earning and enjoying the
dividends of his hard work – something that really
hit home when he received his first promotion and
compared his salary with that of his father’s. “With
that first raise, I realised that my dad and I were on
par in terms of income. It was crazy, because he’d
been working for 20 years and I’d just started,” says
Mhlaba. “I don’t know how he managed to raise a
family of six kids on that salary, but he found a way
to do it and we owe him everything for that.”
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though. Mhlaba
was realising that the barriers to black success in
the corporate world run deeper than the high cost
of education. “Fitting in was never easy for me,” he
recalls. “When I first started, I had to get a personal
loan to buy formal clothes. My white colleagues all
had cars from the day they started working, but
it took me a long time before I could afford one.
So there were times I’d be looked at as not being a
team-player because I had to leave the office at 6pm
to catch a minibus taxi. I think it’s a culture shock
for many senior people in SA’s corporate world to
realise that most black people aren’t as fortunate as
their white counterparts. SA is bigger than Sandton.”
Nevertheless, Mhlaba didn’t allow these
challenges to derail him from achieving his goals.
He completed Board 1 of his articles in his first year,
as planned, but in the third year, he experienced a
major setback: he failed Board 2 and had to repeat
the entire year.
“What I learnt from that experience was that our
paths in life are never the same,” he says. “It might
take one year for one person to achieve something
and take you 10 years, but that doesn’t make you a
failure. Whenever I’m going through difficulties, I
remind myself that there was a time when I failed,
but it didn’t stop me from waking up every day and
keeping at it.”
Mhlaba bounced back from the disappointment
WWW.DESTINYMAN.COM • 00
WRIT TEN BY KIBO NGOWI
POWERHOUSE
You don’t go from growing up in a small town
to leading a billion-rand equity firm by sheer
luck. As Dion Mhlaba’s story shows, it’s a long
and bumpy road to the corner office…
Powerhouse

3. with a vengeance, completing his articles at the
same time as the peers with whom he’d started,
and becoming a Chartered Accountant. He spent
the next three years as an accounting lecturer at UJ,
while also establishing and successfully running a
private consultancy, before leaving academia to join
Thebe Investments as Financial Manager.
Yet all of this was just a precursor to the most
significant chapter of his career: his appointment as
CFO of RH Managers.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
In 2015, after a year at Thebe Investments –
where the directors had advised him to leave the
accounting backroom and use
his talents in the foreground of
the corporate world – Mhlaba
was approached by Quinton
Zunga, the founder and CEO of
RH Managers, a private equity
firm specialising in healthcare,
with the offer of becoming its
CFO. The opportunity came at
the ideal time.
“Dion was highly
recommended by one of our
institutional partners and as a
CA with experience in private
equity, he was exactly what
we wanted,” recalls Zunga.
“He didn’t have a background
in healthcare, but he’s really
taken the role in his stride,
constantly improving and
taking on more responsibility.”
RH Managers raised its equity
from pension funds and focuses
on seeking opportunities
to build hospitals in areas
where there’s limited access
to healthcare. So far, the firm’s
built five hospitals spread
across KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo
and Mpumalanga, and has
purchased one in the Free State.
Mhlaba’s entry to the stock
exchange came with the
creation of RH Bophelo, a
subsidiary of RH Managers.
The company’s strategy is to
consolidate all private hospitals
outside the country’s big
three healthcare players
of Mediclinic, Netcare and Life. It managed to
raise R500 million in equity and a R250 million
mezz line on its JSE listing in July this year. “In
the next five years, we want its value to grow to
R10 billion,” says Mhlaba. “We know it’s possible,
because there are many untapped opportunities
around the continent.”
The same drive and ambition that got Mhlaba
out of Bushbuckridge and into the boardrooms of
Johannesburg, Africa’s financial hub, are set to take
him even further. “I can’t think of a better role model
for young black accountants who aspire to enter the
corporate world,” says Zunga.
Neither can we.
00 • DESTINYMAN • DECEMBER 2017
POWERHOUSE
PHOTOGRAPHER:ZUZISEOKA.GROOMING:LINDIWESOKHULU
“IT MIGHT TAKE ONE YEAR FOR ONE PERSON
TO ACHIEVE SOMETHING AND TAKE YOU 10 YEARS,
BUT THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A FAILURE.”