South Africa has lost its business giants

South Africa once had globally renowned business leaders such as Harry Oppenheimer, Raymond Ackerman, and Sol Kerzner. However, they are all gone.

The new crop of chief executives in South Africa is focusing on regulatory compliance and survival instead of ambition and aggressive growth.

This is the view of renowned stockbroker David Shapiro, who has been following the South African business sector for over five decades.

He is one of the most respected market commentators in South Africa, which is why his warning about the loss of aggressive business leaders is noteworthy.

He told BizNews that leaders like Harry Oppenheimer, Raymond Ackerman, Sol Kerzner, Brian Joffe and GT Ferreira were not just chief executives or chairmen.

These men were influential figures in the South African landscape who significantly shaped the country’s economic direction.

They created world-renowned companies like Sun International, Pick n Pay, Bidvest, De Beers, Anglo American, and FirstRand.

They were also not afraid to criticise the government and hold politicians accountable to help the country and grow the economy.

Shapiro said these business leaders had a strong presence. You could sense it when they entered a room or addressed a conference.

“These leaders had presence. When they walked into a room, you could feel their authority,” he said.

They were household names who provided investors with excellent returns and gave all South Africans a sense of national pride.

“They were admired and revered as personalities who could inspire belief even in turbulent times,” Shapiro wrote in a BizNews column.

“They exuded ambition, courage, and vision, showing business could be a positive force when politics felt chaotic.”

South Africa’s business titans are gone

Shapiro told BizNews founder Alec Hogg that these business titans are gone and that South Africa does not have the same level of corporate leaders today.

Most business leaders today are hesitant to criticise the government, preferring instead to focus on compliance and survival.

This is not surprising considering the changing political and economic landscape in South Africa over the last three decades.

South Africa is struggling with slow economic growth, extremely burdensome regulatory requirements, and deteriorating government institutions and infrastructure.

Shapiro highlighted three vital trends that have restrained the South African economy –

• Managerial overreach abroad
• Political rent‑seeking at home
• Stagnation in tech innovation.

“Together, they have chipped away at confidence, suppressed aspiration, and left South Africa toiling instead of booming,” he said.

He said that, although many of the past champions, such as Pick n Pay, Bidvest, and Sun International, are still around, they’ve lost their founder-driven dynamism.

South Africa, and, in turn, the JSE, has become a place where the fastest-growing businesses are those that serve the low end of the market.

These include retailers like Pep Stores, Boxer, and Shoprite, Capitec Bank, which grew by serving the unbanked, and WeBuyCars, which deals in secondhand vehicles.

These companies focus on making things affordable for South Africa, as the country has a growing population living close to the breadline.

These companies, which focus on reducing costs, are efficient and disciplined. However, they lack the charisma that once defined South African corporate leadership.

“We moved away from the days when corporate leaders could stand alongside politicians as equals,” Shapiro wrote.

“Nowadays, managers tiptoe around policy, framing an economy that crawls rather than leaps forward.”

He said low economic growth has become structural in South Africa, with businesses spending more time navigating regulations than building their futures.

He said the constraints in South Africa’s business sector have turned once-great leaders into compliance officers.

“South Africa has not run out of talent. It has run out of conditions that allow the skilled to flourish,” he said.

• Read David Shapiro’s article – Where has the South African business titan gone?
• Listen to David Shapiro and Alec Hogg discuss the issue here – South Africa’s business titans are gone