WeeklySA_AdminDIVERSITY: The restaurant group says its executive team now 50 percent black…
By Isaac Moledi
Spur Corporation announced the appointment of Vuyo Henda as its new chief marketing officer, further strengthening the already strong female representation on the company’s executive leadership team in less than two years to 50% female and 50% black.
“Vuyo is a seasoned business leader with an impressive track-record in marketing, both locally and globally in the fast-moving consumer goods industry.
She is a highly-skilled, forward-thinking marketing specialist who has the ability to inspire teams and collaborate with them to build great brands,” said Spur Corporation CEO Val Nichas.
Henda has more than 10 years’ business experience, with her most recent role leading the Foods business for Southern Africa at Unilever. She joined Unilever in 2009 and has worked in various roles across customer development and marketing. She also spent some time abroad working on the biggest Unilever Food brand, Knorr.
Since her return from London, Henda has a built her expertise in Foods within FMCG (fast-moving-consumer-goods) sector, including developing a plant-based strategy.
She studied at the University of Cape Town and obtained a Bachelor of Business Science (Finance) degree. In 2020 she became one of 20 Dalai Lama Fellows and is part of the founding exco team for the Durban branch of the DreamGirls Academy.
Commenting on her appointment, Henda said: “I’m thrilled to join Spur, especially given the exciting changes the business is undergoing in terms of their purpose of Leading for the Greater Good. I feel honoured to contribute my experience to this dynamic organisation, and hope to continue to drive the growth of its wonderful brands into the future.”
The group has adopted transformation is its key pillar as “it addresses our intent to play our part in significantly shifting practices, behaviours and processes to a different and evolved organisation with a consumer focussed approach”.
Spur Corporation’s eight brands include Spur Steak Ranches, Spur Grill & Go, Panarottis Pizza Pasta, John Dory’s Fish Grill Sushi, RocoMamas, The Hussar Grill, Casa Bella and Nikos Coalgrill Greek. The first Spur Steak Ranches opened its doors in Cape Town in 1967.
Spur Group has franchisees trading through over 600 outlets across South Africa, the rest of Africa, Mauritius, Australasia and the Middle East. The Group also directly owns and runs five restaurants in South Africa. Spur Corporation also operates a sauce manufacturing facility and manages central procurement for South African franchise outlets.
On May 9 2017, Spur announced that its executive chair and founder, Allen Ambor, had sold his 3 099 176 ordinary shares in the company at R32.50 for a total of R100.723m. This comprised all the shares he held in Spur, CEO Pierre van Tonder told Fin24 at the time.
TALENT ACADEMY
Meanwhile Spur Corporation last month launched its own skills and talent development academy, the Rising Leaders Academy. This was a key milestone in the group’s purpose of “Leading for the Greater Good and transitioning into an employer of choice,” according to a Spur statement at the time.
The Academy focuses on formal career development processes and fast-tracking quality candidates. Last month marked the start of the first programme in the Academy in partnership with UCT’s Graduate School of Business.
The programme will hone the skills and leadership competencies of the selected team members. The first cohort consists of 17 employees from across the group, with 76 percent black and 41 percent female employees. These employees will attend a specialist leadership development programme over the next six months that will focus on catapulting them into the next stage of their leadership progression.
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