By Alec Hogg
Inspiration sometimes arrives when you least expect it. My final assignment at The Insurance Conference 2016 in Sun City was to introduce one Frank Magwegwe. Head of Momentum’s Retail segment, he’s among the industry’s leading executives. But his story is unlike any other I’ve heard.
Frank’s journey was literally from a cardboard bed to a chair in the board room. Hailing from the Eastern Cape, armed only with an inquiring mind, the ambition to improve and love of chess, he spent 27 weeks as a jobless and homeless man literally living on Johannesburg’s streets.
He rose from poverty first by helping a kindly food hawker called Evelyn and then entering the fresh food supply sector for himself, hawking an assortment of fruits for one Rand a packet. As that business flourished, Frank invested his spare time at the Johannesburg Public Library. That built the foundation for a university bursary, an MSc in financial mathematics, and a subsequent surge up the corporate ladder.
Frank remains a humble, appealing human being with a message, he says, to remind us of the latent power residing in the human spirit. And to never, never give up hope. Magwegwe’s is an amazing story. An inspirational gift for everyone.
