Kaskazi Kid

I have written enough CV’s in my life to know this is not the place to repeat the standard format! That said, it is only fair to say something about myself.

I was born in Kenya, as was my father. My mother was born in England. My parents met in Aden, Yemen. I was raised in  Kenya and in Tanzania until I was 15. I have since returned many times to the land of my birth, partly in a desperate – and marginally successful – attempt to hang on to my tattered Kiswahili, a language born of the Kaskazi wind.

From 1974 to 1987, my family lived in Bahrain where I developed a keen interest in Middle Eastern politics and economics: I was to study both at Oxford. During this time, I was able to travel the length and breadth of the Arabian Gulf. Naturally I was to feel most at home in Oman whose own history is so closely tied to that of the East African Coast.

But my formal education began back in Kenya, at Pembroke House amidst the lakes of the Great Rift Valley. One of Pembroke’s claims to fame is that it was the alma mater of Geoffrey Gordon-Creed who may (or may not!) have been Ian Fleming’s inspiration for James Bond. And if you saw that remote and rugged place, you would understand why: on our first day at school, we were instructed what to do if we chanced upon a snake…as so often happened. So, at the age of seven, I found myself at a boarding school amidst Kenya’s own Outback… and learning Latin.

After that, I was “packed off” (as the saying went) to England…and yet more Latin! There followed five years at Charterhouse and three at Oxford, both of which I loved though neither of which quite managed to dry clean me of my heritage. At Oxford, I read politics, philosophy and economics…at least when “extracurricular activities” did not intrude!  Upon graduation and not knowing what career I wanted to pursue, I delayed the real world for a further two years by doing my Masters in the United States at Tufts’ Fletcher School. There I really did apply myself academically, focussing on the behaviour of multinational companies in the mining sector.  My master’s thesis compared the oligopolistic behaviour of two real world cartels: OPEC and De Beers.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I soon found myself working in De Beers’ sister company in Johannesburg, Anglo American; the CEO implied I had ‘unearthed’ too much knowledge on the then secretive diamond cartel to be allowed to roam free. Two years later, whilst on a corporate finance assignment in Hong Kong, Anglo’s merchant bank, Rothschild’s, somewhat awkwardly wooed me over to do the same for them in London. Ruffled feathers were smoothed, and I immersed myself in the world of blue-blooded British merchant banking. Two years later, I was ‘lent’ by Rothschild’s to their stockbroking associate, Smith New Court, from where I deepened my understanding of how to operate on the coalface of markets. Among my tasks – I only disclose these details as neither man is with us now – were assignments for Africa’s enfant terrible, Tiny Rowland, and England’s equivalent, Robert Maxwell. I distinctly remember telling the latter – whilst he was on a game drive in the Maasai Mara and so via an early satellite phone – of the genius of convertible unsecured loan stock!

In 1989, the lure of Kenya drew me home to Africa again. But before settling down, I fulfilled a life-long dream. Together with a friend, I undertook a Land Rover trip starting and ending in Nairobi around Southern Africa: 16 countries, 32000 kms and no punctures (merci, Michelin!). Nine months later, I found myself in Nairobi doing development finance and private equity with HSBC Equator. This exposed me to a completely different part of the lifecycle of corporate finance.

In 1994, just as the world of Emerging Markets was taking off, I returned to London to work for Baring Asset Management, dubbed by some as the “University of Emerging Markets”. I was to run their African and Middle Eastern portfolios. My boss joked that what clinched my appointment was that, in my job interview, I knew the difference between Mali and Malawi, Mauritius and Mauretania and Gambia and Zambia and could name all seven emirates of the UAE (I still can)!  

In 1999, Africa drew me home again, only this time to South Africa. But before being usefully employed again, I completed a PhD in economics at the University of Cape Town.  My chosen topic – understanding how the product lifecycle typically ends in commoditization – has served me well ever since.

Then in 2002, after a chance meeting with Investec Asset Management’s CEO Hendrik du Toit at a Spar in Hout Bay, I joined him and his team. Since then, I have spent two very rewarding decades with IAM (now Ninety One). After a stint at portfolio management, for the past 15 years, I have been the Global Strategist. It was here that I developed my fascination with the rise of China and the implications for global geopolitics and geoeconomics. This has meant ‘thinking big’ and ‘thinking long term’. I have interacted with our clients on all six continents: in one year, I visited 42 countries! I have also been to 26 countries within Africa. One abiding memory I have was leaving Ulan Bator in Mongolia early one morning – temperature -28˚C – and being with clients in Pretoria the next day – temperature +28˚C!

My forte is crafting strategy for the longer term…and in an industry that all too often focusses on the short-termism of tactics. I fully endorse Sun Tzu’s exhortation: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”