Betting on a Darkie with Mteto Nyati

ABOUT

We have got another good one planned for December in Johannesburg.

Esteemed businessman, CEO and game changer, Mteto Nyati, will be featured as our guest author on 3 December. Mteto will be interviewed by Founder of The Business Book Club & award-winning leadership facilitator, Jacques Velleman.

They will be chatting about Mteto's Autobiography, Betting on a Darkie: Lifting the Corporate Game.

Mteto is the CEO at Altron, having joined the company in April 2017. He is responsible for transforming Altron into a world class Information and Communications Technology company that does good business while doing good.

Prior to joining Altron, Mteto was CEO of MTN South Africa. He was responsible for returning MTN South Africa to growth by overhauling employee engagement and transforming customer experience. He also led Microsoft South Africa for six years.

Mteto holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering. In 2004, he was named one of Yale University’s World Fellows on Global Leadership.

Mteto is author of the number one best-seller, Betting On a Darkie, a book about his life as a shopkeeper’s son, family man and business leader at local and multinational corporates.

In 2013, he was joint winner of South Africa’s IT Personality of the Year award.

Growing up in the Eastern Cape, just like any other little boy, Mteto wanted to become a doctor. Until the day his life kicked into high gear as one of the top 10 students selected to represent South Africa in the International Science Olympiad.

With the world at his feet, he quickly realised that there was so much more beyond medicine and decided to follow the engineering route - a subject he would later become deeply passionate about.

Over the next few years, Nyati applied the analytical abilities he developed to various leadership positions he held at global tech giants like Microsoft, IBM and MTN.

And, whilst there were many challenges that shaped him into the ‘telecoms turn-around powerhouse’ he is today, nothing came close to the challenge of being the only black man amongst a group of white professionals taking responsibility for all the countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Forewarned by his boss, Nyati made it through the difficult task and was later nominated to represent IBM at the Yale World Fellow.

"If you want to take the system down, provide a better alternative at least. At heart I am an engineer. I want to encourage people to fix things, not to raise false hopes."

Mteto Nyati knew years ago as a schoolboy in Mthatha, working behind the counter at his mother’s trading store, that he wanted to fix and build things. After completing his studies in Mechanical Engineering at Natal University, he turned down a Rhodes scholarship and headed for Johannesburg to take up a position at Afrox. He was the only black engineer and the sole advice he received from his superiors was ‘don’t mess up’. He didn’t. Today Nyati is one of South Africa’s top CEOs, having steered Microsoft South Africa and MTN South Africa out of troubled times. He is currently guiding the transition of Altron from a family business, started at the height of apartheid, into a high-performing international IT company with a social conscience.

*ENTRANCE: A pre-loved book for donation to a good cause.

Please Note: Seating is limited. Although you book your seat, we still work on a first-come-first-served basis as this is a free event, so please ensure that you get their early to get a good seat. If you arrive late and all seats are taken, you are welcome to still join us and stand for the hour duration of the event.

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