A retail professor's faith in education

Although those figures include the hotel industry, retail is the sector in which Lamberti has spent more than 30 years of his professional life.

Lamberti is best known for founding the group that is now Massmart, which has a market capitalisation of more than R15bn and turns over about R40bn a year. But he had no qualms about handing over the reins of the company, in July 2007, to Grant Pattison, an engineer and not a retailer.

“The notion of retiring at Massmart was never on my agenda,” says Lamberti, now nonexecutive chairman.

He says his work there was done, and he wanted to pursue the “next third of my life”.

In addition, Pattison is a capable CEO who has been with the company for 11 years in various posts. “Watching Grant take the company in a new direction is very interesting,” he says of his successor.

Lamberti says that retailing is both a science and an art. The science is in making sure the right stock is on the shelf, while the art is in doing what excites customers. “It's a field of fantastic contrasts,” he says.

It's not an easy business, although it does give you instant feedback. Lamberti says it's the sort of job for a “slightly insecure overachiever”. The challenge lies in meeting people's needs. “Everybody is quite legitimately a retail expert.”

Another interesting aspect of retail is that every store manager is a GM. Even at the low level of running a small store, there are a myriad aspects that need to be managed. “The first time you run a store in retail, you are a true GM,” he says, “and the skills learned in retail will stand a person in good stead for the rest of their lives.”

Under Lamberti's leadership Massmart's turnover exceeded R20bn for the first time in 2004. But two years ago, it was time to move on.

“I have never defined myself as Massmart,” says Lamberti, although he acknowledges that many others may have done so.

In the beginning

Lamberti's retail career started in the mid-1970s after he spent four years as a professional musician. He established a small business, retailing brown and white appliances through two stores in Newcastle. Despite the financial success of this venture, the intellectual lure of big business prompted him to join the Bradlows furniture chain in 1978 as a branch manager.

He was first appointed to what is now Massmart in 1988, when it was an ailing six-store Makro chain.

The name was changed in 1990.The idea was to follow an aggressive growth strategy in high-volume, low gross margin, low-expense retailing and wholesaling. In 1996, he was appointed CEO of Massmart and from July 2003 he was also deputy chairman of the board.

At the end of June 2007 he moved into the chairman's seat. “Trying to hold onto things is the very way that you stifle them,” he says. This is a philosophy that he has also applied to his children, pictures of whom are very prominent in his office, but the conversation remains strictly on business.

Education fund

Lamberti's concern with education prompted him to start a fund to replace what he refers to as a BSc degree — Behind Sales Counter — arguing that there is a case for a more formal education for retailers.

He has had a long interest in education, and lectures at the Wits Business School where he is an honorary professor and chairman of the advisory board. “From the time I started working, I was obsessed with the notion that the only thing that can take you forward is education.”

He is also of the view that education will solve many of SA's problems, most notably unemployment and crime.

Lamberti is involved in education on a personal and financial level. The family is involved in funding students and this year saw the 100th student being put through tertiary education.

Three years ago, Lamberti donated an initial R3m towards establishing a Professorial Chair in Entrepreneurship and a Centre for Entrepreneurship at Wits Business School. He has also set up a Chair at the University of SA (Unisa) and mentors people.

Retail commerce degree

Massmart's funding of a Chair of Retail at Unisa led to the establishment of the country's first Bachelor of Commerce degree in retail. So far, just over R11m has been donated to the degree, which is confined to people who want to go into retail, he says.

The trust, which is managed by Massmart leaders, will select which degree or diploma a student should follow, Lamberti says. If, for example, someone wanted to follow a career in merchandising, the trustees would investigate what options were available.

At the moment, Lamberti is executive chairman of Transaction Capital — an independent service provider to the financial services sector in southern Africa — which he aims to take to the next level through looking at structure, strategy and governance.

The company offers payment service solutions, credit services and debt management as well as a lending division that lends into the taxi industry. Lamberti sees this as lending people money to start their own business.

Insight and understanding

Lamberti says his entire business experience, culminating in 19 years at Massmart, gives him enormous insight into strategy — insights into such things as where a company should go, how to position it in the marketplace and how to get the right people to move towards a goal.

At Transaction Capital, Lamberti makes use of his ability to understand how consumers behave, which is coupled with the team of directors, an enormous source of intellectual capital, he says.

Despite his lengthy career, and many accolades, and involvement in areas such as education and Business Against Crime SA, Lamberti has no time for workaholics.

He says it's vital to have the space and time to think, and if a leader doesn't have that space, they are either unable to delegate or incapable of employing the right people.

He says it was always important for him to make time in life to do things that expanded him, and he has never had to say that he missed his kids growing up. From the time his son started going to school, weekends were not for work.

Source: Business Day

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