Nyimpini Mabunda, Chairperson, Schindler SA: Helping others to reach their full potential

May 9, 2024 10:48:37 AM

"I thrive when I see people grow. I think a lot of this come from my upbringing. I'm a son of an educator, of a teacher, and as a nurturer I want to develop others. This has helped me in my own career, because, when your team thrives and shines you get recognition, which, of course, you reflect back to them. It's an ecosystem," says Nyimpini Mabunda.

By Fiona Wakelin

Nyimpini Mabunda started his career at Procter and Gamble, then joined Diageo, where he worked for 15 years in three different countries: South Africa, the United Kingdom and Uganda. His first executive suite role was as CEO of Uganda Breweries – after which he was appointed CEO at Vodacom for Consumer Business. Nyimpini’s latest role, before starting as Chairperson at Schindler SA, was with General Electric as a CEO for Southern Africa.

We asked him to unpack his role as Chairperson of Schindler SA.

“I think by and large, my role is to make sure that the board of directors works - for me it is important to make sure that the team is diverse, well recruited and operates well in terms of adding value to management.

The second thing is to ensure the sustainability of the organisation through succession planning and providing the long term strategy. And then there is the issue of governance. I want to be careful to emphasise that it actually goes beyond governance - hence we have audit committees, as well as risk and compliance committees. That's a big part of making sure that organisations do the right thing and continue to have the reputation for doing the right thing, which in turn ensures sustainability.”

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What do you enjoy most about your role?

“I thrive when I see people grow. I think a lot of this comes from my upbringing. I'm a son of an educator, of a teacher, and as a nurturer I want to develop others. This has helped me in my own career, because, when your team thrives and shines you get recognition, which, of course, you reflect back to them. It's an ecosystem. I think I exist to help others reach their best potential. I want to help others succeed and nothing gives me more satisfaction when I see people becoming what they never thought possible.”

Schindler produces three core products: elevators in residential and commercial buildings as well as in industrial spaces such as mines; escalators; and walkers, found in airports. The company manufactures them, installs them, and most importantly, services, renovates and replaces them. Globally more than 69,000 Schindler employees work around the clock to serve 2 billion people everyday. “For our employees, for the users of the lifts, the escalators, the walkers, safety is of paramount importance”.

Schindler Lifts (SA) (Pty) Limited was formed in 1949 with offices, a workshop and a factory in Johannesburg. Nearly three quarters of a century later the company has grown from strength to strength.

What is the secret of this success?

“Firstly, there's no substitute for great quality products and our products have stood the test of time. We've been here a long time and our customers are repeat customers because they are happy. We pride ourselves on fantastic products. The second one for me is customer orientation. We have a customer-first attitude, where you give the level of service to the customers that ensures they keep coming back; we monitor very closely customer engagement and our net promoter score. And then thirdly we've become an employer of choice, so we are able to attract the best talent. You need to keep on reinventing yourself, modernising, finding ways to deliver better products, more efficient products so that you are at the forefront of tech and new products and services”.

There has been a lot of debate amongst multinationals regarding B-BBEE, and some companies have opted for ownership equity credits – Schindler SA is, however, a proudly BEE Level 2 contributor, which is important for transformation in the country and something to be celebrated.

“I'm really proud that we achieved a level 2 scorecard – we have a black female CFO and the organisation itself is diverse; we also do great work in an operational procurement with small businesses – we train them and improve livelihoods and improve employment.”

Read the full interview in the 23rd edition of Top Empowerment:

Empowerment