Meet The Creative Counsel
GIANT KILLERS: INDEPENDENT AD AGENCY LARGEST IN SA Sanlam/Business Partners has chosen TCC as the Entrepreneur of the Year for 2015 due to its phenomenal growth in just 14 years, outstripping other advertising agencies that have been around for centurie
Gil Oved and Ran NeuNer, founder-owners of The Creative Counsel (TCC), have scooped the overall winners award at the Sanlam/ Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year 2015.
Founded in 2001 as a two-man agency, TCC has grown to become the largest advertising group in South Africa by staff and turnover (more than R600 million), with a targeted presence in Africa and an eye on expanding in other emerging markets. Neu-Ner described their win yesterday as “incredibly humbling and a great honour”.
“The platform also provides an opportunity for us to share the story of our entrepreneurial journey and; hopefully through our failures, lessons learnt and successes, many young people will be encouraged to pursue their business aspirations,” he asaid.
Christo Botes, spokesperson for the competition – after 27 years, the longest-running of its kind in SA – said the duo were selected due to the phenomenal success their business had achieved in its 14 years of operation.
TCC had also perfected the process of job creation, a trait Botes said was “inherent in entrepreneurs and a key reason why the competition seeks to discover and unmask South Africa’s economic heroes”.
“The agency is one of South Africa’s largest private fi rst-time employers and employs untrained candidates, then focuses on up-skilling them and equip them with experience for their future careers,” Botes said.
A Sanlam/Business Partners press release said TCC was started as an in-store promotions company by the co-CEOs and co-founders who had been friends and budding business partners since they were 15. The business is now an integrated agency that offers brand activation, experiential sales and marketing solutions to brands that engage with their customers in a unique way, the release said.
Frances Wright, a member of the judging panel, said Oved and Neu-Ner’s achievements were phenomenal.
“TCC today competes with multinational marketing and communications agencies that have been around for centuries.
“These two entrepreneurs have perfected job creation in that they employ candidates deemed ‘unemployable’ and focus on up-skilling them – and therefore make a significant contribution to not only the economy, but job creation.
“The business has also shown consistent growth, while maintaining a healthy net profit over the years,” Wright said. Nazeem Martin, CEO of Business Partners, said the quality of finalists over the past five years had improved significantly – an indicator that entrepreneurship was taking root in South Africa, especially in the services sector.
He believed South Africans were failing to take advantage of their natural fit with the rest of Africa where European and American companies were profiting from significant development opportunities affecting African consumers.
s the oldest small-business development agency in the country, Business Partners had built up an enviable reputation of assisting start ups in the SMME sector, Martin said.
New BEE requirements in large corporates’ supply chain and order books had significantly increased pressures and opportunities for black-owned businesses to come to the fore and this was providing significant opportunities and challenges in Business Partners’ space, he said.
But Martin warned BEE and employment equity legislation was also having unintended consequences that were working against entrepreneurship and job creation.
BEE requirements were creating a generation of “rentier” shareholders, content to take a back seat on large boards without adding or learning anything new.
Employment equity laws made the employment space an attractive and comfortable option for school leavers and university graduates. “We need young black people to seriously consider entrepreneurship and starting a business as a real and attractive option. Hopefully, this competition will go a long way to achieving that,” Martin said.
Bryan Anderson, co-owner and co-founder of Delta Steam Systems, won the Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He invented and developed a revolutionary steam trap system for industrial plants dependent on heating His product removes water from steam systems to improve manufacturing efficiency.
Nadir and Ahmed Shiraz Khamissa of the Hello Group emerged as winners in two categories: Medium Business Entrepreneur of the Year and Innovator of the Year. The Hello Group creates game-changing, integrated consumer and business services for migrant workers and marginalised communities with several subsidiaries, each offering innovative products or solutions for individuals in their targeted communities.
Kim Whitaker, co-founder and co-owner of Once in Cape Town, a hospitality establishment that combines the best of a backpackers’ hostel and a luxury hotel – known as a “poshtel” – won the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year award.
The platform also provides an opportunity for us to share the story of our entrepreneurial journey Christo Botes Spokesperson for Sanlam/ Business Partners Entrepreneur of the Year Awards