Alan Knott-Craig is considered the father of South Africa’s cellular industry.
Vodacom’s co-founder and first CEO, Alan Knott-Craig, the man dubbed the father of South Africa’s cellular industry, almost missed his calling in telecoms for a career in journalism.
“One of my first holiday jobs was to clean the spaces between the letters — getting quite high sniffing turps for up to eight hours a day,” he saidHad it not been for his father’s advice against pursuing a life in journalism, South Africa’s telecoms landscape may have looked very different today. Knott-Craig joined Telkom after receiving his engineering degree to work back his bursary and ended up spending the bulk of his career at the company.
Knott-Craig said the minister responsible for telecommunications at the time did not believe Telkom should control the new cellular industry. “Initially, we had discussions with a team that included Dr Nthato Motlana and Andile Ncaba. This process was an education for me. My generation had grown up fearing the ANC,” Knott-Craig said.
Vodacom was born on 19 May 1993, with Telkom owning 50% of the company, Vodafone holding 35%, and Johann Rupert’s Rembrandt having 15%. The BEE stake would only be claimed later. HCI was an investment arm of the South African Clothing & Textile Workers Union. It paid R118 million for its stake in Vodacom and sold it back to Vodafone and Rembrandt in 2002 for R1.5 billion.
Alan Knott-Craig with Johan Engelbrecht, Andries Delport, Chris Ross, Pieter Uys, and Barry Vlok in the front row in 2003. Knott-Craig was never content with a sub-par network and always had to outperform his biggest rival, MTN.to resolve the dispute between the two mobile operators.
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