Flipping the script on leadership

Delivering results without sacrificing integrity, Grace Harding heads Ocean Basket with “more grit than superglue”. Harding has never been confined by the expectations of others. Her core strength, in fact, lies in not fitting the mould. 

“I stand out like a sore thumb,” Harding says. “I represent a different kind of leadership: human, candid, and unafraid to challenge the script. My Jewish roots have shaped my resilience and my instinct to question; wrestle with complexity; stand up to power when needed; and to carry responsibility for people and performance. I don’t posture; I connect.” 

When people ask what she does, Harding’s response exemplifies her unique approach to leadership. “I listen, sift, synthesise, form, ask around, recalibrate, check again, pull the team together, create a clear vision, ensure that every person has a clear script, and then we put the performance together. I’m less interested in titles and corporate posturing and more interested in outcomes that benefit all stakeholders.” 

It’s all about a way of working, she says, centred on blended leading and working for the long-term benefit of all. “I’m generous with accountability, and tough on the things that matter: clarity, promises, and follow-through. I believe strength lives in vulnerability and that candour, offered with care, is a gift. I champion women and underheard voices, mentor future leaders, and insist that profit and purpose are partners, not rivals.” 

Harding’s strong work ethic and leadership savvy took root when she was a teenager and began working in her father’s general dealer on Troye Street in Johannesburg. “That’s where I learned that I have the skill of getting people to accomplish things well,” she says. Having worked in retail and owning her own business for 15 years, Harding was well placed to lead Ocean Basket, a South African-born seafood brand with a global footprint, which has made seafood, widely considered a luxury, accessible by giving customers value for money. 

The business’s mission is simple but powerful, Harding says. “We make seafood joyful and accessible, served with warmth and generosity.” The business operates on a franchise model with a focus on backing entrepreneurs with hands-on support, strong systems, and supply partnerships. 

“It’s about creating jobs, growing local ownership, and building a sense of belonging in the communities we serve. Our real business is hospitality in its truest sense: making people feel welcome, valued, and seen.” 

Harding says it’s important to change traditional thinking to keep brands like Ocean Basket relevant. “I changed my idea about what it means to have a relationship with franchisees,” she says. “It’s not a ‘franchisee/franchisor’ relationship, it has become one. Knitting all this together has seen incredible results starting to emerge.” Her ideas about accessing a new generation of customers and loudly promoting the highly competitive price points have also been particularly beneficial to the business. 

Being open to change ties into the need to future-proof Ocean Basket, which starts with the people it serves, says Harding. “It involves staying closer to the customer than to the balance sheet or competitor. This pivot has been life changing.” It’s about giving customers what they want and finding ways to make this work in the broader business strategy. 

Harding also stresses the importance of embracing technology and artificial intelligence while learning to blend the resulting benefits into a brand that remains human-centric. And she’s excited about further developing this human-centric philosophy that underpins Ocean Basket’s success. “Now the focus is to embed inclusion that brings neurodiversity and invisible-disability awareness into hiring and training,” she says. 

Harding says Ocean Basket’s potential to contribute to the betterment of the country is unlimited. “The restaurant industry has the lowest barrier to entry when it comes to employment. You don’t need to be highly skilled and there’s space for people not only in restaurants, but in the entire value chain that the restaurant industry supports.” 

The business is therefore working with non-profit organisation, Afrika Tikkun, which empowers youth “from cradle to career” to build a strong pipeline. “Private companies in South Africa are the educators of the workforce,” Harding says. “We have an easy-to-use learning platform and conduct face-to-face training not only on the hard skills needed, but other life skills.” 

It’s such life skills that have helped Harding herself establish such a successful career. She says people would be surprised to know that she doesn’t have a degree and, in fact, failed maths at school. This, however, is just further proof of the value of hard work and drawing on one’s inborn talents. 

However, Harding has sometimes struggled with self-doubt. “This caused me to believe in people who were bad for the business, and there were two years of horrible outcomes,” she says. Yet addressing this disappointment fostered significant growth. “I got rid of them. I found big girl panties, and never again will this happen.” 

Today, Harding says she’s built the best executive team she has worked with in more than a decade. She did it by finding people who have aligned values about the world and people. 

“We also improved the way we measure cognitive and emotional intelligence muscles, as we need them both,” she says. Creating a ritual of “walk and talks” has also been invaluable. “I believe my role is to support my team and remove obstacles. I truly put them first and they are amazing menschen.” 

Maintaining a work-life balance in her own life, however, has always been a battle, admits Harding, a self-proclaimed workaholic. “It has made me a bit sad in my later life. This is the next personal journey I get to focus on, where I’ll aim for better blending, which is better than balance, which sounds too hectic.” 

Harding believes her greatest business achievement is still to come. She is, however, particularly proud of the way she has driven the transformation of the Ocean Basket business this year off a base of flat growth to growth of 14% year-to-date. “I kicked, fired, and reconstructed,” she says, “and it’s not stopping.”