ANT KATZ

Well, that’s all changed. The SAICC appointed a new CEO around eight months ago, reinvented itself and has turned itself on its head. Now, they have a dynamic and hard-working team of experts, have achieved break-even, offer a host of new services to members and are signing up new members weekly.

The new CEO is Peter Quinn, a skilled corporate executive and consultant. His appointment all happened quite by chance. Peter, who has a long-standing association with SAICC chairman Marc Lubner (Marc’s father, Bertie, is SAICC’s president) through the exclusive business platform known as the Young Presidents’ Organisation (YPO). At a social dinner, Marc mentioned that they were looking for a CEO and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Chamber was run for 15 years by Stephen Danziger. After his retirement, the chamber has been through a constant change of top level management and, says Peter, “the impact was that after Stephen’s successful and strong culture, there was a vacuum in direction and purpose.”

RIGHT: SAICC CEO Peter Quinn

Peter has set about professionalising the Chamber with his unique ability of being able to apply a creative marketing approach to the structured accounting process, and vice versa.

Quinn’s interesting career path began at the University of Cape Town where he did a Bachelor of Business Science (Finance), qualifying as both a chartered accountant and an associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, later becoming a Fellow of the same institute. He then obtained a higher diploma in Marketing Management, became a Member of the Institute of Marketing Management and furthered his management studies at the Stanford Executive Programe (SEP) at Stanford University, California.

He was also a member of the Young President’s Organisation (YPO) and past chairman of the Africa Gateway Chapter.

His meteoric business career began after he finished his articles and became group strategic planning accountant at a major listed company. He moved through being financial director, executive director, and finally CEO of Fedics Food Services. This was followed by heading up the Tsebo Group (the parent structure of Fedics) as group CEO.

Unusual skill-set was what was needed

Peter has an unusual combination of financial, marketing and entrepreneurial expertise and experience. Throughout his career he has enthusiastically selected companies and ventures that have meshed with his interests and provided opportunities to turn his passions into profit.

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Having done his time in the corporate world, Peter operated as an independent business consultant, focusing on strategy and entrepreneurship in various sectors of the economy.

Now, he has left consulting after being persuaded to get behind a desk again at the SAICC where he is in the process of ringing in wide-ranging changes.  

Peter has an unusual combination of financial, marketing and entrepreneurial expertise and experience. Throughout his career he has enthusiastically selected companies and ventures that have meshed with his interests and provided opportunities to turn his passions into profit.

How did a non-Jew end up running the SAICC?

“Being Jewish is much more than a philosophy,” says Peter. He is a Christian Zionist who has always had an affinity towards Israel. He worked on Kibbutz Degania Alef after completing his first degree and has always read on the subject of Judaism and Israel. And, while he has a lot of Jewish friends, he says: “My knowledge of Israel has really intensified since being with the SAICC.”

As a CA who completed four degrees in 14 years and rose to the point of CEO with 12 000 staff and five MDs reporting to him, Peter had all the experience he needed to break away on his own for the past 15 years as a strategic consultant and becoming involved in entrepreneurial ventures.

Peter acknowledges that the SAICC was losing membership, fast, when he joined. “Members’ needs were not being satisfied, there was a lack of fresh activity,” he says.

But things have changed. They have opened an office in Israel, but it exists in name only. They are battling to get it going and are focusing, at this stage, on SA. Most of their growing membership are SA-based organisations and Israeli-based businesses.

‘Picking up members is easy, but you have to be able to
meet their expectations and retain them’  – Peter Quinn

Membership is on the way up. “We have an interesting collection of members,” says Peter. He separates them into: The affluent loyal supporter who is essential for the operation of the chamber; Those who join for the pure local network; Some who join because we are a Jewish organisation; and others, who want to promote trade. “We want more of the last group,” says Peter with regard to the SAICC’s current target market.

New services they are offering

One of Peter’s first coups was to secure the fulltime services of well-known communications specialist Bev Goldman.

Bev, pictured right, is now an integral part of the SAICC team.

Among the many new services they are offering, are two newsletters a month. “Our members find these very useful,” says Peter. There is an ISRAEL BUSINESS NEWSLETTER mid-month (citing Israeli tech developments and opportunities to do business), and a SA BUSINESS NEWSLETTER at the end of every month (with events and opportunities within the Chamber, members offering specials to each other, events, etc).

Other new services include:

• Taking members to conferences
• Networking and trade promotion opportunities
• Broadening members’ horizons by networking with other national chambers
• Hosting over 25 free events a year
• Two editions of their new-look magazine a year, which has business information content, says Peter, 40 per cent of which is from Israel
• Personal one-on-one introductions, and marketing opportunities and promotions on a member-to-member basis
•  As mentioned above, 22 newsletters annually, networking opportunities and chamber-to-chamber interactions.

Membership costs start from a reasonable R450 per month for personal members and go up to Corporate and Patron memberships. The Chamber still has a pipeline of products (services to members) to launch going forward.

Bearing the fruits of hard work

Peter says the downturn in the fortunes of the SAICC has now been stabilised. Their new product offerings and sales strategies are starting to bear fruit and gaining momentum. The Chamber has now reached breakeven and is signing up members by focussing on sectors.

They recently decided to focus on the energy sector, for example, and signed up five new members in a week.

“We have a low-fixed-cost structure,” says Peter, “and every new member brings fees, which in turn allows us to provide more services and promote trade.”

Peter says the SAICC’s membership is a diverse mix of race and religion. He says that, before his time at the helm, the Chamber had been approached by some black members who run an IT business using Israeli software, with the idea of forming a Youth Chamber.

At an inaugural workshop they decided to run a Youth Chamber under the auspices of the SAICC.

“Older members have been around the block,” says Peter. “These guys are lean and mean and still looking to make their first million – there is energy there!”

And, based on his track record to date, it looks like Peter will make a success of that venture as well!

The SAICC’s new branding