BIBI CASH AND CARRY - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Founder & MD BiBi Cash & Carry

Born and raised in Soweto, Tommy Makhatho left school in 1976 at the end of standard nine and worked as a waiter at a restaurant in Joburg's swanky Carlton Hotel. Tommy Makhatho is introduced to entrepreneurship One of his customers was a flashy hairdresser who always wore a cowboy hat and drove a top-of-the-range left-hand-drive limousine. "He liked me because I was curious about his business and eager to learn,"says Makhatho, recalling how the man gave him his first break and employed him as a part-time trainee shampooist in his salon. Makhatho went on to qualify as a professional hairdresser. In 1982, with R7 000 in the bank, he decided to leave Blackwave and go it alone in Soweto, but failed to build a clientele and was soon forced to ask for his job back. "I had been over-ambitious and made a mistake of not planning properly, "says Makhatho. A year later he was on the road, distributing hair-care products and bed linen in townships in the Free State, Northern Cape and Lesotho. "I travelled thousands of kilometers every week and the business was doing well. I quit my job again and opened a salon in Qwaqwa."