Jens Montanana founded Datatec in 1986, which has since grown into a R14 billion company operating in more than 50 countries worldwide and one of the top ICT firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
While Montanana is British, having studied electronic engineering at the University of Reading, Datatec is headquartered in Johannesburg and listed on the JSE.
The company provides networking, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, offering services and solutions in Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Having served as the company’s CEO for over three decades, Montanana has seen major paydays through his tenure.
The chief executive has earned a combined R471 million over the past three financial years. This includes R216 million in 2022/23, R110 million in 2023/24, and R145 million in 2024/25.
However, it’s worth noting that a large portion of this comes from Montanana’s long-term incentives, with only R23 million allocated as a basic salary in 2024/25.
As of 28 February 2025, the end of the company’s last annual reporting period, the CEO held roughly 42 million Datec shares valued at R2.7 billion.
Although the company was founded in 1986, Montanana only became CEO after Datatec was first listed on the JSE in 1994.
Between founding and being appointed chief executive of Datatec, he served as the managing director of US Robotics in the UK from 1989 to 1993, which was later acquired by 3Com in 1997.
The year he left US Robotics, Montanana founded a US-based start-up called Xedia Corporation, which designed and manufactured hardware and software for network routers.
Despite various other ventures, Montanana always remained involved at Datatec, which initially comprised two separate businesses: Datatec Networking and Communications and POStec.
After two years under the control of its new CEO, Datatec launched a joint venture with UUNET in 1996 to form the Internet service provider UUNET Africa.
Jens Montanana, founder and CEO of Datatec.
Datatec then turned its attentions to expanding internationally the following year, acquiring what have become its two main operating divisions.
In 1997, it acquired UK IT firm Logical Networks, which was rebranded to Logicalis International, and 92.5% of US-based distributor Westcon for $160 million in 1998.
“Twenty years ago, we were very active through mergers and acquisitions, buying businesses to build the group internationally,” Montanana said in a recent interview with Business Day.
“While we still make acquisitions, the primary focus of the past decade has been streamlining our system and processes worldwide to harness efficiencies and improve our financial performance.”
In Datatec’s most recent financial reporting, the company’s substantial improvement in profitability was attributed to “a significant gross profit increase in Westcon International and Logicalis International.”
Datatec reported a gross profit for the year of R16.3 billion, which increased by 5.6% from R15.5 billion in the previous reporting period.
However, it did notice a revenue decrease of 8.8%, dropping from R71.6 billion at the end of FY24 to R65.2 billion at the end of February.
This was attributed to the group’s revenue and cost of sales from FY24 being restated “following a voluntary change in accounting policy in FY25.”
Montanana said that the growth of interconnected digital communities and increased IT complexity drove infrastructure demand in networking and cybersecurity.
He explains that, given the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, businesses need to prepare to implement the technology within their operations if they are to take advantage of it.
“While everyone is talking about how many Nvidia chips are being supplied to hyperscalers and big cloud providers, the reality is that this machine learning will take effect much closer to the consumer,” he said.
“To do that, companies need to gear up and have infrastructure that is capable of running AI technology. We think this is just the beginning of what we call IT real estate modernisation.”
Montana currently also chairs the boards of Datatec’s divisional parent companies: Logicalis International Limited, Logicalist Latin America, and Westcon International Limited.
Issued on Mybroadband by Daniel Puchert | https://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/597778-the-man-who-built-a-r14-billion-south-african-tech-giant.html
