The South African who dropped out of university, joined a rock band, and ran Makro

Through his leadership, Lamberti has grown Massmart, which owns and operates major local retail chains including Game, Makro, Builders Warehouse, and CBW, into one of the most successful companies in South Africa.

Mark Lamberti, the oldest of five children, spent his early years in Johannesburg, where he attended Parkhurst Primary School.

After his family later relocated to Hilton, in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands, Lamberti went to school in Pietermaritzburg, attending St Charles Primary School and Alexandra High School.

In 1969, he went on to study engineering at the University of Natal at his father’s behest. However, in his second year, he decided this field wasn’t for him.

“I had a seminal moment one day when I was running in the wattle forests in Hilton, when I realised this was my life and I needed to do what I wanted to do,” Lamberti told Leader.

So, he dropped out of his degree to pursue his interest in music as a keyboard and trombone player.

This led to Lamberti leading two professional rock bands that enjoyed some popularity playing at concerts and club venues in the major cities of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

During one of his shows at a club, he met Annette Jean Huskisson. The two fell in love, and three months later, they were married.

Eventually, he said that he decided to get his life together, and he decided to leave the music industry to join his father’s appliances, audio and video electronics retail business in Newcastle.

In 1979, he joined Bradlows, a national retail furniture chain, as the manager of their Ladysmith branch, where he earned R650 a month.

At this time, he also started studying his commerce degree at the University of Pretoria and welcomed his first child into the world.

Eventually, he ran everything at Bradlows except for its finances, all while pursuing his part-time MBA at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits).

“This period was not easy, because the MBA is hugely demanding,” he said. At one point, he came so close to failing that he was given a notice by the university. However, Lamberti was determined to finish his MBA and do it well, and this is exactly what he did.

Makro

In 1987, Wooltru headhunted Lamberti and offered him the chance to run Truworths. He turned down the offer, but a year later, he accepted Wooltru’s offer to be the managing director of Makro.

“Whenever I was offered choices in my career, I always took the path of more learning rather than the one that would provide more money or power,” he said.

Although Makro is one of South Africa’s most well known businesses today, at the time, it was a struggling six-store chain.

So, Lamberti set out to turn the business around, and within a year, he formulated a new business strategy that stuck for nearly two decades.

In the following 15 years of his stewardship, this strategy resulted in 15 major acquisitions and the opening of over 100 new stores. This resulted in compounded annual sales and EBITA growth of 23% and 42% respectively.

In 1999, Massmart won the South African Non-listed Company Award before its listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2000.

In 2006, Deloitte ranked Massmart as the 140th of the 250 largest retailers in the world, of which it was the 15th fastest growing over the previous five years.

By 2007, Massmart was Africa’s third-largest consumer goods retailer and the leader in general merchandise, home improvement, liquor, and wholesale food.

The company employed 25,000 people and operated 238 stores in 13 countries, with a sub-Saharan footprint of 1.35 million square meters.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, acquired a 51% controlling interest in Massmart at an enterprise value of R34 billion in 2011. The company invited Lamberti to retain his position as independent non-executive Chairman.

South African business powerhouse

In 2008, Transaction Capital invited Lamberti to become its CEO and a major shareholder. During his tenure, a turnaround and rationalisation strategy resulted in assets, income, and headline earnings each growing over 300% and the company being listed on the JSE in 2012.

In the financial year ending September 2013, Transaction Capital Limited employed 5,400 people and generated revenue and headline earnings of R4.6 billion and R545 million respectively, resulting in a market value of R4.1 billion.

Lamberti was recruited as CEO of Imperial Holdings in 2014. This conglomerate is focused mainly on logistics and vehicle value chains, mainly in sub–Saharan Africa and the Eurozone.

His leadership of a turnaround initiative included disposing of 44 companies and 55 properties, realising R5.7 billion, and investing R5.4 billion in acquiring 17 companies.

It also involved restructuring five operating divisions into two and changing the roles or reporting lines of 23 of the Group’s 35 most senior executives.

At the time of his resignation, shortly before the separate listing of Imperial Logistics and Motus, the group ranked among the top 40 companies on the JSE.

It employed 48,000 people and generated revenues of R128 billion and profits before tax of R5.1 billion across 39 countries on five continents. During his tenure, Imperial’s market value increased from R35 billion to R55 billion.

In 2018, Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Public Enterprises, invited Lamberti to join Eskom’s board. Lamberti has also served on the boards of nine other public companies.

After resigning as Imperial’s CEO, Lamberti focused on his non-executive roles in education as a benefactor, director, governor, counsellor, advisor, or lecturer at several colleges and universities.

He also completed his doctoral research through the Gordon Institute of Business Science and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Business Administration by the University of Pretoria in 2024.

He is currently the chair of the Lamberti Tertiary Education Foundation Trust, his family foundation which has assisted over 200 underprivileged students to complete their tertiary education.

He also holds a number of other prestigious positions, including being a shareholder and director of the Little Ashford chain of pre-schools, a director of Future Nation Schools, and a governor of the WITS Foundation.

Issued on Daily Investor by Kirsten Minnaar | https://dailyinvestor.com/business/93801/the-south-african-who-dropped-out-of-university-joined-a-rock-band-and-ran-makro/