The Brave Code: Pioneering a shared-value creative enterprise

By Musa Kalenga

Africa is rich with potential and renowned for its innovation. However, with the long shadow of the Berlin Conference of 1884 (also known as the Congo Conference) ever present, an exponential growth trajectory, using modern leadership and management practice, needs to be charted for Africa to catch up with the developed world.
Musa Kalenga – technologist, marketer, brand communicator, entrepreneur, author of Ladders & Trampolines and Group CEO and shareholder of Brave Group – believes this is only possible using the springboard combination of creativity and technology.
The Brave Code explores Musa's journey with Brave Group to pioneer a shared-value creative enterprise as a blueprint for other organisations in Africa.
Exploring tangible ways to benefit every member of its ecosystem, Brave Group upends traditional advertising models, challenges assumptions around equity, and pushes back at commonly-accepted but outdated client and agency practices.
Seeking to blaze a new trail and aiming to create a replicable model that has relevance beyond the advertising and marketing sector, Musa is spurred on by what Singularity University called 'a massive transformative purpose', and calls others to join him on the journey.
Weaving together anecdotal examples and personal musings with a working theory of change, The Brave Code is an encouragement to the young entrepreneurs, professionals and trailblazers in Africa to play a critical part in unlocking the immense value that the continent has to offer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers
• Release date: Dec 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781776443239

Book preview

9780624089810_FC

THE

BRAVE

CODE

Pioneering a shared-value

creative enterprise

MUSA KALENGA

Also by Musa Kalenga

Musa Kalenga is the author of Ladders & Trampolines, a book that shares anecdotes and experiences about working and doing business in Africa. The concept of a Ladder Mentality versus a Trampoline Mentality is a simple one. The step-by-step ladder approach leads to incremental growth, which may be somewhat slow. However, the trampoline approach, while using the same energy as climbing a ladder, produces exponential results.

Ladders & Trampolines is an honest account of experiences that encourages thinking big, dreaming broad and having exponential impact. Musa encourages us to explore, embrace and hunt for trampolines.

First published by Tracey McDonald Publishers, 2024

Suite No. 53, Private Bag X903, Bryanston, South Africa, 2021

www.traceymcdonaldpublishers.com

Copyright © Musa Kalenga, 2024

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-7764432-2-2

eISBN 978-1-7764432-3-9

Text design and typesetting by Patricia Crain, Empressa

Cover design by Thabiso Manyelo

Cover compilation by Tomangopawpadilla

Digital conversion by Wouter Reinders

CONTENTS

Title page

Also by Musa Kalenga

Imprint page

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 0 BRAVE beginnings

Chapter 1 A BRAVE new world

Chapter 2 The BRAVE journey

Chapter 3 The Motherboard story

Chapter 4 The South African context

Chapter 5 The future of shared value

Chapter 6 Creativity remains the game changer

Chapter 7 Building BRAVE leadership

Chapter 8 BRAVE next steps

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

About the Author

FOREWORD

Thanks to Musa Kalenga’s generosity of spirit, this is the second book he has penned to share with the world the lessons he learnt in building some of the most inspiring enterprises and organisational cultures. Through The Brave Code, Musa has brilliantly demonstrated the power of shared value as the glue that binds different stakeholders together. His use of captivating storytelling to dramatise the value exchange between creative agencies and advertisers, makes this book the page-turner that it is.

Through the personal anecdotes of his colleagues, we see a purpose-driven, visionary leader who believes in the power of creativity multiplied by technology to solve society’s biggest challenges. This book is a must-read for all aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs who plan to change the world.

Thank you for sharing the code behind your success. Selfless pioneers like yourself spread hope in the world. May your light continue to shine bright.

DR ALISTAIR MOKOENA

Google South Africa Country Director

INTRODUCTION

It’s been almost a decade since I published my first book, Ladders & Trampolines, and now, nearly ten years later, it felt like it was time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, if we’re being literal) again.

Once again, I find myself in an interesting phase of my life that has got me deeply reflecting on various topics, the number of hours in a day and whether I believe I am using these hours to the fullest. Since Ladders & Trampolines was published, much has changed and a few things have stayed the same.

The ‘primary thing’ that has not changed, is that I still believe our stories as Africans aren’t captured sufficiently, and I think many people who are in the privileged position of having had the opportunity to do and experience things should be more diligent about capturing those stories. And so, this book is my attempt at capturing some of the stories I’ve been fortunate to have been part of, and which I hope have value for others.

There are notable changes in my life since Ladders & Trampolines. I am excited to share where I am on my journey and what new lessons I have learnt. I have an entire new body of experience, which I attempt to summarise in this book. The projects that now occupy my time have been a blessing to me.

My first book captured the journey of my early forays into entrepreneurship and entry into corporate organisations in South Africa, and then my experiences at Facebook (now Meta). It was a reflection on my journey to that point and the book’s name referenced the exponential nature of well-made decisions. I won’t rehash what’s already been written, but I’ve included a brief biography at the end of this book if you’d like a summary of my background.

Since then, I have invested in an agency business, spoken, coached and facilitated fascinating conversations with leaders across Africa and the world, co-founded a technology company, occupied board seats in various organisations and chaired educational institutional boards.

After writing Ladders & Trampolines my children have grown up a lot, and the world has faced the COVID-19 pandemic, so it honestly feels like a lifetime ago. Along with new successes, I have new failures to speak about. I have shaped my thoughts on pressing topics, such as transformation, leadership, technology, creativity and the inadequacy of the current advertising and marketing agency model (plus my alternative to that model).

The Brave Code picks up where the last ended, and while I have worked to avoid any repetition, if you’ve read both books (and it’s not a prerequisite to have read the first one to make sense of the second one), you’ll pick up some similar themes. For example, my deep love for our continent, my desire to create spaces for young people to flourish and my obsession with technology and creativity. These are the things that keep me sane and aligned to my path and my purpose, which I believe is to create spaces for young people to thrive.

In recent times, I have come to realise that my role in the lives of the many people I encounter – young and old – is to be a gardener. To prepare different environments for considered and meaningful growth. This is a purpose and calling that I take very seriously.

This lifelong ambition to effect change is based on my past and the deep desire that I have for our continent to make use of an exploding, yet underutilised, youthful population.

I hope that you will find this book encouraging, challenging and useful, and that it will provoke you to action in some fashion, whether in the way you think about your work, or maybe to step outside of your comfort zone to consider implementing change, and contribute towards an increased win-win approach within your sphere of influence.

CHAPTER 0

BRAVE BEGINNINGS

A perspective from Vanessa A Pearson, co-founder of House of Brave.

It’s 2012.

And the end of the world according to an ancient Mayan prophecy.

A perfect time to start a business?

Indeed …

… if you’re brave enough to ‘cock a snook’ at the naysayers, the prophets of doom, apocalyptic Hollywood blockbusters and headline news of the time, along with harried investment bankers, and the tail end of a savage global recession. Admittedly, a good plan helps too.

Sage entrepreneurial mentors and advisers, along with concerned parents and The New York Times, ominously warned that the window between 2011 and 2012 was the worst time in over 100 years to start a business, declaring that you’d have to be either brave or incredibly stupid to do so.

And in Africa no less!

Heeding the fearful proclamations, we decided that naming our business House of Stupid just wouldn’t do.

It simply had to be House of Brave.

Little did we know how prescient that name would prove to be.

In hindsight, perhaps House of Calm, or Pastures of Pleasantness, or a word like Tree (they grow, don’t they?), would’ve made for a more straightforward and serene journey.

But where was the passion inherent in that? Where was the rallying cry? Where was the resolute opposition to conventional thinking and wisdom? Where was the pioneering spirit encouraging ingenuity, innovation, joy and enterprise, and the vision of something better, of something worth fighting for?

Notions so magnetic to the hankering, to the potential and the psyche of the African spirit.

Where was the Africanness?

Now, psychologists will tell you that names have the potential to influence our behaviour, career path, cultural values and shifts, our popularity and how others perceive us too. Alarmingly, even our destinies.

Yes, names have power.

Reinforcing the belief that names are pregnant with purpose and intent, House of BRAVE would prove to be the embodiment of all the above – and then some – for us.

Right from the get go.

Our zeitgeist meant that we were never going to follow expectations, and the usual or stereotypical path to success.

Or even prescribe to that which those on the playing field touted as success.

We were never going to be satisfied with the status quo.

We eschewed it.

Because BRAVE wasn’t just a word for us.

It was a way of life and a way of doing business.

It would challenge us and demand energy and determination and resilience beyond passion and mere symbolic gestures.

Indeed, it demanded everything.

And so, as 2011 drew to a close, Andrew Shuttleworth, Robert van Rooyen and Vanessa Pearson, with nothing but extraordinary trust in each other, bid farewell to directorships and board positions, guaranteed income, and the plush hallowed halls of global agency juggernauts, along with their padded awards budgets, expense accounts and swish international conferences, and opened the double doors to our new enterprise in an area we affectionately, and euphemistically referred to as Mordor.

Now dry, dusty and dreary, Mordor was situated between two worlds. In reality, between two cities.

Figuratively between success and failure. If Dickens was still alive and writing, he might have elected to call this A Tale Between Two Cities, that is if we divulged all of our secrets of course. But that’s entirely a story for another day. Yet here, in this ‘in-between’ place we would relish the thrill of creating and launching our company’s new identity with gratitude to the fabulous Nathan Reddy and his team at GRID, celebrate winning our first accounts, welcoming our new staff, rewarding ourselves with our first pay cheque, and tirelessly working on new business pitches through birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas eve, Christmas day and beyond.

Sans padded expense accounts, we treated each other to roadside hot dogs from Siggi’s Wurst Stube. (Siggi’s is a legend. The ubiquitous blue and white stand is still there. Totally unfazed by the dictates of a global pandemic, relentless inflation, the G8 or war. Nothing could dent that little business it seems.)

I made sure to always wear my Louboutins. Dusty roadside or not.

Back in 2012 we wondered if we could settle our GRID bill with a delivery of Siggi’s bratwurst.

Alas, no.

Admittedly, our ears would hum with a vast chorus of ‘No!’ in that first year, but we were audacious, and too high on ownership to be deterred in any way; because ownership owns you. Ownership quite literally possesses you. It also empowers you to bend the universe to the force of your will until goals are realised.

And they were realised.

And then, quite suddenly, our name came calling. Asking us, indeed demanding, that we live up to its expectations.

Because this was no ordinary call. It was a call that could prove to be the denouement of our business within 12 months of its inception, unleashing a tsunami of fear.

We all remembered the quote that we so glibly espoused at times: ‘I learned that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’

It’s a quote, written and rewritten in a number of ways, attributed to many legends and icons who bear testimony to the resilience and fortitude of the human spirit, from Nelson Mandela and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Mark Twain and Carly Fiorina.

And now fear had entered our double doors. It walked the passages and sat at boardroom tables with us. Negotiating with us. Making its play.

It wanted what was ours. Because fear is covetous by nature.

It was Dickensian. Again.

We were living the first page of his most famous novel.

It was the best of times,

it was the worst