Mr. Letele successfully led MultiChoice's expansion across Africa and in 1995 served as Regional General Manager for West Africa in Ghana.
Former MultiChoice Group chairman Nolo Letele said a recently released documentary telling his story would serve as an inspiration to young people across the continent.
“This is about helping young people find themselves and find a place where they can thrive,” said Nolo Letele, former executive chairman of MultiChoice Group. Citizen After the documentary screening, Doing the Impossible: The Story of Noro Letele.
“If I narrow it down as a black person who has overcome the hardships I've been through, who has overcome the apartheid system to get to where I am now, I think that's targeting black people, but I didn't want to narrow it down just for that reason,” he said.
“Whether you're a person of color, an Indian, a pink, a white person… they [youth] We're all going through roughly the same things, so we all need that motivation to grow within the system.”
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Father of Multichoice
The title “Father of MultiChoice” is no exaggeration: In 1990, Letele was asked by then Naspers CEO Koos Becker to join M-net, and went on to build DStv into the powerhouse it is today.
Despite South Africa's dark apartheid-era image, Letele successfully spearheaded MultiChoice's expansion across Africa, serving in Ghana in 1995 as regional general manager for West Africa.
He returned home a few years later when he was appointed CEO of MultiChoice South Africa.
Follow your dreams
In the mid-1960s, with a desire to become an atomic physicist growing, Letere emigrated to the U.K. He eventually studied electrical engineering at the University of Southampton and became a chartered engineer.
Letere accused older people, who attended the documentary's screening mainly at home to elderly people, of denying their children the freedom to do what they love, and instead forcing them into jobs that offer some security but do not make them happy.
However, despite his love of music, Letere left it at a young age to pursue a formal career.
“I'll tell you why: I've been doing music for years, I've been living in England, I've been around musicians,” Letere declared.
“I always say if you have a dream, chase it and go as far as you can. I just didn't have the passion to make this,” he said. [music] My career, I mean, in England, I was playing in pubs with free drinks. I was with my friends and it was fun.”
He was such a talented musician that he was a member of the famous Lesotho band Sankomota, who performed as the Anti-Antiques before they took on the name.
“As musicians, less than one percent actually achieve fame and make money and get out there. The rest of us are just sleeping on the floor not knowing where our next meal is coming from and that's our future.”
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Lessons learned
He studied in the UK as a young man and says his experiences there served him well, in part because of his success as an employee of MultiChoice, the company that brought cable television to homes in Africa.
“I think what I got from living there was tenacity and the ability to achieve results – you can't just start something and have nothing happen,” the former head of MultiChoice said of the lessons he learned from living in the UK.
During his time at MultiChoice, Letele received several awards, including the Lifetime African Achievement Award for Media Development in Africa, the Naspers Phil Weber Award and the Black Business Executives Circle Chairman’s Award.
He was appointed Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice Group in 1999 and Chairman of the Board of MultiChoice South Africa Holdings in 2010, a role he held for 11 years.
He became a non-executive director of MultiChoice Group Limited following its demerger from Naspers and independent listing on the JSE.
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