The secrets to lasting success from Jacaranda FM’s Business Breakfast

What do a tech entrepreneur, a business growth specialist, a Springbok legend, and one of South Africa’s most recognisable businesswomen have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

The sold-out 2026 MANCOSA Jacaranda FM Business Breakfast, held at the Vodacom Dome on 17 August, brought some of South Africa’s sharpest business minds together for a morning packed with practical advice, personal stories, and a refreshing reminder that success rarely follows a perfectly straight line.

Now in its fourth year, the event was held under the theme “Legacy Speaks”, putting the spotlight not simply on achieving success, but on creating businesses, careers, and impact that last.

KIMBERLEY TAYLOR: QUESTION THE THINGS EVERYONE ELSE ACCEPTS

Loop founder Kimberley Taylor offered one of the morning’s best reminders for budding entrepreneurs: just because something has always been done a certain way does not mean it cannot be done better.

The inspiration behind Loop, a delivery management platform now operating across five countries and handling around 4.5 million deliveries every month, came from examining the mathematical “travelling salesman” problem.

Today, companies including Woolworths Dash and Sixty60 use the technology.

Taylor’s message was simple: spend time where the problem actually exists. Ask questions, observe what people are doing, and never assume somebody cleverer has already found the perfect solution.

She also stressed the importance of experimentation. Not every idea, feature, or business direction deserves to survive forever. Sometimes growing means testing something new, and sometimes it means having the confidence to let something go.

In other words: don’t become emotionally attached to Plan A.

PAVLO PHITIDIS: GET OUT OF THE ENGINE ROOM

Business growth specialist Pavlo Phitidis encouraged entrepreneurs to stop spending all their time putting out fires and start thinking about where their businesses are actually heading.

His analogy? Running a business is rather like sailing a ship.

The “engine room” is where the daily work happens: customers, staff, invoices, operations, deadlines, and the inevitable collection of problems demanding attention before lunch.

The “bridge”, however, is where you decide where the ship is going.

Phitidis challenged business owners to think about three destinations: what their business should become over the next five to 10 years, what growth needs to happen over the next three to five years, and what kind of personal freedom and impact the business should eventually create.

Growth for growth’s sake, he suggested, isn’t much of a destination.

BRYAN HABANA: DO YOUR JOB, AND DO IT BRILLIANTLY

Former Springbok and Rugby World Cup winner Bryan Habana knows a thing or two about performing under pressure.

His five essentials for success apply just as neatly to a boardroom as they do to a rugby field: discipline, sacrifice, hard work, resilience, and perseverance.

Habana recalled standing in a changing room surrounded by world-class players and realising that worrying about everyone else’s performance would not improve his own. His responsibility was to do his job exceptionally well.

That philosophy has followed him into business, including the fintech world as co-founder of Paymenow.

He also highlighted something many professionals discover when moving into a new industry: sometimes you have to “unlearn to learn”.

Perhaps most importantly, Habana reminded the audience that spreadsheets, systems, strategies, and targets still depend on people.

The human element matters.

BASETSANA KUMALO: FAILURE IS PART OF THE DEAL

Basetsana Kumalo’s entrepreneurial education began long before boardrooms, television studios, and business ventures.

She spoke warmly about watching her mother create income from their kitchen by selling sweets, eggs, and sandwiches. Those early lessons in entrepreneurship stayed with her.

When Kumalo became Miss South Africa at 20 in 1994, she already understood that the crown came with an expiry date. Instead of treating the title as the final achievement, she began planning what came next.

What followed was a career spanning television production, mining, travel, fintech, property, and other ventures.

But Kumalo was equally open about the ventures that did not work.

Her advice? Don’t make failure bigger than it needs to be. Learn from it, take the lesson, and keep moving.

It’s a reassuring message in a business culture that sometimes likes to pretend every successful entrepreneur has enjoyed an uninterrupted collection of brilliant decisions.

Spoiler: they haven’t.

BUILDING A LEGACY TAKES MORE THAN ONE BIG BREAK

If there was one thread connecting all four speakers, it was that lasting success is rarely built around a single lucky moment.

It comes from asking better questions, knowing where you are going, doing your job well, surrounding yourself with good people, learning continuously, and refusing to let setbacks have the final word.

After four years, the MANCOSA Jacaranda FM Business Breakfast has clearly become more than another morning of speeches and coffee. It is a space where South Africans can exchange ideas, learn from people who have succeeded and stumbled, and rethink what leadership and entrepreneurship should look like.

And if “Legacy Speaks” taught us anything, it is this: building something worth remembering starts long before anyone calls it a success.