UZAIR ESSACK: LEADING WITH GRIT, DIVERSITY, AND VISION TO BUILD A PAN-AFRICAN ENTERPRISE THROUGH ESSACK ENTERPRISE
Recognized among Africa’s Top 40 Under 40 CEOs, Uzair Essack is Diversifying Across Sectors to Build a Resilient African Enterprise.
By Victoria Mgbanwa
Africa
Entrepreneurship
Agribusiness
Youth empowerment
Leadership
40 unde 40 ceo.
With the dynamic Landscape of entrepreneurship in Africa, Uzair Essack has already carved out a powerful presence across Africa, not just as a multi-sector entrepreneur but as a forward-thinking leader driven by impact, inclusion, and innovation. As the Founder and CEO of Essack Enterprise, a diversified holding company with interests in agriculture, logistics, property, courier services, and coffee, Uzair is pioneering a model of entrepreneurship that blends traditional values with modern business acumen.
Recognised as one of Africa’s Top 40 Under 40 Performing CEOs, Uzair’s leadership reflects a deep understanding of the African market, a relentless appetite for opportunity, and a commitment to financial literacy and youth empowerment. From solving complex supply chain challenges in agribusiness to launching Little Big Bosses, a children’s financial literacy initiative, his journey is one of purpose, perseverance, and passion.
In this exclusive interview, Uzair opens up about his entrepreneurial beginnings, the future of African agriculture, the power of starting small, and the leadership mindset that every next-generation African CEO must adopt.
1. I would love to ask if it's okay with you to give us a brief background about yourself before we dive into the interview. I know we have a profile already, but we'd love to hear from you.
Yes, no problem at all. So, my name is Uzair. As you know, I'm 33 years old. I'm married. I have a daughter. My business is called Essack Enterprise. It's a holding company which has other businesses within it in numerous different sectors and industries, yeah, as mentioned in agriculture, Courier, logistics, coffee, property, etc.
2. As a young, leading CEO leading a multi-sectoral enterprise. How do you define effective leadership in today's African business? And being nominated for the 40 under 40 and leading such a diversified organisation. How do you define business leadership in Africa?
I think in South Africa, specifically, as you know, we have a very diverse population. Here. We are the rainbow nation, as they call it, and because of that, I think it's important to lead with an open mind. There are many different cultures, religions, and sects of life here, and your staff will be from among all of them. So it's crucial to lead with an open mind, to have knowledge about the different cultures, the different religions, the different ages that you will be managing, to know how to then manage and adapt to every one of your employees, so that you relate to them on a personal level and a level which shows that you understand them and their needs and their difficulties.
3. I was going through your profile, and I discovered that you started entrepreneurship a long time ago. And then we also looked into Essack enterprise and discovered, like you mentioned earlier, it spans across agriculture, logistics, properties and even coffee. What inspired you to learn such a diversified business model?
So, there's nothing specific that inspired me to have a diversified range of businesses. But as a businessperson, I am always looking for a good opportunity, a profitable opportunity, and it doesn't matter if that is being a trash man or picking up cow dung, if it's profitable and it increases my business, increases my revenue, increases my profitability, I will look at it. So, I'm constantly on the lookout for opportunities. I'm constantly on the lookout for businesses which are doing things differently, which are innovating, which are, you know, trying to add some sort of value, and if I find a business like that, then I will do my best to try and be involved in it in some way or the other.
4. What's your biggest challenge when it comes to scaling your business? What has been the biggest challenge you encountered?
So, I think in each of the businesses, there are different challenges. If we talk about the fruit business, ripe specifically, my biggest challenge has been access to fruit. I have the customers. I have the money to pay for the fruit. I just don't have access to the fruit. Fruit is limited. It takes a long time to plant a tree and expect it to bear fruit. So, I have more orders than I have supply. So that's been the biggest challenge in that specific business.
5. Could you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by " access to fruit? What kind of fruit are we talking about here? How do you source this?
All the fruits we export, citrus, apples, pears, grapes, kiwis, pomegranates, passion fruit, you name it. We don't have enough of it.
6. We know that there's been a lot of investment in agriculture, and we know that it's a huge market. When it comes to Africa, like you just mentioned, you have more customers than you have products. What do you think we can do differently in Africa, considering that?
I think that South Africa is a great fruit-producing nation is admittedly, because it is still predominantly run by the Afrikaans community. And the Afrikaans community, who are most of the farmers in South Africa, have been farming for generations, their fathers, grandfathers, grandfathers, grandfather and so on. And because of that, they have the knowledge, the grit, and the expertise to farm successfully. Because farming is a difficult thing. You have a lot of variables that you must fight against climate, labour and with their knowledge and expertise in fruit farming, they've been able to get high yields and to grow a favourable product, a product which is in demand across the globe. So, I think that's a lesson that we as Africans can learn is that if we gain the knowledge and the experience and the expertise, then any come any country in Africa can make a successful commercial farming business happen. It's going to take time, because Africans weren't traditionally commercial farmers, but again, with education, investment in the right equipment and machinery to pack the fruit, to harvest the fruit correctly, to grade the fruit, that's where I think we can make it successful.
7. You mentioned something key you mentioned the traditional mode of agriculture. How do you think both the traditional and the modern way of agriculture, farming could be fused to upscale productivity when it comes to agribusiness?
I think it's difficult to fuse the two, because the traditional mode of farming was, you know, very primitive and using primitive tools and very manual and very labour-intensive. And to get a farm which is profitable, that produces the right quality, that produces high enough yields, you must get technology and automation involved. There's no way that it's possible to do it with primitive methods and models. It's YES enough in a small-scale Community Farm, for sure. It's possible, you know, you're not after profit there, you're after just feeding. But in a profitable commercial business, you need technology. You need packing houses that can pack millions of pieces of fruit without a lot of labour, and that is just how it is commercially. And I think there are two ways to look at it, as I say, is farming to feed a community and farming to have a purely commercial export business? And, yeah, you have to, obviously, farm according to what the needs are.
8. What role do you think agribusiness will play in Africa's social and economic transformation in the next decade?
So, I think, as we know and as the whole world knows, Africa is very resource-rich. We've got a good climate. We've got tons of land for the most part. We have good water. So, if we can do what I said earlier, which is to get the right knowledge and education on farming efficiently and to the maximum yields, and that's implemented across the continent, then we can, firstly, be self-sufficient in terms of food. So, you don't need to be importing millions of tons of grain from Ukraine or Russia or any other country. We can first feed ourselves on the African continent. And secondly, we can be like what South Africa is, which, on average, we are a net exporter, where we've got more food than our population consumes, which allows us to then export that fruit to hundreds of different countries across the world and make a profit on it. So I think by us utilizing the climate that we have, the land that we have, the resources that Africa as a continent has, and combining it with the knowledge of modern farming and modern farming technology and modern farming techniques, we can make an Africa that is food sufficient and self sustainable, as well as having a surplus to export for profit.
9. What key lessons would you share from your journey that would impact these young Africans who are willing to tour the part of entrepreneurship?
So, I think, as you started with it, one of the first lessons I teach is to start small. I mean, not too long ago, I was a judge at an entrepreneurial competition here in Cape Town, and I was quite disappointed because every single one of the contestants came and presented us with a business idea in billion-dollar industries, and they spoke about billion-dollar market caps and so on. And I asked all of them the same question, sure, everything has a, or most things have a billion-dollar industry or market cap. But have you sold something to make $1, and all the answers were no, and I said, it's very easy for me to sit and say, I'm going to invent an electric scooter or electric car or rocket ship or a new social media agency. Anyone can talk about it, but it's going out and doing it that's the difficult part. So, before you talk about billion-dollar market caps or industries, go out and make one sale, even if it's selling a piece of bread or a Chappie or a piece of bubble gum. We call it Chappy in South Africa; whatever it is, go out on $1 first. Do that first, because if you haven't even sold something and earned $1, how can you get to a point in the billions of dollars? It's not possible. So yes, it's good to dream big. Of course it is, but you need to act small. And I say that all the time, you can't have these big dreams and expect to get there without the small, everyday actions. So that's the one piece. The other piece is, is obviously, and it's, it's cliche, but never give up. You know, I've been personally through many, many setbacks in all the businesses that I have, and if at any one point I just decided to quit, I wouldn't be where I am today. So yes, it's going to be difficult. Yes, you're going to have times where you have no money as an entrepreneur, or you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from, or you don't know how you're going to pay the rent. It's going to happen. There's not a single entrepreneur in the history of the world that had it easy. That's a fact. So, if you can understand that right at the beginning, and understand that the hardships are there not to last forever, but purely to teach you a lesson, and you can learn from that and then apply it to the future, everything that you do can only be to your benefit.
10. The little big bosses' initiative you started. What's the what inspired you? What's the drive behind it?
I grew up with a lot of financial instability, and I think people in Africa, in general, grew up with financial instability. And I think the main cause of that is financial illiteracy. Uh, in schools, we are not taught about financial literacy, how to manage money, how to save in fact, they want to teach us about how a plant is made, which, of course, is very valuable information, but it's not the information that's going to put food on the table and sustain a financial stability for a family, a lot of our parents didn't have proper education, especially in the financial sense, where they can then pass that financial literacy down to us. So, I'm a firm believer that financial literacy can never be taught to anyone too early. And because of that, I decided to create this book series where, in a fun, engaging way, you can teach young people, kids even, about financial literacy, to get them to start thinking about it in a way that will benefit them later on. I'm a new dad. I'm my daughter is one year old, and I hope that she will enjoy the books that I made, and she can learn from them, and from a very young age, she can start thinking about money management and about using money to keep her in a good, comfortable and stable place.
11. If you were to advise Africa's next generation of CEOs, what mindset or principle would you say is non-negotiable?
I think having the victim mentality is something that's not going to work. You know, a lot of people all the time say I can't do this because of that, or my upbringing was so difficult, so I am entitled to something, or it's an excuse for why you can't do something, or it's a reason why you can't make your life better. And I think that mentality is what's going to keep us behind. Everyone goes through something, some worse than others. Obviously, I can't relate to some aspects, but some I can because, I mean, we all went through hardship, but if I ever let my past define my future, then there would be no way I could have moved forward with anything in my life.
12. Finally, what does being listed among the African top 40 or the 40 performance CEOs, what does it mean to you, personally and professionally?
I think it's an honour that I'm recognised. It inspires me to want to keep doing what I'm doing, it’s it allows me to have the platform to further inspire other people, to try and educate other people, to try and motivate other people. So I'm grateful for the opportunity, and I'm honoured to be chosen and selected.
