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Justinus is a serial entrepreneur, having been co-founder at Private Property Holdings…
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared thisWhen Marinus first heard about the USA refugee program for South Africans he assumed it would all be white farmers. He never imagined it would change his business almost overnight. He has been in the staffing and recruitment across three continents for more than 15 years. In 2022 he landed in the United States and started working on expanding the business operation from his Texas base. It took staffing his first big project with 150 people for him to realize just how different the industry is compared to South Africa. In the USA there is too much work and not enough people. So he tried all the legal immigration options to help customers find skilled workers, but found them all impractical for the pace his clients needed. So when he first heard about the refugee program, he didn’t make much of it. But through a friend he met one of the refugees who had a YouTube channel, and asked her to post a link for him to collect resumes from her audience. It felt like he hit the jackpot. It was hard to keep up with all the people getting in contact. That is when he realized that it was not just farmers, there were doctors, engineers, accountants and every skill you can think about. The data also showed they were not all Afrikaans nor white. His business changed overnight. He placed 320 people in the first 6 months and built a database of more than 3000 qualified candidates. The employers loved it. One started with a single placement and has now employed more than 50, and does regular braais! Listen to the full episode of Winning the Away Game Podcast. Link in the comments. Which idea has turned into an unexpected home run for you?
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared thisDamien was about to take his son to South Africa for the summer, but he was not feeling great. The ER visit led to a cancer diagnosis where the doctor sat him and his wife down and encouraged him to check the things on his bucket list off. He grew up in South Africa, spent some time in the Belgium military and after landing in the US got a start through a friend’s business connection. He then built a successful career over 20 years in the beauty and cosmetic packaging industry, working himself up to president and CEO of companies. The headaches that felt like the worst hangover you could imagine, brought everything to a halt. The MRI discovered tumors in his brain, the diagnosis was stage four metastatic melanoma with no identifiable primary source. He had to fight back through multiple brain surgeries, a switch to immunotherapy and what seemed like insurmountable odds. Today he still gets scanned every 6 months but is pretty much healthy. His doctor now greets him as his one in a million patient. He no longer carries any bad blood and makes sure to fix disagreements fast, saying “you never know when your last breath will be drawn.” Listen to the full conversation with Damien on Winning the Away Game Podcast. Link in the comments. What would you check off your bucket list if you were in his situation?
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared thisMost people leave one country when they decide to move to another. glen grundy decided to just add another one. He says “You don’t have to leave one country to take another one. Be greedy. Take it all. Take them both. You don’t have to turn your back on a country.” In 2013 after deciding in 24 hours to sell his business (another crazy story), he left South Africa on a one-year trip to travel the world. But after 6 weeks in Park City, Utah, he knew he wanted to spend more time in the US. He found a business opportunity with a buddy from army tank school and started working on the immigration process. It took 11 years for him to become an American, but his message is clear. He is American and South African, and his amazing work back in South Africa is helping build a country that works for everybody! Often the immigration process can be subtractive, all about what you have to give up for what you are looking to gain. Glen suggests another approach, an additive one, where you are adding and broadening your belonging. I loved this conversation and his approach to assimilating while still connecting back to South Africa, and he is a hero of mine with all the work he does in SA. He is really winning the away game and helping build a country that works for everybody in SA. Was your immigration process subtractive or additive?
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared thisThe morning after becoming South African national champion, she asked herself: “What do I wake up for now?” Today Honorata Nel works in global sponsorships at Booking.com, after spending 5 years in New York, getting their green cards denied, then settled in the Netherlands. Her story started in the eastern suburbs of Pretoria. She showed potential as a track and field athlete early after some encouragement from a teacher she started practicing with more competitive group at a neighboring school. (Happened to be the school I attended) After university, she resigned her ideal job at SAB and started a business that would allow her to be at practice every afternoon. For 11 years she worked her way up from finishing 11th, then 10th, 9th, all the way till eventually she reached her goal of becoming national champion. But reaching the ultimate goal brought something she didn’t expect. She lost the daily structure of mastering something, she missed the community, and could not help but question what will now fill the space of the all-encompassing goal. Years later describing her struggle to a complete stranger she was handed a copy of “The Art of Happiness”. It took her another 10 years to actually live differently. Today she has replaced performance with presence, has again intentionally set up her life focused on family. But the journey continues. Link to the full episode in the comments.
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared thisMy father never asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. Instead he would ask what business would you want to be in? But nothing had prepared me for how hard it would be to start a business just after immigrating. The early years in Canada were super challenging between company setup, GST, HST, PST, health tax etc… Towards the end of last year we started looking for businesses to buy. We identified bookkeeping as fascinating space that will look dramatically different in a few years as a result of changes driven by technology and especially AI(SI?). I could not believe our luck when one of the first options we found was Perfektum Bookkeeping Services Inc. Started more than 10 years ago by a South African (more about her in my next post), and serving predominantly South Africans in Canada and the US. Not only was she winning the away game, she was supporting other South Africans to do the same. She also wanted to stay and grow with us to continue this mission. So if you are a South African in Canada or the US and need support in your finance department or thinking about going into business. We are here to help and support you to win the away game!
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared this“I never realized I was building resilience. I was just getting through life.” Twenty years ago John only had a shared desk in a warehouse in Honeydew when he started his business. Now he has restarted his business in the UK and serves 800+ customers across five continents. Getting through life had molded him and made him ultra resilient. He lost his three week old son in 2003. A few months later an uncomfortable feeling in his testicle led to cancer diagnosis. It returned two more times, at the same hospital that he now refuses to visit. Once was just after he started the business. The radical acceptance of his reality, what had happened without dwelling on it, allowed him to get on to problem solving forward instead of backwards. So the business became a reflection of the resilience he had built. In John’s own words: “You are not dead yet, so fix it!”
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 shared this“No matter how big the boo boos, once she’s shared it with me, she has a sense of calm, because it’s no longer her problem.” After landing in Canada, Kemp realized it would be hard to brute force work by personally digging into every detail. The scale and pace just made that impossible. This forced him to let go of control and the comfort that came with it and build a team that he can trust and that would not keep the bad news from him. His 70+ person team is now evidence of one of the company’s leadership behaviors: Build the best team! Not dwelling on mistakes is a hard lesson to learn, so making your team comfortable with making mistakes is equally challenging. Kemp often tells his team: “we’re not pediatric surgeons, no one’s going to die, it’s just a number” That gives the team the space to learn and take risks to develop. It’s the Ted Lasso principle in a finance office: be a goldfish. Listen to the full episode of Winning the Away Game Podcast. Link in the comments.
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 reacted on thisJustinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 reacted on thisLast season, Toise High played on a field with holes in it and goalposts that don't stand straight. Their coaches paid for transport out of their own pockets. Yesterday, they lifted the league trophy out of nearly 140 schools. Their coach, Thandile Mzukwa, said it before a ball was kicked in the knockouts: "We don't have the best field, but these boys always show up. All they need is a chance." I keep coming back to what the boys themselves have told us this season. "When you support us, you're not just buying boots or a jersey, you're buying hope for a whole community." Asahluma, Makhanda. "It's about giving Motherwell's young people a reason to stay focused and believe in themselves." Toby, Motherwell. A captain told us rugby keeps him away from the substances that pull so many teenagers in. That is the part people don't see from the stands. In too many communities, gangs, drugs and empty afternoons are waiting for boys with nowhere to be. A training session, a Wednesday fixture and a coach who expects you to show up change that. Rugby teaches what our country needs most in its future men. Discipline. Respect. Teamwork. Leadership. Humility. Resilience. How to win with grace, and how to lose, stand up and go again. Toise showed all of it this weekend. The trophy is theirs. The belief behind it is what we now need to scale, to more schools, more boys, and in time, girls too. Halala Toise!
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 reacted on this100% agree. Access, facilities, coaches. So much talent is unknown, if only given a chance.Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 reacted on thisWe believe it is the largest single schools rugby union league in the world. In its first year… This year, more than 3,000 boys in the Eastern Cape played a full season of rugby for the first time. Today, two of the schools play in the final. For most of these boys, a league like this simply did not exist before. Proper fixtures, referees, medics, transport, games on SuperSport Schools. Things many schoolboys take for granted. It began as Lincoln and Sva Mali's dream. For more than a decade they ran a tournament in the name of Lincoln's late father, Mzwandile, carrying much of it themselves. This year, with the support of just over 100 South Africans at home and around the world, that tournament became the Mzwandile Mali Schools Rugby Champions League. 138 schools, one league. Just listen to this commentator’s words. It has been a real privilege to help bring this to life with Lincoln, Sva and Justinus. Today, Thubalethu High, the school I backed from the very beginning, plays in the Grand Final. To the players, the coaches and every family in the stands: good luck! Whatever the score, you have already shown what is possible. Talent in the Eastern Cape has never been the missing piece. Access has. Watching that change, one boy and one school at a time, has been one of the most humbling things I have been part of. As Lincoln says: “from dusty fields to golden dreams.” If you would like to help us build this and keep changing lives, send me a message. We would love to have you with us.
Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 replied to a comment
3d
Nidia Nathan 张 卉 very interesting. Do you think it is a cost of living issue?
Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 replied to a comment
3d
Winning the Away Game Podcast got a whole new perspective from this episode!
Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 replied to a comment
3d
Paul Viviers I think SA preps us well to excel where ever we go!
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Justinus Adriaanse 🇿🇦 🇨🇦 liked thisWhen Marinus first heard about the USA refugee program for South Africans he assumed it would all be white farmers. He never imagined it would change his business almost overnight. He has been in the staffing and recruitment across three continents for more than 15 years. In 2022 he landed in the United States and started working on expanding the business operation from his Texas base. It took staffing his first big project with 150 people for him to realize just how different the industry is compared to South Africa. In the USA there is too much work and not enough people. So he tried all the legal immigration options to help customers find skilled workers, but found them all impractical for the pace his clients needed. So when he first heard about the refugee program, he didn’t make much of it. But through a friend he met one of the refugees who had a YouTube channel, and asked her to post a link for him to collect resumes from her audience. It felt like he hit the jackpot. It was hard to keep up with all the people getting in contact. That is when he realized that it was not just farmers, there were doctors, engineers, accountants and every skill you can think about. The data also showed they were not all Afrikaans nor white. His business changed overnight. He placed 320 people in the first 6 months and built a database of more than 3000 qualified candidates. The employers loved it. One started with a single placement and has now employed more than 50, and does regular braais! Listen to the full episode of Winning the Away Game Podcast. Link in the comments. Which idea has turned into an unexpected home run for you?
Experience & Education
Honors & Awards
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Business Owner of the Year
Tommy Guns Corporate Holdings
Won the award for the business owner of the year at the annual awards ceremony at summit in Kelowna.
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Academic Honors on the MBA
GIBS
Dean's List 2008 and 2009
Top Performing Student in:
Micro Economics,
Innovation,
Analytical Tools and Techniques,
Web 2.0.
Languages
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Afrikaans
Native or bilingual proficiency
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
Organizations
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Entrepreneurs Organisation
Member
- Present
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Babak Maghfourian
Babak Maghfourian
My background is in software development.<br><br>I ran VideoClix technologies, which developed and marketed the premier Hypervideo (clickable video) solution on the web.<br><br>VideoClix allowed viewers to interact with objects in digital video... it was geared towards advertisers and entertainment industry as well as the education sector.<br><br>Clients included: Viacom, Disney, Apple, MTV, ABC, Kraft foods, Playboy, Discovery Channel and ESPN.<br><br>The company was privately financed and operated from 1999 to 2017<br><br>Languages: German, French, Persian and English.<br><br>Specialties: Vision in the multimedia arena, web and mobile video, social media, product development, marketing, financing.
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