RADICAL REALIST

His commitment to fighting apartheid did not end with his discharge from the force. Throughout his twenties, he was heavily involved in many anti-apartheid organisations including the Five Freedoms Forum, the United Democratic Front, and Jews for Social Justice, which he chaired

He left South Africa for what he thought would be a temporary stint earning his MBA in London but ended up staying after he was offered a role in a company called Belron, which was the holding company of Autoglass in the UK. Here he stayed for the next 33 years, the last two decades of which he spent as the company’s CEO. Today Belron employs over 35,000 people and operates in 40 countries around the world. Under his leadership, the company’s turnover grew tenfold, and the value increased by a factor of more than 100.

Belron is not the only company that repairs broken windscreens, and yet with Gary as the CEO, the company is now 20 to 30 times larger than its next biggest competitor. The secret sauce to his success in developing the company to become an international market leader depended on selecting the right people. By that he means not just those who only looked good on paper, but those who also had the leadership skills and emotional intelligence required to help the company grow.

This is when Gary tells me about Richard, Belron’s security guard.  

Applying for a role at Belron is a multistep process. There’s the initial step of sending the CV, psychometric exams, followed by role playing activities that test candidates’ abilities to handle difficult situations. Most didn’t get through these stages, but those who did still had to pass an interview which Gary preferred to hold early in the morning before other employees filled the office.

“Our security guard, Richard, used to greet the people coming in for the interview,” he tells me. “After talking to whoever the individual was, I used to go to Richard and ask him, ‘What were they like when they came in?’”  

Often, the person Gary met in the interview presented very differently to the person Richard had encountered on their way in and out of the building. “If the person being interviewed behaved and dealt with Richard as an equal human being, there was a good chance they would succeed.”  

I can see a straight line in Gary’s worldview from his time growing up in South Africa to an international CEO that defines responsibility and leadership as an obligation to serve others. Three years ago, after stepping down as CEO of Belron, he found himself confronting the scale of wealth he had accumulated during his career.  

“I found myself with frankly more money than I could have ever imagined or ever needed, and I’ve described it almost as obscene,” he says. “Yes, I worked hard. Yes, I was successful. But there are many people who work hard in this world, in particular the nurses, doctors and street workers. Everyone works hard. This idea that I had accumulated this level of wealth sat very uncomfortably with both me and my kids.” 

His response was to make a decision that very few people in his position have made or would contemplate. He, along with his family, decided to give away 95% of his wealth. And yet, Gary is keen to point out that this still leaves him with enough to live a comfortable life. The foundation through which he is giving away most of his money is called the This Day Foundation, out of impatience in what he sees with traditional philanthropy.  

“This idea of holding on to your money in a foundation, creating legacies for future generations, is getting slightly old now,” he says. “There are new billionaires being born every second. I’m not worried about the future of philanthropy in 20 or 30 years’ time, but I am worried about the state of the world now.” 

The name, he explains, comes from precisely that conviction: “I want to have things happen today, this day, rather than waiting going forward.” 

A significant proportion of the funding, goes to South Africa, alongside substantial work in the UK.  As Gary describes it, the choice to focus on his home country comes from a feeling of responsibility to care for those who did not have the same opportunities he had growing up under apartheid.  

The foundation’s priorities include early childhood development, youth employment and social justice. Having witnessed the cruelty of apartheid, Gary says he is particularly concerned with preserving the strength of civil society and supporting organisations that hold the powerful to account. It is a concern that has become increasingly urgent for him as he watches the rise of the far right across Europe and America. 

But what interests me most about his approach to philanthropy is that he seems to have carried the same management philosophy that made Belron successful into his charitable work. He is less interested in funding individual projects than in building the organisations capable of delivering them. 

“Very often my money, our money, that goes into organisations, is actually to build capability and capacity, rather than to build a new classroom,” he says. “Because if you haven’t got the leadership to actually deliver that, nothing happens.” 

It is a revealing answer from someone who spent 23 years building a business around the conviction that the quality of its people would ultimately determine its success. He is also supporting leadership development within NGOs, helping people in deprived communities acquire the skills to lead and sustain their own organisations. The underlying belief is that strong communities, like strong businesses, depend on having the right people in positions of responsibility. 

This brings us, inevitably, to football. 

Gary, it should be noted, is a lifelong West Ham supporter. He is also an investor in Brentford FC. He tells me that, when considering which Premier League club to invest in, Brentford’s values aligned most closely with his own. 

“Their work in the community is I think probably the best out of any of the football community trusts in the English Football League,” he tells me. And again, he underscored that any financial return he makes from the team will be reinvested in the community through his charity.  

I can tell he’s incredibly proud of his investment in Brentford, but as he’s speaking, I can’t help but detect a twinge of tension. I’ve watched Gary from the box at Brentford’s stadium while they played West Ham, and for such a joyful man, I’ve never seen such a tortured expression on his face.  

Last season, West Ham lost to Brentford twice and beat them once in the FA Cup. Gary confesses that he didn’t enjoy any of the occasions particularly. “My heart’s always going to be West Ham.” 

I suspect that this small footballing dilemma says something about Gary that is rather more revealing than the size of his investment portfolio. He can admire the organisation, support its community work and want it to succeed, without pretending that his loyalties have suddenly changed. There is something refreshingly human about that. 

From speaking to Gary, I get the sense that his commitment to serving humanity was established long before his conscription forced him to confront the horrors of the apartheid government.

His grandparents arrived in South Africa as refugees fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe. His grandfather built a successful business from the ground up, but, as soon as it began making a profit, he started giving money to charity. The idea that success brought with it an obligation to others was therefore not something Gary discovered later in life, or learnt in the boardroom. It was part of the family inheritance. 

There is an African word that comes to mind when I hear him speak: Ubuntu, often translated as “I am because we are”. It is the ethos of The Conduit and a philosophy that seems to run through his life, from his opposition to apartheid to the way he built Belron, and now through the work of his foundation.

His belief that people and organisations thrive when they recognise their responsibilities to the wider community is also what drew him to Brentford. Even his decision to give away most of his wealth seems to follow the same logic that what we accumulate individually means very little if it does not contribute to something beyond ourselves. 

On 11 November, Gary will join Lord Jason Stockwood (co-owner of Grimsby Town FC) for the opening session at our Venues for IMPACT Summit at Villa Park Stadium in Birmingham. You can register with a special Radical Realist code here.