Ray Smuts
A CAREER in shipping effectively put paid to Jan Scheck's budding talents as a cellist; now he is plucking strings of a different kind - as Safmarine's most senior executive in Africa.
Born to musical parents in Germany, Scheck, 39, has set up office in Safmarine House, Cape Town to take up the challenge as head of the Africa region with responsibility for the entire continent, minus a handful of war-torn countries, that is. His newly-created appointment - one of three - forms part of Safmarine's senior managerial restructuring aimed at strengthening customer care,. The other appointees are Alan Jones (Middle East, India, Pakistan, Far East and Australia) and Anders Hedegaard (Europe, North and South America).
Scheck is under no illusions as to what the next three years holds in store and firmly believes that despite certain handicaps to operating in Africa, it is important to work where one's business commitments lie.
And he readily points out that while Safmarine's headquarters are in Antwerp, Africa in general and South Africa in particular is of strategic importance to the company, making the choice of Cape Town as location for the Africa region headquarters a natural one.
He has been set a budget of double digit growth for next year and while not saying how much that translates to in rands and cents, admits: We have actually budgeted for more than what was expected.
Priorities of Scheck's task ahead will be governed by Safmarine's volume of business in various parts of Africa, Southern Africa obviously being a high priority, but the company's second most important trading area, West Africa, will require 'considerable attention' - countries like Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal and Nigeria.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has interesting potential if it ever gets to become relatively stable and I am sure we can get to play a very important role there, while Mozambique shows quite a lot of promise provided it becomes more politically stable .
He is much encouraged that Safmarine was able to recruit 17 young South Africans under its international shipping education programme, 14 from previously disadvantaged groups for the 2000 intake year. The company is planning to recruit a further ten for next year.
Scheck joined the A.P. Mõller Group in Antwerp in 1984 and postings have since taken him to Hong Kong, Copenhagen, the Benelux countries and Hungary.
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