Mr Reginal Mengi’s first bright idea came the day he went to buy a pen and couldn’t find one. That was after he quit his job at PwC, where he rose to become one of the youngest partners at the age of 30. PHOTO | FILE
Little is known about the journey of most of Tanzania’s richest people as they rarely share their experience with the public. But Reginald Mengi—one of the richest men in Africa—shared his story in an interview published by Forbes Africa magazine in its latest July edition.
Mr Mengi, the business tycoon whose wealthForbes estimated at $550 million in November 2013, started his business as a purveyor of pens using his bedroom to assemble the pens. With the help of a friend, he found a pen manufacturer in Kenya who shipped the parts to start his business.
“When the components arrived I didn’t know where to put them,” he recalls. “The best place was my bedroom and it was in that bedroom that I started assembling the pens.”
His first bright idea came the day he went to buy a pen and couldn’t find one. That was after he quit his job at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he rose to become one of the youngest partners at the age of 30.
In an interview published by Forbes Africamagazine in its July edition, Mr Mengi says he resigned from PwC at the height of career. He was chairman and managing partner then.
He adds: “Some people leave their jobs when things are bad, but I left mine when things were really good. You change when things are really good and you go into the new job with a big kind of energy rather than going there totally depressed because you had been sacked or you were not doing well.” His dream was to run a big business but understood that he had to start small. Everywhere he looked, he saw suffering in the then socialist society and shortages of almost everything. Selling pens was a big change from PwC, where he had a large office, staff and a company house. Now he worked 16-hour days, downgraded his car from Peugeot 504 to Peugeot 104 and also delivered his products on foot.
But he was good at spotting an opportunity: He sold shoe polish made from ground charcoal and oil and a natural skin exfoliator that was simply bottled sea mud. He was on a roll and made anything he could—from toilet paper to soap, detergent, beds, shoes and toothpaste.
“I made sure that no one in Tanzania would spend a day without coming into contact or touching one of my products,” he says. “The only thing I didn’t sell then was the air you breathe.”
Mr Mengi’s story goes back to Machame in Kilimanjaro, where he grew up and had to bed down with cattle. Walking without shoes is nothing new to the simple man bound closely to his roots in the village and who enjoys plain language and has a story for everything.
His parents, both farmers, owned a little plot of land where the family of eight lived in poverty. He recalls: “We lived in a mud hut with twocows, three sheep and a few chickens. Nothing more than that in terms of what my family was worth because we just couldn’t make ends meet…we couldn’t afford food and when we got two meals a day it was a great celebration.”
He wanted more than two meals a day and took drastic action. With one year of high school left, he earned a scholarship to study corporate accounting in Glasgow, Scotland. He explains: “I couldn’t tell my headmaster that I had won a scholarship to go to Britain halfway through Form Five, so I ran away from school.”
Virtually everyone he knew tried to convince him to stay but his mind was made up. He flew from Moshi to Glasgow, via Nairobi and London. He always believed the streets of London were paved with gold, only to get a big dose of the truth when he got there.
“I saw a beggar in the street, a white beggar, and after that I said: “You know what? Even London has many things like home.”
In Scotland, it was not the history, the whisky or the glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster that impressed him. It was the warmth of the people. But at college in Glasgow, Mr Mengi had a change of heart. He no longer wanted to become an articled clerk. His sponsors said he had to stay in Scotland for six months as it had been paid for.
He did stay, but abandoned the course, took night classes and finished high school instead. During the day, he worked many jobs—from bus conductor to cleaner—to make ends meet.
“I wouldn’t turn it down because it was too dirty or the money was too little,” he recalls. “My question was the alternative: If I worked I got $1; if I didn’t, I got nothing…$1 is better than nothing.”
A year and a half later, he had finally found his feet but received devastating news. His father had died. He was stuck 7,000 miles away with no money to go home.
“The biggest regret I had was that he passed away without me showing him that I’d been able to make it in life and do something for him to say, ‘well, that’s my son’. That I regret. I wish he had just lived on for a while for me to go back and say ‘daddy you know what, I’ve been able to do it and let me now be by your side,” he recalls, as he pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe away tears. “That eats me up even today.”
After high school, Cooper Brothers, now PwC, offered him a job where he completed his articles. He climbed the ranks and became a member of the Institute for Chartered Accountants for England and Wales. But still he yearned for home.
After nine years away, he moved to the Nairobi office. It was one of the shortest careers in history—he resigned after a few hours. “I wanted to be in Tanzania. I knew I could make more money in Britain but I wanted to be back home. I wanted to go back to do something for my people. I was educated by poor Tanzanians and I thought it would be a good thing to give back.”
After a year in Moshi, he moved to PwC back home in Dar es Salaam, where he worked hard—only to resign again when he was the chairman and managing partner.
But it was news that brought him great success. In 1994, he launched his first newspaper, The Guardian, and a year later came Tanzania’s first television network, ITV. He did it all with no journalism experience.
His media ventures were created under the IPP Group, where he is the sole owner. Mr Mengi now owns eight newspapers, three radio stations and three television stations and has more than 1,000 people working under him. Besides his interest in media, Mr Mengi is also involved in mining and bottling for the Coca Cola Company. When asked about his wealth, he shies away—saying it is un-Tanzanian to boast.
He adds: “A rich African cannot look at life the way a rich American or European does. In the case of Africans, we are surrounded by many poor people. We grew up with them. We have to know where we’ve come from. Look at the rich Africans. Tell me one who did not come from poverty. We all come from poverty but we have to look back to where we have come from. We should not forget.”
For the full interview, read Forbes Africa magazine’s July 2014 edition
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