Dr Anna Mokgokong: Doing Business with a Christian ethic

by Daluxolo Moloantoa · December 10, 2023

Dr Anna Mokgokong is one of South Africa’s foremost businesswomen. She told Daluxolo Moloantoa about her Catholic faith and ethics, and her love for the national seminary.

In May this year, St John Vianney Seminary in Waterkloof, Pretoria celebrated Mother’s Day by hosting a special lunch for Dr Anna Mokgokong. It was also the celebration of the 66th birthday of the renowned businesswoman who is a great friend of the seminary and one of its benefactors. The seminarians made use of the occasion to express their gratitude to Dr Mokgokong for her motherly role in the seminary.

Among a wide range of positions, Dr Mokgokong is a company CEO, non-executive director of various companies, and the current chancellor of the North-West University. In 2017, she was named South African Businesswoman of the Year.

The mother of two is a medical doctor by profession, and a business entrepreneur who in 1994 set off to start what has become one of South Africa’s biggest business success stories. Her company, Community Investments Holding (CIH), is 100% black-owned, with significant interests in six vital areas of the economy, including healthcare, ICT, power and energy, logistics, mining and infrastructure. It employs 40000 people, directly and indirectly. She co-owns the company with fellow founder Joe Madungandaba.

Dr Mokgokong was born in 1957 in Pimville, Soweto, to a family of academics. With two sisters and three brothers, she is the daughter of two educators: Sos Mokgokong, a mathematics teacher, and Mary, a science teacher, who both taught at the famous Musi High School in Soweto.

In 1958, when Anna was 18 months old, her parents decided to move the family to Manzini in Swaziland (now Eswatini) after mass resignations by black teachers from township and missionary schools over the introduction Bantu Education in black schools across South Africa.

In Manzini, Anna attended St Theresa Primary and High Schools, both Catholic girls-only institutions. Her earliest memories of being a Catholic go back to primary school. “Our school was run by Dominican Sisters. I remember that our day would start with a morning prayer in the classrooms. At noon we would have the Angelus Prayer, and at the end of the day we would finish the day with a prayer too,” she told The Southern Cross.

Throughout high school, Anna was involved in many of the school’s Catholic activities. “I was more involved at school than at my parish. Together with the nuns, we students held services, prayed and sang the same songs as we would sing at Mass on Sundays, but on a daily basis. So we practically led a fully Catholic existence every day,” she recalled.

After high school Anna, who once had harboured dreams of becoming an actress, went to study for a bachelor of science degree at the University of Botswana in Gaborone. She attended Mass at St Margaret church in Gaborone, a short walking distance away from the university.

Upon the completion of her science degree in Botswana in 1981, she took up studies at the Medical University of Southern Africa (Medunsa), now renamed Sefako Makgatho Medical Sciences University, near Garankuwa.

Medicine runs in the family. Her uncle, the obstetrician Dr Ephraim Mokgokong, is a former vice-chancellor of Medunsa. Another uncle, Dr Sam Mokgokong, became famous for co-leading a team of neurosurgeons who separated Siamese twins Mpho and Mphonyana Mathibela at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital in 1986.

Dr Anna Mokgokong (left) at a Catholic Business Forum Women’s Month Power Breakfast in Johannesburg in 2018 with Ursula Chikane and Connie Motshumi.

First business steps

It was while she was a student at Medunsa that Anna became a parishioner of Christ the New Man church, founded by the Stigmatine Fathers in Garankuwa.

It was also while studying towards her degree in medicine that she discovered her passion for business. As a student, she sold handbags for extra income and in no time diversified to include African clothing and curios. She grew the business into a shop called Anna Belle in Pretoria, which she sold after graduating in 1992.

Dr Mokgokong went on to establish the Hebron Medical Centre in the North West province. The centre was a primary healthcare and baby welfare clinic with over 40000 patients, serving eight villages. It was during this time that she realised that there were real opportunities in the healthcare arena and established Malesa Investment Holdings, which later became Community Investment Holdings.

CIH operates a corporate social responsibility initiative where investments of different kinds are made in communities across South Africa. One of these beneficiaries of the programme is St John Vianney Seminary.

A resident of Waterkloof in Pretoria, Dr Mokgokong is now a parishioner of St Pius X church, but she usually attends Mass at St John Vianney Seminary, also in Waterkloof. “St John Vianney Seminary is in my community. As a Catholic and a community elder, it falls within my responsibility to play a role in its wellbeing. The seminary grooms and educates our future priests, and to me that’s critical. Who else other than us Catholics in the Waterkloof community must assume this role? Beyond being a mother figure and enjoying the services and the melodious music offered by the seminarians, I consider it imperative upon me to fulfil this role at the seminary,” she said.

A Christian ethic

Among other projects, her company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives also provide assistance to the Mercy Centre, a community development project run by the Sisters of Mercy in Winterveldt, north of Pretoria. The company also provides bursaries for medical students at universities across South Africa.

“Our company’s activities in this regard are driven by the fact that we view ourselves as a Christian company. I am a Catholic, and other members belong to various Christian denominations. Our foundation is based on Christian values. Our focus is on needs which we deem highly important and require an immediate response. This includes the provision of food, youth empowerment and career development through education. We believe and promote ethical business practices and fairness guided by our Christian values,” she explained.

As an entrepreneur, Dr Mokgokong is passionate about ensuring that previously disadvantaged South Africans, and especially women, have the opportunity to participate in the broader economy. She has received numerous local and international accolades as a community and business leader, including SA Businesswoman of the Year in 1999.

In 1998 she became a member of Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World, an independent association of the world’s powerful and successful businesswomen. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018 from Gauteng Premier David Makhura in the Township Entrepreneurship Awards.

One of the rewards that she enjoys from her company’s corporate social responsibility initiatives is the result of long-term investments in education. “The beginning of this year was a very pleasurable time for me because the first cohort of women medical students we took to university graduated as medical doctors. Half of them passed their degrees cum laude. Another graduate has been recruited by a global medicine company as a director. This is partly what drives me to succeed, because I know that they will impact society positively through their careers,” Dr Mokgokong said.

As chancellor of the North-West University, her major task is to officiate at university events such as graduations. “I largely play a matchmaker role at the university. It’s a lot of giving advice and linking up the university with potential helpers for funding and other needs,” she said.

Importance of education

She believes that Catholic professionals should offer their expertise to their Church. “Churches, like all other public institutions, must have proper governing structures. For example, who should head the finance committee of a parish? It’s an accountant — and they are there within our parishes. We should not confuse the spiritual and the everyday operations of the Church. Our priests are trained as spiritual leaders; that is their forte within the life of the Church. We need to have the expertise of various professionals who also play their part where necessary within the Church.”

She offered another example: “The Catholic Church is one of the biggest land and assets owners, in South Africa and globally. As the local Church, we should bring in experts and look at how we can optimise these assets and land for the greater benefit of society.”

Her passion is the empowerment of women. In 2018, she told the Catholic Business Forum Women: “We, as Catholic women, cannot be swimming in wealth when just outside our doors we see abject poverty. We are called to do something about it.” She also said that it was time that Catholic women take patronage of their financial affairs. “Our Catholic rand should be moving from one Catholic woman to the next in support of each other.”

Dr Mokgokong urges young Catholic women to seek a good education. “Education brings about discipline in your working life, in upholding your values and other areas. For one to be respected by one’s peers, colleagues and by society, one needs to be educated. You must believe in yourself — that you’re the best,” she told The Southern Cross.

And she believes in time-out. Dr Mokgokong does not work on weekends. That is then when she can indulge in her favourite pastime. “I cook — for my family and my extended family who may be visiting. I love cooking!”

Published in the September 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine