'Sawubona' to Sandile

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Clearing the cobwebs When Marius Murray turned up for his first 4km time trial, his fellow athletes stared at him in disbelief. Eighteen months later, he’s hooked on running. Marcom Plastics’ key account manager Marius Murray took almost half an hour to run his first 4km time trial – not surprisingly, as he weighed 154kg at the time. But, with the support of his fellow runners at Overkruin Athletics Club in Pretoria, he’s now clocking up at least 70km a month, in both training and races, and enjoying the benefits. These include weight loss, an improved physique and a resting heart rate that dropped by 30 beats a minute within just three months. ‘That’s a mammoth 43 300 beats a day,’ Marius says. ‘Just imagine the saving on the life span of my heart!’ And the advantages of being healthy are coming through in his work life too – he exceeded his sales target for 12 months in a row in the last financial year, as well as more than doubling his client base. ‘I think running really clears the cobwebs,’ he says. Although Marius, now 40, was a regular runner and a keen golfer when he was younger, he stopped doing sport when ‘life happened’. It was only when he became fed up with feeling sluggish all the time as a result of being overweight that he took the advice of his brother – a keen runner with eight Comrades under his belt – and joined Overkruin Athletics Club. Within months he had run his first 5km race; 10km followed, and by May last year he was running in 21km races. ‘Doing the Two Oceans half-marathon was a dream come true,’ he says. ‘To It’s thumbs-up from Marius Murray at the conclusion of his first Two Oceans earlier this year. stand among 17 000 trained hopefuls at the start was amazing.’ His fellow runners at Overkruin are his support structure. ‘Having been in sales all my life, I appreciate the company of all sorts of people around me – it’s the spice of life,’ he says. ‘We support each other, joke around, and most of all share a passion for sweating hard to enjoy that first cold one after the run.’ Marius wants to do a 42.2km run, but first, he says, he needs to lose another 20kg. ‘Then, who knows? Maybe the Comrades….’ 10 ASTRAPAK NEWS
Meet our new people person Mefane Makhutla is Astrapak’s new Group Human Resources executive. Unpacked asked him a few questions and discovered a person who’s passionate about people. MMefane Makhutla is man with a calling. ‘From an early age, I’d play a psychologist role,’ he recalls: ‘people my age and older would always approach me for some form of advice or assistance whenever they encountered personal challenges in life.’ It’s no surprise, then, that once he’d matriculated, he pursued a career in human resources management. He holds a B.Com (Hons) in HR Management from the University of Johannesburg, and has completed a Management Advancement Programme and the Executive Development Programme through Wits Business School. His career dates back to 1998, when he started working as a trainee HR consultant at Alpha (Afrisam); he then joined the National Treasury as HRD manager, followed by group employee relations specialist for Anglo-Platinum and Group HR manager for Royal Bafokeng Holdings, before being snapped up by Astrapak. ‘I think our ultimate success lies with our people.’ Mefane feels strongly that HR development (HRD) is a cornerstone to every organisation. ‘Through HRD, the organisation is able to re-invent itself in order to deliver on its mandate. Employees are also afforded an opportunity to realise their full potential, thus meeting their career objectives in the long term.’ As Astrapak’s HR executive, an immediate challenge for Mefane is to develop a Group HR strategy. ‘I think Astrapak has got the required capacity in terms of machinery, systems and technology,’ he says. ‘We now need to support all these efforts through strengthening the current human capital capacity. I think our ultimate success lies with our people. Everybody here is willing to go the extra mile in making this company a success; people are ready to embrace the change required to take Astrapak to the next level of performance. They just want to be given the right tools in order to get there.’ The challenge is perfect for this man, who believes that the hurdles in life are there to prepare us ‘to tackle every situation with courage and confidence’. This extremely busy man uses his spare time to ‘read newspapers and management journals, and meet friends and other professionals as a way of creating and maintaining networks’. He admits that he does also have some genuine downtime: ‘I relax by spending some time at the gym - believe it or not! - and I sometimes go to chisa nyama to have a bit of pap and vleis on a very quiet Sunday afternoon after enjoying my moment in church.’ Mefane Makhutla in full cry at the regional conference in Durban. ASTRAPAK NEWS 11
Page 1 and 2: A world of opportunities June 2012
Page 3 and 4: Message from the CEO’s office I
Page 5 and 6: Consupaq WCM trainer wins award Tru
Page 7 and 8: Proud of our people Marcom’s succ
Page 9: Still in play: Harry Phiri After th

'Sawubona' to Sandile

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