Ian Fuhr’s life journey has been a series of entrepreneurial ventures, each started in new and unfamiliar industries. The most important lesson he has learnt, he says, is the power of servant leadership—the counter-intuitive idea that the purpose of work is not to make money, but rather, to serve. In this talk, delivered at TEDxJohannesburg 2015, Ian takes us on a hilarious tour of his ventures. He stops at key moments that mark important epiphanies. Each revelation demanding that he make choices that have elegantly combined into a leadership philosophy that could only have come out of the unique soup of socio-political conditions that is South Africa. That philosophy is a useful recipe for anyone who wants to succeed as a leader at a time when the world desperately needs to design for greater accountability, diversity, and creativity. In business and in society.
Ian Fuhr has a history of unexpected start-ups. Driven by the excitement of building new brands in unfamiliar industries, his modus operandi involves staking out an industry and then upsetting the status quo by challenging the prevailing wisdom. An unlikely CEO of the Sorbet chain of beauty salons, he believes in the subversive idea that in life and in business, service comes before self-interest. After nearly 40 years as a serial entrepreneur, Ian recently published Get That Feeling, a book that tells the story of his epic and maverick journey, so far.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
