Magda Wierzycka: Polish refugee who conquered an industry

Magda Wierzycka does not have a hobby. As one of South Africa’s most successful business leaders and chief executive of the JSE-listed blue-chip financial services giant Sygnia Limited – with staff in SA and in the UK – her attention is always fixed on her next big project.

Author of her recently published biography, Magda: My Journey, the Saturday Citizen caught up with Wierzycka fresh from a flight from New York, where she attended the graduation celebration of her elder son Alexander. He earned a degree in computer science and artificial intelligence at Columbia University.

Despite being a rich mum, Wierzycka brought up her sons in a manner similar to how she was socialised by her dad – “keep on working”.

“They know that they have to work hard to make it in life. They got into Ivy League universities because they work their butts off,” said Wierzycka. “Nicholas is at the University of Pennsylvania doing political philosophy and economics. After that he wants to become a stage actor,” chuckles Wierzycka.

Spending half of her time in the UK and another half in South Africa, taking a flight has become like hopping into a bus. “The thing with SA is that we are only exposed to certain investment opportunities. There is growth out there where you can invest in things that are not available in SA – very much in the private market.

“I came across this incredibly interesting company with exclusive rights to commercialise any patents that are registered by the University of Oxford academic staff – like the IP [intellectual property] into the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“The IP is owned by a company that spans out of Oxford academics and funded by the Oxford Science Company. That is how AstraZeneca came to market.

“Looking at those opportunities, not available in South Africa, prompted me to set up another business in London, which invests in unlisted companies. So, I went to the UK to set up those business which became quite successful.”

Boredom is another phenomenon Wierzycka has not experienced.

“I have got businesses and a social life, activism, write articles and teach at universities abroad. When I was brought up, my father told me to work and when the family came to South Africa, he said the same to me.

“At this stage of my life, I can choose what to focus my energies on, things where you can derive internal validation – feel good about yourself. Paying back is where activism comes from.”

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Work has become her hobby. “I read and I write – love studying the intersection of history, macroeconomics and politics. Everything we are seeing today has already happened in the past.”

She has vivid memories of growing up in communist Poland and later settling in SA.

“I distinctly remember the day we arrived at a refugee camp in SA and had to go to school here, because it was so jarring. When I go back to the Polish years, everyone had the same. If you watched the movie Chernobyl, you see those apartment blocks – similar to Ukraine.

“With everyone living in exactly the same apartment was how we lived – 60 square metres, depending on the size of the family. We went to the same schools for free, with a good education – everyone earning the same – except Communist Party members. We also enjoyed a free healthcare system. Little did I know that it was not sustainable – leading to the collapse of the regime.”

When she was at Pretoria High School for Girls in 1987, she remembered “when someone came shouting that the Mixed Marriages Act has been repealed”.

“Someone had to explain to me that black and white people could not marry, in terms of apartheid laws.

“When I had just started working in 1994 after graduating, a lot of my friends started leaving South Africa, due to the narrative that SA was going downhill. But I had no desire to emigrate again or move again. I loved SA.”

Her grandfather Gucio and grandmother Helunia Wierzycki, Jews who survived the Holocaust, were her inspiration.

“My grandmother was the strongest woman when I grew up. She would take me by hand and say you can be whatever you want to be. Poland is very anti-Semitic, with Jews being referred to as ‘those people’. My grandmother would always tell me I was good as anybody and could achieve anything.

“Another figure who was a source of political awakening and inspiration was businessman Mzi Khumalo. Despite spending 13 years on Robben Island for being a member of uMkhonto we Sizwe, he came out of jail without any bitterness.

“When I left Coronation, he bought the company called African Harvest – conned into buying a failing business, which he thought was legitimate.

“He approached me to run African Harvest. He was the first person to truly explain to me the dynamics of South Africa and apartheid and the National Party from the other side.”

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She went on to build the financial services giant from nothing. “We looked at the financial services industry and discussed about how we could succeed. I saw greed in the industry – a few people undeservedly earning an enormous amount of money, millions earned by portfolio managers.

“What the industry does is not complex. But to justify the high fees, everything is wrapped in jargon. In terms of disrupting the industry, we decided to cut fees, offer complete transparency.

“We also recognised the importance of technology because there were only six of us. We built unique systems very quickly, got administration appointments which gave us a platform. Large pension funds took a chance on us, which gave us a platform to go out to the market on saving and investing at low cost.

“One of our milestones was listing on the JSE. We also started offering products to individuals.”

Now, the firm has thousands of investors and having emerged victorious against all odds, the sky is the limit for Wierzycka.

– brians@citizen.co.za