After spending 15 minutes sitting in the chauffeurs' lounge at Sandton's swanky Michelangelo Hotel - and wondering why it is so draughty, busy and noisy, and what is keeping my guest - finally I am guided to the actual reception, which is attractive and for which one must take a lift to the first floor.
To my embarrassment, Thami Mbele, the national executive of GE Southern Africa, has been waiting for me. But it is only a couple of minutes, the inconvenience quickly forgotten as attentive waiters show us to our table at the Piccolo Mondo restaurant.
Mbele says he often has meetings at the Michelangelo, a more convenient rendezvous than GE Southern Africa's head office in Midrand. He orders lamb knuckle and I linguine alla marinara.
Mbele became national executive in early 2009 after a spell at BAE Systems, which manufactures military vehicles, and before that, at Eskom and Sasol.
After our chat it strikes me that he is probably the kind of candidate headhunters dream about: with a solid grounding in his chosen field, mechanical engineering - in both the engineering and manufacturing industries. He is also an extroverted people's person and could probably sell oil to Opec.
His path to engineering was laid during the late 1980s when he was in matric and Sasol offered him a bursary, he says. Leaving his home in Soweto, he went to the then University of Natal in Durban before a stint in Sasolburg to fulfil his bursary requirements. "Sasolburg was the only town where the HNP had a seat," he says. "Living there had its challenges."
He left Sasol in 1994 for Eskom's Hendrina power station near Middelburg in Mpumalanga. Offered the position of production manager at the age of 24, he "took the challenge". With responsibilities covering maintenance, people management and a plant refurbishment, Mbele had his hands full. He left to join BAE and then had the opportunity to work for Bosch in Germany. The first three months in the cold country, with its unfamiliar customs, were "horrible", he says, but he learnt the language and stayed for two years. Then it was back to BAE before GE came knocking.
"I wasn't sure I wanted the job; I had a perception of GE as this huge corporation where the wheels turn slowly." He was also wary of former CEO Jack Walsh's famous "top and bottom 10" policy where every year's poorest performers were shown the door. But he is glad he accepted because "I now have my dream job, one with breadth and depth that involves people, products and making a difference in ordinary lives".
Many of GE's projects have a social responsibility component, he says. These range from energy and infrastructure supply to water purification processes, financial projects, health care and subsidised training on GE equipment.
Concerned more with relationship building and setting the vision than with day-to-day operations, his position is an overarching role, says Mbele, and entails being something of a "corporate ambassador". "My brief is to grow the business in this region, to find solutions and build relationships so that GE can venture into the public and private sectors. Partnerships are very important."
His day begins at 5.30 am in the gym and he's in the office at 7.30 am. "For the first five hours I am finding out what has happened in the world during the past 12 hours, and how it will affect us locally. Then it is meetings - with customers and in-house. I stay away from operations; I need to be five steps ahead."
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