Our meeting is auspicious, coming as it does the day after SA's three cellphone network providers have signed an agreement to lower connectivity rates. Talk is that Lars Reichelt (47) was out there batting for the consumer in spite of Cell C's midget status compared with MTN and Vodacom.
The German-born, Swiss-educated man-about-the-world is oozing energy and excitement about Cell C, business opportunities in SA and the joys of living here in general.
He thinks we rock, so our peculiar habit of criticising our country sits ill on his Savile-Row-bespoke-suit shoulders. It's a world first that mobile operators have voluntarily agreed to cut rates, he claims.
Lars Reichelt - Excited to be in SA
He warms to his theme by adding that no other country has relinquished its nuclear weapons as we did or handed over power as did FW de Klerk to Nelson Mandela. Indeed, he's so astounded at our negativity he has mentioned it to President Jacob Zuma over dinner.
Negative energy doesn't build, it destroys, he emphasises, as he orders a favourite wine, Constantia Glen Sauvignon Blanc.
He's in the perfect setting for a man of his European background as we order our salmon with sepia noodles and lemon and tarragon chicken with puréed sweet corn. The Monarch, a boutique hotel with wood-panelled walls, pillars and large sash windows, has an Edwardian theme, painstakingly reproduced in what was once Rosebank's elegant post office.
Indeed, we might as well be in snowy Europe, the air-conditioning is set so high; and our food is chilled before we've polished off the last delicious morsel.
Reichelt is an interesting study in contrasts. He has 18 years of general management experience in the field of wireless communication, working in start-up, mature and turnaround situations.
He's had a string of successful involvements with some of the major players of the European cellphone market, ranging from telecoms giant Telefonica's GSM operations in Switzerland and Austria's ONE network to a subsidiary of global telecoms player Vodafone AirTouch in the Czech Republic.
At one stage, he headed the European operations of Yahoo Wireless.
Yet the man who plans to invest R5bn in Cell C in 2010 - "to the chagrin of our shareholders" - if not allergic to electronic forms of communication, has strong views about personal interaction.
The West has lost the art of greeting people, he says, unlike Africans. This is why video-conferencing is not taking off: "it doesn't have the personal touch".
He points out how wrong business schools got it in the past when they taught their students not to get involved on a personal level at work, "whereas work is all about relationships and vibes".
He's applying that approach in re-defining Cell C's vision and what it wants to be. A cellphone is a "life tool", so he believes Cell C has to understand the way of life of the people who use it and then customise the product to their needs, creating a relationship with them.
He has plans to change its network, to make it the most widely deployed and modern one in the country.
He also intends to change its billing system to make it more customer friendly. Furthermore, the look and feel of Cell C stores is being restructured, "based on how customers shop".
Reichelt, who has worked in the US, South America, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, had never set foot in SA before he was head-hunted to work here. He arrived in March last year.
He came because this is "an incredibly exciting place and the SA market is still untapped ".
Reichelt's wife and two daughters are living in Zurich. His children have unusual learning disabilities requiring highly specialised schooling. But he has hopes of extending his contract and bringing his family over here.
SA is for Reichelt like an amazing movie. "You don't leave in the middle of it."
Ranking the Analysts 2009
Swims most mornings