Pass The Parcel

It’s a job nobody wanted: rescuing the embattled, corrupt, failing Post Office – until Mark Barnes put up his hand.

- Sue Grant-Marshall

South Africa’s number one postman, CEO Mark Barnes, is on a self-made mission to deliver a post office that will outshine anything that South Africa has ever seen before.

Those who are familiar with the high-profile investment banker – described by some as difficult, by others as mercurial – believe that he will indeed pull off his ambitious plan. Not only does he want to revive a sagging institution, but to transform it into something all 55 million of us will want – or, in fact, clamour – to visit. And the flamboyant non-executive chairman of financial services company Purple Group predicts the time will come when people will line up ‘to landa job there’.

We’re sitting in his antique- and art-filled office, which has a wall-sized window overlooking Sandton’s William Nicol Drive in Johannesburg. Another wall is pillar-box red (of course!).

At well over two metres tall, you can’t miss Mark. He’s wearing a blue shirt tucked into blue jeans, and is handsome in a roguish manner that almost conceals a surprisingly empathetic character.

For nearly two hours, tetchily at times, he expounds on his strategy ‘to take a failing, outdated organisation’ and turn it into a thriving one.

He outlines the positives that he presented to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, in 2015.

‘We’re on the verge of an explosion of e-commerce. You can buy a bicycle in the ether, but someone’s got to deliver it,’ he points out. ‘Amazon started buying petrol stations as a distribution point – because delivery costs were ruining their business.’

Mark wants the Post Office (PO) to step into the gap created as banks ‘continue to close branches, and shopping malls contract their stockholdings’.