Underdogs: How Small Players Become Business Titans, with Michael Hinton
Show notes
What if being underestimated is the advantage?
My guest is Michael Hinton: born and bred in Joburg, trained through auditing articles and evening study with UNISA, then a Fortune 500 company, management consulting and an accounting training business, and now an entrepreneur and business-school lecturer. He is the co-author, with Vusi Thembekwayo, of Underdogs: How small players can become business titans (Jonathan Ball Publishers).
We talk about how a chartered accountant and Vusi ended up writing a book together, why it took four rewrites, and what the underdogs in it have in common, from Chung Ju-yung, who built Hyundai, to Canva's Melanie Perkins. Michael's first love is financial literacy, and we get into why South Africa needs far more of it.
The first print run has sold out at the publisher, and more copies arrive in November. Underdogs is available from good bookstores, Takealot and Amazon.co.za, on Kindle, and on Audible, read by Michael and Vusi themselves.
Find Michael at michaelhinton.co.za, and on LinkedIn and Instagram. If you have your own underdog story, he'd love to hear it.
Thank you to Jané Rossouw at Jonathan Ball Publishers for making this conversation happen.
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