Harold Olukune
Accounting Your Blessings Through Baraka Bora araka Bora in Swahili means more or better blessings. This is the name conferred upon the accounting and financial services company in Houghton founded by Harold Olukune. “I thought it had a nice ring to it,” Olukune recalled when we met recently to discuss his road to entrepreneurship. “The name also captures three important elements. My Kenyan roots, my Christian upbringing and finally the fact that we perceive ourselves as adding value to clients enabling them to do ‘more’. They can focus on their core competencies while we take over their financial services function. Our vision is to be the trusted accounting, financial management and high level tax service provider and advisor for the entrepreneur. We are not your typical accountants who love to operate in a controlled environment; we thrive even where there are minimum controls to provide comprehensive financial reporting while assisting in improving processes.” Olukune arrived in South Africa soon after completing O level studies in Kenya. He earned a matriculation exemption after a year at Capital College in Pretoria and joined Rhodes University to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce degree. “Rhodes was a wonderful experience. I was president of the Weights and Aerobics Club and was also one of the founders of the East African society. There were a lot of foreign students like myself who
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provided good company and some became close friends.” One of the close friends Olukune made at Rhodes is Samuel Mokorosi from Lesotho. He was the best man at Olukune’s wedding and is now a director of one of the Baraka Bora Companies. Samuel and Olukune lived together in Johannesburg when the latter got a job at Ernst and Young (EY) in 2003. “EY recruited me while I was still at Rhodes and I decided to pursue my Honours degree part time while pursuing a training contract with them. I was placed in the Financial Services division of the Audit department which I loved as I wanted to join the Treasury team and things like financial derivatives fascinated me. I was stationed at ABSA and my knowledge of financial instruments grew to the point that I was called upon to provide training to younger trainees in this area and was frequently called into treasury product debates at the firm.” On completion of his articles, Olukune was retained at EY as an assistant manager. He struggled with the first part of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) board examinations which he is still pursuing through a Chartered Institute of Management Accounting (CIMA) qualification. This, together with seeking SA permanent residency status, was one of the primary reasons why he stayed on at the firm. He was also interacting with a lot of entrepreneurs and decided that he would only leave EY when he was ready to become one himself.
“One entrepreneur I met through a friend was Modise Motloba of Quartile Capital. He needed assistance within the accounting processes of one of his companies. I did this on a part time basis and impressed by my work, he requested me to provide additional services to the Quartile Group.” On the back of this assignment, Olukune managed to leave EY in 2009 to focus on Baraka Bora on a full time basis with fellow EY alumnus Thabiso Madiba joining him as partner in the assurance services division of the new company. He credits wife Grace, an engineer at Eskom, for supporting him in his move away from a regular salary to self-employment. From just two people in the business, Baraka Bora has now grown to a team of 13. “I have a great team that provides a variety of services to small and medium sized enterprises including book-keeping, financial management, tax, financial and process strategy, corporate finance and internal and external audit. We also do valuations, due diligences and assist with corporate restructuring.” The company has a flat structure as opposed to a hierarchy which allows for open communication. Olukune said that he manages his team with an open door policy and thrives in delegation. He believes that being an expatriate has its challenges such as battling with conversations in the corporate environment conducted in local languages as well as occasional xenophobic tendencies. He however also views being a foreigner as a positive thing.