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PERSONALITY PROFILE
‘Seaweed’ McFarlane, outgoing CEO of Plumblink.
“My background – I grew
up speaking Xhosa before
I could speak English –
helped me.”
Under McFarlane’s management the number of stores
grew from 19 to over a hundred.
new team over the next ten years and the team has
since been quite consistent, and that’s what I would
describe as my major accomplishment and the best
thing that has happened to Plumblink.”
His primary legacy is the strength of Plumblink today
– for instance, its executives have won the top award
of holding company Bidvest for the past three years
in a row. This tends to overshadow much of the rest
of McFarlane’s career, which started on a farm in
Maclear in the Eastern Cape. The McFarlanes are still
a big farming family in the area.
“My early interest was in the farming industry and I
studied agriculture at varsity after Selborne College,”
he says. But a degree – whether in agriculture
or anything else – put him above mere farming,
according to his dad. After university, in 1978/79 he
went to play rugby in Italy for two years (as eighth
man) and on returning to South Africa he rose to
provincial level with Natal, but his rugby career ended
shortly after with injury. He joined Epol, firstly in
Pietermaritzburg, then Kroonstad and Bloemfontein,
then Johannesburg, ending up as MD.
January 2020 Volume 25 I Number 11
Under McFarlane’s management the number of stores
grew from 19 to over a hundred.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za