Group History

Establishment (phase 1)

Born in November 1996 ahead of a plethora of legislation aimed at ensuring the new Constitution was given weight in people’s working lives, Resolve Workplace Solutions was the brainchild of David Storey, Clive Thompson and law firm Cheadle, Thompson and Haysom (CTH).

Growth (phase 2)

Peter Harris, co-founder and ex-managing partner of CTH, together with Urmila Bhoola, the chief drafter of the Employment Equity Act, bought out the law firm’s shares in October 1998. The broader Resolve Group started taking shape, with Peter as MD. We repositioned ourselves as a fully-fledged human resources and employee relations group, operating within a shared service model run by the newly appointed Financial Director Brian Thomas.

The reputations and networks of our founders enabled the group to attract a number of highly skilled employees and directors. In mid-1999 Professor Halton Cheadle and Lindsay Falkov (drafters of the Labour Relations and Skills Development Acts respectively) joined the company as shareholders and directors. Although we were small and relatively unknown, we now had a formidable team brimming with energy and intellectual capital.

Shortly thereafter we won a number of large, high profile projects. These included being the primary service provider to assist the City of Johannesburg in all people related aspects of the iGoli 2002 Restructuring, and developing and implementing employment equity strategies for Investec and the Johnnic Group. This launched a period of rapid growth and our client list now included several metropolitan municipalities, provincial and national government departments, parastatals, international agencies and private sector companies.

Consolidation (phase 3)

By 2002 we had grown to seven specialist companies, and successfully incubated Tokiso (now the largest private dispute resolution agency in SA). It was time to revisit our business model and growth plan.

Initially, we focussed on cost reduction, system and management development and the rationalisation of service offerings. We restructured seven subsidiaries into three, which allowed us to shift from offering clients niched services to giving them access to more integrated solutions. Judy Parfitt was recruited to lead the rationalisation process and manage Resolve Workplace Solutions, the largest of the three subsidiaries. The next eighteen months saw the promotion of new managers and directors, the re-skilling of employees from specialist businesses, the introduction of multi-disciplinary teams, investment in IT and marketing, and sustained effort in solidifying strategic alliances.

Our Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) shareholding has never been below 20%, yet we were committed to becoming a majority black-owned business. This was based on the ethos that underpins BEE and the compelling argument to move quickly to secure the competitive advantages of being majority black owned in a sector that has been disturbingly slow to transform. In June 2003, Kagiso Trust Investments bought 30% of Resolve and Eric Molobi became our Chairman. In April 2004 the sale of a further combined 12% stake to empowerment luminaries Murphy Morobe and Max Sisulu took direct black ownership and control to over 50% for the first time, perfectly positioning us to take advantage of the host of opportunities that this would present.

Sustainable Growth (phase 4)

Kagiso’s involvement spelt the end of the Group’s consolidation phase and ushered in the second growth phase. In 2004, we evaluated our growth over the last 7 years from 2 to 140 professionals, with an annual compound earnings growth of 80,3% year on year, and decided that this new growth phase should sharply focus on generating long-term sustainable revenue streams and profitability. To this end, during 2005, we acquired 49% of Career Transition International (now Resolve Career Transition) and 40% of Media Works and established Converse Consulting. During 2006, we acquired a coaching company and merged this with our training and assessment offering to form Resolve Encounter Consulting. In May 2007, we acquired 30% of CCI GrowthCon.

We enhanced our leadership team by appointing Pascal Moloi, previously City Manager of Johannesburg, as Group Managing Director, while Peter took up the role of Group Executive Chairman, a position left vacant by the sad passing of Eric Molobi.

We are now a well-established group of specialist consulting companies that closely collaborate to deliver integrated services to our public and private sector clients. To date, we have worked for over 350 different clients, and each new piece of work adds to our reputation for delivering quality services. As probably the largest black supplier of strategic consulting, our continued growth will be fueled by cementing relationships with existing clients, expansion into new clients, and entering new markets.