In South Africa, where the wounds of economic exclusion run deep, Famous Brands executives Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange have offered a quiet but consequential reframing: true transformation cannot be measured at the door of a franchise outlet alone, but must be traced through every thread of the value chain — the workers, the suppliers, the trainers, the farmers, the logistics partners. Having climbed from non-compliance to B-BBEE Level 1 themselves, they speak not from abstraction but from the discipline of having done the work, and they argue that economic justice, to be real, must be stru
Famous Brands Pushes Holistic Value-Chain Approach to Franchise Transformation
The YES programme provided employment opportunities to 173 unemployed South African youth, with 87.86% transitioning to full employment.
Economic opportunity should flow through the entire network, not just ownership.
Mark
So the argument here is that when we talk about franchise transformation in South Africa, we've been measuring the wrong thing?
Mimi
Not the wrong thing entirely. Ownership by historically excluded entrepreneurs matters. But it's incomplete. You can have Black franchise owners and still have a network that doesn't actually distribute economic opportunity broadly.
Luke
How do we know the YES programme numbers are real? Is that 87.86% transition rate independently verified, or is it Famous Brands' own reporting?
Mimi
That's from Famous Brands' own reporting in their latest cycle. Luke's right to flag it—we're taking the company at its word on the measurement.
Mark
And the owner-driver programme—27 drivers supporting 60 jobs. That seems small relative to the size of a national franchise network.
Mimi
It is small. But the point isn't that it's solved the problem. The point is that it's an example of what deliberate investment in the supply chain looks like, as opposed to just handing contracts to people and expecting them to figure it out.
Luke
The article says Famous Brands achieved B-BBEE Level 1. That's a real certification, right? Not self-assessed?
Mimi
Correct. B-BBEE is a formal South African system with external verification. Level 1 is the top tier. But we should note that the article doesn't explain what changed between 2018 and now—just that they did the work and got there.
Mark
What's the practical implication of what Jivani and Mahange are saying? Does this change how franchisors operate?
Mimi
If they're serious, yes. It means you can't just recruit franchise owners and walk away. You have to build the ecosystem around them—training, supplier networks, financing pathways. It's more work.
Luke
But we don't have evidence that other franchisors are adopting this approach, or that it's becoming an industry standard. This is Famous Brands' position, not necessarily a trend.
Mimi
Fair. This is one company making an argument about how transformation should be measured and pursued.
The Pulse
- South Africa's franchise sector risks mistaking ownership statistics for genuine transformation, leaving employment, procurement, and supplier equity largely unexamined.
- Famous Brands itself was non-compliant with B-BBEE requirements as recently as 2018, making their current Level 1 status a hard-won credential rather than inherited advantage.
- The YES programme placed 300 unemployed youth into practical work experience, with 173 securing jobs at franchise restaurants and 87.86% transitioning into full employment — a human outcome behind the scorecard.
- An owner-driver programme supporting 27 Black entrepreneurs and 60 direct jobs illustrates that contracts alone are insufficient — mentorship, financing, and technical support must accompany opportunity.
- Jivani and Mahange insist that franchisors must model transformation within their own boards, workforces, and supply chains before they can credibly demand it from their networks.
In South Africa, where the wounds of economic exclusion run deep, Famous Brands executives Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange have offered a quiet but consequential reframing: true transformation cannot be measured at the door of a franchise outlet alone, but must be traced through every thread of the value chain — the workers, the suppliers, the trainers, the farmers, the logistics partners. Having climbed from non-compliance to B-BBEE Level 1 themselves, they speak not from abstraction but from the discipline of having done the work, and they argue that economic justice, to be real, must be structural.
Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange, Famous Brands' group executive for transformation and ESG and chief people officer respectively, have published a clear-eyed argument: measuring franchise transformation by ownership figures alone is not enough. Writing in TimesLIVE, they called for assessments that follow economic opportunity through the entire value chain — employment, supplier relationships, training partnerships, procurement decisions, and the franchisor's own internal practices.
Famous Brands knows this terrain from experience. In 2018, the company fell short of South Africa's B-BBEE requirements. Through deliberate work across employment equity, skills development, procurement, and enterprise support, it climbed to Level 1 — the system's highest rating. That journey shaped their conviction that transformation is a network-wide discipline, not a single metric.
The YES programme offers one of the clearest illustrations. Of 300 unemployed youth who participated in the latest reporting period, 173 were placed into roles at 151 Famous Brands franchise restaurants. Of those, 87.86% moved into full employment — numbers that represent real lives changed, not merely boxes ticked.
Their owner-driver programme tells a parallel story. Twenty-seven Black entrepreneurs currently run delivery businesses within Famous Brands' distribution network, supporting 60 direct jobs. But Jivani and Mahange were careful to note that a contract is not enough: small businesses need mentorship, financing, technical expertise, and help navigating compliance and quality standards. Transformation, in their framing, is not a subsidy — it is a different and more deliberate way of building a network that actually functions.
The internal discipline their argument demands is perhaps its sharpest edge. A franchisor cannot credibly require transformation from its suppliers and franchisees if its own board, workforce, and supply chain remain unreformed. The standard, they insist, must begin at home.
Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange, two executives at Famous Brands, have made a straightforward argument: when you measure whether a franchise network has truly transformed, you cannot stop at counting how many outlets are owned by entrepreneurs from historically excluded groups. You have to look at the whole system.
In South Africa, where the company operates, Jivani—the group executive for transformation and ESG—and Mahange, the chief people officer, published their thinking in TimesLIVE. Their point was that franchise ownership matters, yes, but it tells only part of the story. A real assessment of transformation has to account for what happens across the entire value chain: the people employed in those franchises, the suppliers and manufacturers feeding them, the farmers and logistics companies and training partners, even the franchisor itself. Economic opportunity, they argued, should flow through employment, through training programs, through procurement decisions, and through deliberate support for small businesses trying to grow.
Famous Brands itself had not met South Africa's broad-based Black Economic Empowerment requirements in 2018. The company then set about changing that. Through focused work on employment equity, skills development, procurement practices, and deliberate investment in enterprise and supplier development, the group achieved B-BBEE Level 1 status—the highest rating in the system. That climb required looking at the entire network, not just the franchise ownership question.
One concrete example: the YES programme, which gives unemployed South African youth a chance to gain practical work experience. In the latest reporting period, 300 young people participated. Of those, 173 were placed into jobs at 151 Famous Brands franchise restaurants. The programme tracked what happened next: 87.86 percent of those participants moved into full employment. That is not just a number on a scorecard. It is 173 people who had no job and now do.
Another example sits in the company's owner-driver programme. Black entrepreneurs run delivery businesses within Famous Brands' distribution network. The programme currently supports 27 owner-drivers and has created 60 direct jobs. But Jivani and Mahange noted something important: small businesses cannot simply be handed a contract and expected to perform. They need technical expertise. They need mentorship. They need financing. They need help understanding quality standards, compliance requirements, production capacity, and reliability. A franchisor that wants its entire network to meet certain standards has to be willing to invest in making that possible.
There is also an internal discipline embedded in their argument. A franchisor cannot credibly demand transformation from its suppliers and franchisees if the transformation has not happened in the franchisor's own board of directors, its own workforce, its own supply chain. The standard has to start at home. And the transformed supplier, they noted, still has to compete on quality, product availability, service, and price. Transformation is not a subsidy; it is a different way of building a network that works.
Notable Quotes
Franchise ownership is an important indicator, but it does not reflect all the economic activity of a franchise network.— Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange, Famous Brands executives
A franchisor must set standards in its own board of directors, workforce and supply chain before expecting the entire network to comply.— Rajesh Jivani and Jabu Mahange, Famous Brands executives
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