At eight a.m. on a Tuesday, a group of workers are dancing inside a huge retail store in Fourways, housing everything from fridges to furniture. I’ve been told to meet Margaret Hirsch.

There she is, swaying back and forth unselfconsciously in black trousers and blouse, long hair falling loosely about her shoulders. Suddenly silence. Margaret points randomly at a staff member, says “Tell us a motivational story.” Afterwards music from the band Glee blares forth, and everyone joins in singing ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’
By 8.30am it’s all over, staff scatter, and the tall blonde greets me with warm intensity and guides me to her office, a desk randomly situated in the midst of the showroom floor.
This is, after all, Margaret Hirsch, of Hirsch’s, the woman who was awarded 2012 Entrepreneurial Businesswoman of the Year by President Zuma; who in 2011 was anointed South Africa’s Most Influential Woman in Business and Government; whose company generates R1bn turnover per annum, and still growing 20% annually.
This is someone who aged twelve, washed hair in a hair dressing salon each Saturday morning for 50c. And, this is also a person who lives part time in an apartment built on top of Hirsch’s Appliance and Electronics store in Meadowdale.
At 62 years-old, Margaret has all she could ever dream of, has nothing more to prove. But she has no intention of stopping. She puts it this way “I thrive on people. My gift is to look at people and I see them not as they are, but as they can be. I see people when they come to me with nothing, and I see them as they are going to end up being when they have got all the things they want in their life. I help them get there. ”