Living the dream
The Stiles Story
If you have ever asked Stevie Joubert, CEO of Stiles, how he is doing, you’d be familiar with his most common answer, “I’m living the dream!” So, what is this dream?
The beginning:
When Etienne Joubert, Founder of Stiles, first shared his dream of opening a tile shop in George with his then 21-year-old son, Steve, it fell on pessimistic ears.
“As the eldest child, I felt a certain responsibility for my family,” says Steve, “My dad had just been retrenched, he had a family to feed and he was about to use all his savings to buy a store to sell tiles!”
Steve, along with his concerns, joined Etienne in what started as a struggling tile shop in George in March 2000.
Etienne Joubert, Founder of Stiles
Teamwork makes the dream work:
At that time, Etienne began handing over more responsibility to Steve. Steve’s first move was to build a strong team to help him take Stiles to the next level. He employed Adele Swart to build the Sanware division of Stiles, Johan (Drom) van Tonder to head up operations, CA, Lili Grobler, to look after the company finances and Nina Appiah-Baiden to grow the marketing.
“I have the best team in the Tile and Sanitaryware industry in South Africa! Stiles would be nowhere without them,” says Steve.
Living the dream:
Fast forward to today and Stiles currently has eight showrooms nationwide along with a wholesale division. Stiles has also absorbed a number of other businesses like Kenzan tiles and most recently Cape Town retailer and wholesaler, Italcotto.
“It started as my dad’s dream, but he gave me the opportunity to build that dream,” says Steve, “Now I’m living it! Every day new opportunities are presenting themselves,” he adds.
Original article posted on Cape Town, Etc
