Member Company
Umsinsi Health Care
As told by:
Amanda Wilde, MD and Company Custodian
Briefly, what does your company do?
We are about loving skin – we are concerned with taking care of skin, mostly within a hospital set up, for example burn victims or those with serious skin condition. We are also a distributor and marketer of medical devices. Umsinsi distributes ConvaTec products that are the global leaders in three key areas of care: Advanced wound care, stoma care; incontinence management-& critical wound care.
What makes your company different?
Our vision and values are around loving people. We incorporated the John Lewis model which has at its core reconciling different people from different classes. The end-goal is to transfer the capital and ownership of the company into a trust to benefit our employees and social responsibility projects.
What’s the best thing about doing business in SA?
The fact that every day is different. It’s never boring! It’s the best country to do business in.
What do you wish you knew when you started out, a lesson that you’ve learnt?
Firstly, we took on a multi-national corporate and inherited some problems, so that was a challenge. I wish I had known more about South Africa’s history, as I really think it is very important to know and understand. Lastly, I wish I had known the impact the fall out between Julius Malema and Jacob Zuma would have! The rand-dollar exchange took a big hit and unfortunately, our company buys in dollars.