Meet the newest member of the Flow family, self-styled “arty corporate” Matthew Callcott-Stevens, who joined Flow’s Collective Cow team on 19 February 2013.
Although he has strong KwaZulu-Natal roots, Matt ran his own wine export business for three years before joining Vergenoegd Wine Estate on the Helderberg Wine Route in the Cape, as sales and marketing manager.
You might wonder why anyone would want to give up living in the Cape, selling wine to wine lovers.
“I wanted a change, a faster pace of life,” explains Matt. “The Cape is a bit too laid-back for me and if you want to grow your career, Joburg is definitely the place to be.”
The “arty” side of his persona comes out in his musical ability, a career highlight being interviewed on the Gareth Cliff show in 2009, for his song Repetition, in which he lashed out at political figures such as Julius Malema.
“I am currently working on a project with a friend who’s a DJ. I write the lyrics and he handles the music. It will be a hip hop/house mix in the form of an LP.”
There’s also an inner mountaineer in this intrepid Flowstar, who plans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this August. Since he doesn’t get much opportunity to put in climbing time, his training consists of climbing the gruelling stairs behind the Westcliff Hotel.
“I do about 7.5km in each session, up and down. It’s actually very good training for my climb,” he quips.
These days he fits in the odd round of social golf, having played competitively at school level, but has plans to reduce his handicap in the near future.
Matt comes from a family of five – three sisters and a wind-farming brother. Luke Callcott-Stevens runs South Africa’s largest wind farm in Molteno, in the Eastern Cape, where massive turbines harness the wind and convert it to power, which he sells to Eskom.
Matt will be focusing on growing Collective Cow’s Gauteng database with a view to eventually expanding into other provinces.
“Collective Cow has a number of service-orientated selling points: we pay 100% of voucher value within three days of receiving the client’s invoice – before the deal commences; we submit a detailed report to the vendor so they can see who purchased their deal, rather than having to keep going online to check progress; we also remind our clients to follow up on clients who may have forgotten to redeem their vouchers, a personal touch they value greatly.”
He believes Collective Cow has an edge over other collective-buying concerns because of the manner in which business dealings are conducted – with clients and with the public.
“Ethics separate us – an important element for me, personally,” he says.
“Our goal is to generate deals that are in the best interests of the vendor and the client, rather than focusing exclusively on the discount aspect.
“Our membership is grown on average by 500 members a month and as a result we’re able to offer good coverage to our clients.”
I asked Matt what he thinks of the Flow ethos, where people are our most important asset and we do work we love with people we love.
“I have found Flow to be a very welcoming environment, in comparison to other places I’ve worked. My colleagues have taken the time to show me how the system works and I enjoy the motivation we receive from Tara and Tiffany [Flow CEO and MD].
“Having Patrick Gurney as a mentor is awesome. We have a lot in common and discovered that his dad and my aunt were good friends in Zambia years ago.
“I used to get to the office at 7am in the morning to avoid the traffic, but nowadays I get to the office at 7am because I can’t wait to get to my desk and start working – we have a lot of fun here!”