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Executives on Track: Mickey Mallett, GM of Hi-Tec SA

To say that Mickey Mallett excels at sport, would be an understatement. He was awarded provincial age colours in five sports (by two provinces), national age colours in one (hockey) and have proved his mettle in eight sporting codes — from solo to team to extreme.

In addition, he became the SA CEO of one of the major international brands, Hi-Tec, while he was only in his early forties. Where he gets plenty of opportunity to compete in the adventure races sponsored by the company.

Sport is obviously in his genes: His father played Nuffield cricket and 1st team rugby for Selborne Collage, as well as rugby and cricket for the Transkei in the old days. He was also active in golf, tennis and squash, while his mother played provincial hockey.

Mallett’s sporting prowess became evident while he was still at Stirling Primary School in East London, where he was head boy in his final year — he was awarded Border schools colours in gymnastics, cricket and tennis.

He continued to excel in sport at Selborne College High School: he got provincial colours for hockey and cricket, and national colours for hockey, while studying there. During his final two years at school, in 1981 and 1982, he was selected to play for the Border Schools Nuffield team. He was also selected for the Border schools hockey side for three years and for the SA schools hockey team in 1981 and 1982, following in the footsteps of his brother, who was selected to the SA schools team in 1980.

No wonder his school awarded him honours for both cricket and hockey in his matric year, as well as the trophy as Sportsman of the Year!

While still at school, Mallett was also selected for the senior Border men’s hockey team and played in the men’s inter-provincial tournaments.

After school he played hockey for the SA Defence team during his two years compulsory military service, which he served in the navy — for three months on the SAS President Pretorius in the TAS (torpedo and anti-submarine section) mess in Simons Town, and then in Durban where he completed a six-month weapons course to become a surface to surface missile operator. He then served a year on SAS Hendrik Mentz, a strike craft with a crew of 50, mainly permanent force members.

After the navy he travelled overseas with the Flamingos hockey team, a team selected from all over SA, which included eight Springboks. “We played against teams in Belgium, Spain and the UK over a three-week period, and I stayed an extra few months after the tour to play for a London team,” says Mallett. He spent a further three months backpacking and hitch-hiking through the UK and Europe.

Back in SA, Mallett completed a marketing and sales diploma at the Port Elizabeth Technikon, where he was selected to play for the Eastern Province men’s hockey team during the three years he was studying. “I was also selected for the SA Technikon team, which ended up beating the SA Universities team — with seven Springboks in their team — in the final.”

During the summer he played premier league cricket for Grey PE and was selected for the SA technikon cricket team.

Since Port Elizabeth is known as the windy city, he added windsurfing to his repertoire of watersports, which includes surfing and waterskiing.

After completing his studies, Mallett moved to Cape Town to join Old Mutual’s marketing research department. There he decided to take up paddling with a few friends. “My partner and I won the novices race from Fish Hoek to the lighthouse and back, as part of our training for the 244 km Port Elizabeth to East London paddle race we competed in,” he says.

He also played hockey for WPCC (WP Cricket Club) and for the WP men’s side, and premier league cricket for WPCC.

A year later he joined Dunlop/Slazenger as a salesman in Cape Town and was promoted and transferred to Durban seven months later to take up the position of marketing services manager.

Two years later he was back in Cape Town to join the Hi-Tec Sports sales division, where Brad Lemkus was MD and Colin Shaw was GM. He worked in Cape Town for three years before he was promoted to marketing manager in 1996, and transferred to Johannesburg. There he soon took on the role of product development and sourcing, which required extensive travelling in Asia (Taiwan and Korea, as well as China).

In the beginning of 2006, Mallett was appointed CEO of Hi-Tec in SA.

He still finds time to play masters hockey, tennis and golf off a 12 handicap, with a lowest handicap achieved of 6. He incidentally won the club championships, B division in 2007.

Oh, and in between, he had completed three Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Races and one 94.7 cycle race in Johannesburg.

Not wonder his daughters Erin (11) and Amy (13) are keen hockey, tennis and netball players.