Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman receives lifetime achievement award

Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman receives lifetime achievement award

FMCG SUPPLIER NEWS

Pick n Pay - Oct 26th 2011, 09:17

Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman yesterday received the CNBC Africa All Africa Business Leaders Awards’ (AABLA) Lifetime Achievement award for having achieved phenomenal success as a businessman and for highlighting the importance of philanthropy in business. 

The CNBC AABLA Lifetime Achievement accolade is awarded to an individual whose contribution to business growth, innovation, technology and development of the highest quality products and services has been displayed throughout their career. Said the CNBC Africa AABLA team: “Raymond Ackerman is known as the father of the South African retail industry. He is the founder of the Pick n Pay Group and has achieved great success as a business while making a point to be successful in philanthropy as well.”

Through his incisive leadership Pick n Pay has achieved remarkable status in the South African retail landscape. Under our founder’s remarkable leadership, Pick n Pay has pioneered hypermarkets, diversified into liquor, clothing and pharmacy, introduced new black ownership into the company through our very successful franchise division, introduced the concept of sustainability nearly a decade before other retailers and invests in growing small farmers and BEE suppliers in order to help address and avoid national food security issues.

Apart from that, Pick n Pay has chosen to take principled positions on issues that the company believed directly affected the future of South Africans. Raymond Ackerman’s stand on apartheid, monopolies, cartels and regulated consumer prices has been widely-publicised. South Africans have come to expect a ‘voice’ from Pick n Pay and its leaders on social issues which could have a material effect on their future safety and prosperity.

Said Raymond Ackerman, upon receipt of his Lifetime Achievement Award: “ I am exceptionally proud of Pick n Pay’s achievements over the past 43 years. Being an entrepreneur has enabled me to set in motion everything I ever wanted to achieve, and I’d like to encourage our entrepreneurs-in-waiting to take that first step. I’d like to thank my family and also the Pick n Pay team, I could not have achieved this award without their support.”