Gian Visser (born 1975) is a South African entrepreneur and innovator in the internet services sector of South Africa. Visser is the current CEO and co-founder of

Afrihost Afrihost is a South African Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing a number of services, including ADSL broadband, fibre, fixed wireless, mobile services and web hosting. A proposed merger with Cool Ideas, another ISP, has been approved by ...

and has won several awards for his work in the telecommunications sector.

Early life

Visser was born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, Gauteng on 27 February 1975. His parents were born and met in Carltonville, from mining families. His father was a police officer in the

South African Police Service The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in eac ...

and his mother was a bookkeeper. He also has a younger sister. Visser's family moved to

, where he attended school at

King Edward VII School (Johannesburg) King Edward VII School (KES) is a public English medium high school for boys situated within the city of Johannesburg in South Africa's Gauteng Province, one of the historically significant Milner Schools. The school is a public school, with ...

Houghton Estate Houghton Estate, often simply called Houghton is an affluent suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, north-east of the city centre. It is best known for being the home of Nelson Mandela. History Houghton was developed as a residential area around ...

, alongside his future business partners,

Brendan Armstrong Afrihost is a South African Internet Service Provider (ISP) providing a number of services, including ADSL Internet Access#Broadband access, broadband, Fiber-optic communication, fibre, fixed wireless, mobile services and Web hosting service, w ...

and Peter Meintjies. Visser registered to study Actuarial Science at

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

but later changed to complete a BCom. After completing his studies, he worked briefly as a maths teacher before deciding to devote his time to entrepreneurship.

Business career

Visser began a number of small businesses while still studying. His first full-time business pursuit was in the IT sector, alongside his long time friend, Brendan Armstrong. They formed a company called VSphereNet (or VSN), which was later bought by a larger IT firm. Visser and Armstrong were appointed as Directors of the company, but later chose to leave to follow independent business ventures. Visser and Armstrong, along with schoolfriend Peter Meintjies, formed

in September 2000. The company started in his mother's home (in his bedroom) and gradually began to grow to the point where the company's operations took over the entire house. The company eventually moved to rented premises in Rivonia, and finally to their permanent residence in Rivonia, where the company currently employs approximately 350 people. Visser was later joined by Greg Payne, former COO of

Internet Solutions Internet Solutions (IS) is an Internet services provider for public and private sector organisations. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dimension Data Group and part of NTT. Headquartered in South Africa, IS has operating offices in Moz ...

, and Angus McRobert, former CEO of

and

Vox Telecom Vox Telecom is a South African Internet service provider, providing FTTH, LTE, voice and Satlite Internet services to the South African consumers. Vox began as @tlatic Telecom and traded locally since 1996 and grew into one of the largest inde ...

. Visser was instrumental in launching the company's presence in broadband connectivity, which facilitated the company's rapid growth. He was also central to the company's sale of shares to

MTN (South Africa) MTN Group Limited, formerly M-Cell, is a South African multinational mobile telecommunications company, operating in many African and Asian countries. Its head office is in Johannesburg. , MTN recorded 280 million subscribers, making it the ...

and their subsequent buy-back of the company's shares. Visser is an avid reader, particularly of non-fiction books related to marketing and behavioural psychology. He often employs viral marketing methods learned from

Seth Godin Seth W. Godin is an American author and former dot com business executive. Background After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in ...

Chip Heath Chip Heath is an American academic. He is the Thrive Foundation for Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the co-author of several books. Early life Heath graduated from Texas A&M University, ...

Dan Heath Dan Heath is an American bestselling author, speaker and fellow at Duke University'CASE center He, along with his brother Chip Heath, has co-authored four books, '' Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die'' (2007), '' Switch: How to C ...

Jonah Berger Jonah or Jonas, ''Yōnā'', "dove"; gr, Ἰωνᾶς ''Iōnâs''; ar, يونس ' or '; Latin: ''Ionas'' Ben (Hebrew), son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, from Gath-hepher of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria ...

and Rohit Bhargava. He also cites

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...

and

Tony Hsieh Anthony Hsieh ( ; December 12, 1973November 27, 2020) was an American internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He retired as the CEO of the online shoe and clothing company Zappos in August 2020 after 21 years. Prior to joining Zappos, Hs ...

as being major influences in formulating the company's approach to customer service and the company culture. Visser is well known for his personal approach to customers, often sending emails to customers directly in favour of branded messaging, also being available on social media.

Achievements

Visser has won the prestigious

MyBroadband MyBroadband is South Africa's largest technology news website which was started in 2003 as a consumer advocacy forum to address broadband problems which existed in the country at the time. Since then, the website has grown into an IT news publicat ...

IT Personality of the Year Award three times, in 2013, 2014 and 2016. He was also awarded the IT Personality of the Year for 2014 by the IITPSA."Visser, Ramuthaga win IT Personality, Visionary CIO"
ITWeb, 6 November 2014

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Visser, Gian Living people 1975 births University of the Witwatersrand alumni Alumni of King Edward VII School (Johannesburg) South African businesspeople

Early life

Business career

Achievements

See also

References