People of Vox: Spotlight on Kurt Thompson
At Vox, we believe our employees are the beating heart of our company, with merit and value built into all our available positions. In this edition of People of Vox, we meet Kurt Thompson, the Operations Manager for Vox in Cape Town. Those who know him well (and there are many!) say that Kurt embodies genuine authenticity and kindness, leaving people – both clients and fellow Voxies – smiling whenever they interact with him.
Based in Thornton but with ties to colleagues in Century City and around the country, Kurt is known within the company for his straightforward, kind and humorous approach, which he’s been bringing to Vox for just over 20 years – a truly impressive achievement!
Heading up a technical team of 13 engineers, Kurt oversees day‑to‑day operations and service delivery across divisions that include Enterprise Services, Fibre to the Home, Wireless and Satellite. He’s responsible for driving operational excellence and building relationships with clients, suppliers and stakeholders, while he plays his part in keeping Cape Town and its surrounding areas connected.
Kurt describes himself as ‘proudly Cape Coloured, born and bred in Mitchell’s Plain’, before moving later to Strandfontein and finally settling in Lansdowne on the Cape Flats, where he now lives with his wife of twenty-six years and their three children.
It’s a rich, full life, both at work and at home, with a lot of laughter and gratitude. It’s also a very busy life! Let’s find out more.
True Empathy for the Customer
“My aim is to constantly ensure high levels of customer satisfaction,” says Kurt, “and make sure that projects land on time and within budget. And so my job includes managing, mentoring and developing my team of engineers, so we can all make this happen.
“I’m responsible for overseeing daily operations and service delivery, monitoring performance against KPIs and service levels, and identifying process improvements. Along the way we do, understandably, get our share of annoyed clients, and so this is where I’ve learned to simply listen to the client initially to understand what they’re unhappy about,” he explains.
“Initially, I encourage the client to vent, because I know that they just need to get it out of their system. I put myself in their shoes, and think to myself: is there a valid reason to be upset, and what would I have done? From there, I come up with a suggestion and a solution. It always ends with me saying: ‘How can I help you? What’s the quickest I can get an engineer to your place?’ And for me, this is what builds the trust.”
Despite these challenges that occur from time to time, Kurt loves his work. He explains: “It might sound clichéd, but I really do enjoy pitching up for work every day – some days more than others, of course, but there’s just something about achieving a successful installation or resolving an issue! It’s not just the praise that might come but also the satisfaction I get from achieving a solution to a problem.”
The Stepping Stone
Kurt’s path into telecommunications wasn’t initially planned: “I was actually running my own business in automotive air-conditioning,” he says, “and then was introduced to the telecoms industry by my pastor at the time, who suggested some contract installation work to earn some extra income.
“And so I did the occasional ‘install’: small jobs that were ‘least-cost routing’, as it was known back then. And then not even a year later, a position opened up at the Cape Town branch for a junior technician! I successfully interviewed for the role and took the leap, because by now I had young children, and the greater stability and the benefits of permanent employment were very appealing. I always look back and think, wow, that was my initial stepping stone to becoming an Operations Manager all these years later!”
Moving from motor mechanics to telecommunications meant Kurt had to learn an entirely new industry from scratch, including how to hold his own in boardrooms with major corporate clients and suppliers. There were sacrifices too, with long evenings on client premises as a technician, chasing installations and resolving issues while his young family waited at home.
“I sacrificed a lot of family time to get the job done, and often I thought to myself, is this really worth it? But if I look back now, I think it was well worth it,” he smiles.
Real Kindness for His Team Members
Kurt truly enjoys the Vox culture and its people. He has an in-person meeting with his team every second week and makes a point of bringing doughnuts and coffee: “And then we have a meeting. Sometimes it’s a boxing match, other times everybody just has a laugh!”
Kurt enjoys being a manager, noting with real empathy: “We don’t know what people are going through in their personal capacity. I do know that at work, sometimes I have to take off my manager hat and put on the friend hat.”
He’s learned this balance, and how to soften management with compassion, over time. “I just have to look to our Vox CEO, Jacques du Toit, for lessons in this regard. I regard him as being a general, someone I know personally, and I am pleased and proud that he knows my name.”
It’s a long way from the time when, early in his career, Kurt asked a colleague how long he thought it might take him to also move up into the management level. To Kurt’s surprise, his colleague replied: ‘When Bafana Bafana wins the World Cup!’
Kurt explains: “I decided not to take his input as a knock, but instead to make it a target and a goal. To me, it was simple: I could have taken offence and let this guy determine how far I would go in my career, or I could prove him wrong, which I did! Today we are still friends, and my philosophy ever since has been simple: ‘Attitude determines altitude’. Nobody can ever take education, training or a skill set away from you. For me, knowledge is power.”
It’s a lesson he now passes on to his own children and to his team: “Never see the size of a job as too small. It’s all work experience and builds character.”
Family Ties
And speaking of Kurt’s children: he and his wife have three children, two boys and a girl. His oldest, a daughter, is 23 years old and has Down’s Syndrome.
“My wife, Ymile, and I chose to raise Danielle as a normal kid,” says Kurt. “She is the apple of my eye, my angel, my sweetie pie! She now spends much of her time with her grandmother, helping out with the family’s coastal fishing business. My two sons, Connor and Adam, who are now aged 19 and 15, are respectively in first year at UCT, studying towards a Chartered Accounting degree, and in Grade 9 at school.”
When he’s not with family or at work, Kurt is a keen fisherman. “Fishing runs in my family,” he says, “and my mother and other relatives are net-trekkers along the Cape coast. I’ve spent time both on the rocks and out on trawlers chasing a catch. Lately, though, my passion has shifted to freshwater fishing at quarries and dams around Durbanville and Worcester, and I share this hobby with a colleague turned mentor. I’m still in the beginner phase, and it’s strictly catch-and-release: for bragging rights and to get your personal best!”
‘Reaching towards a personal best’ sums up so much about Kurt, who is always hands‑on and quietly determined. As a manager, he has worked hard to understand the technical landscape, but he also values listening, teamwork and everyday kindness.
From soothing the occasional irate client to making sure his team members are doing okay, Kurt is a master at keeping on top of systems and processes while making it look easy. We might not yet be able to say that about his freshwater fishing – making it look easy! – but he surely knows how to reel in challenging situations, while constantly ensuring that people remain at the centre of the connectivity options he enables.
Kurt is genuinely and authentically the ‘real deal’, which is why so many people, both in and out of Vox, are so happy when he walks into the room.
About Author
