VCA was founded in 1996, by Veld Cooper. He had been employed by Anglo American previously, in the Gold and Uranium Division, as their Financial Manager. Veld was very involved with their mentorship programmes, and as this was a time when our country was knee deep in transformation, he saw this as the ideal time to birth his vision, a company that could help bring real transformation into SMMEs in South Africa. And VCA was born.
Gwen Cooper, his wife at the time, assisted him every step of the way in those early days. They worked out of their spare room in their home in Benoni, servicing clients nationally in the form of consulting around areas of Affirmative Action.
In 1997, they employed their first staff member, by the name of Rachel. Rachel’s contract period was for two years, and she was very active in work around psychometric testing of students at Wits Tech, specifically in the medical field
By 2001, VCA was awarded it’s first tender for Skills Development, by the FASSET SETA. This entailed a database of over 10 000 companies nationally that needed to be called, visited, and assisted with their WSPs in a period of four months. Gwen and Veld’s daughter, Hayley, who was looking for a temp assignment in Benoni, and wanting to avoid the daily Sandton traffic she had been facing for the seven years prior, was offered a contract, and the same day that she arrived, Saffiya Ansary was appointed and started.
About this time, we started building our own offices at the back of the Cooper’s home, as we knew we were going to need to expand. Fairly soon after the offices were completed, we recruited another six staff members.
Thus began a rocky curving road of learning and unlearning, trying and failing, crying and laughing (sometimes all at the same time). As well as an intense exploration of our beautiful country as we all hit the road, and visited places like Kakamas, Douglas, and HothasHell. What an adventure it was. Soon, we were awarded tenders by many other SETAs, and so we began exploring not just the inside of accounting practices, but butcheries, bakeries, IT companies, wholesalers, funeral parlours, and many more.
In 2008, we moved from our home offices, into our first rented property. What an exciting time for us. We had grown enough to warrant paying someone else’s bond, and our image would be forever changed. No longer the little consultancy operating from home but one with a real lease!
Over the years, our service offering has grown and diversified, as the legislation our business is based on changes overnight and we need to be ever ready to jump, transform and morph accordingly. We are now a fully-fledged compliance consultancy, offering a full bouquet of services to our clients.
We have also been blessed with many amazing staff members since we started so long ago.
Hayley continues to be the director.
We have also had some amazing staff who unfortunately are no longer with us, through the years.
Bradley, who developed our very first intranet, TT, who started us off on our EE journey, Janine who started us off on our training journey, Craig, Natasha and Steph who were all firm favorites with our clients. Priscilla and Gloria. We thank you for your service and dedication for all your years and we are proud for the training we gave you all and the investment we made in your growth and training.
Some of our proudest moments over the past 25 years have been: being featured on eTV’s Its My Biz in 2013, Hayley being given two bursaries to study at the most prestigious business schools in South Africa – namely Wits Business School and GIBS. Gwen and Hayley completing their HR Certificates through Maccauvlei, becoming accredited training providers and training people nationally, as well as developing a national footprint in terms of clientele.
We look forward to growing and prospering even more than ever before.