Theo Baloyi sold perfume door to door as a student. He built the Bathu sneaker brand from his uncle’s back room in Alexandra.
An accounting graduate who spent time at PwC in Dubai, Theo Baloyi founded Bathu in 2015. It now has more than 30 stores across South Africa and the SADC region.
Theo Baloyi was raised in Hammanskraal, in Gauteng. In 2009 he moved to Johannesburg to study accounting at the University of South Africa. Before he left university, he began his entrepreneurial journey the old-fashioned way: selling perfumes door to door.
His results at PwC South Africa, where he joined the graduate programme, earned him a full-time job and a transfer to PwC Middle East in Dubai. A secure career, and a long way from the township.
A shoe with a township name
In 2015 he founded Bathu, from the township slang for “shoes”. Press profiles describe the early days in Alexandra, with the sneaker business built from his uncle’s back room. Bathu has since grown to own and operate over 30 stores across South Africa and the SADC region, and reportedly employs over 300 people.
Baloyi was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2019 and won GQ’s Business Leader of the Year in 2021. In July 2022 he joined the board of the South African Council of Shopping Centres.
The detail worth copying is the order of operations: he sold something small, learned how to sell, kept a day job’s discipline, and then built a brand with a story that customers in the townships recognised as their own.
