Robert Brozin, Founder of Nando’s Chickenland, was born in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, about 200 kilometers from Johannesburg, South Africa. His first major influences came from his grandfather—an entrepreneur in the furniture business—who imprinted old-fashioned family values as the key to success in business on the young Brozin’s heart and mind.
Robert completed school at Middelburg Primary and King David High School, Linksfield, Johannesburg. He followed this with a two-year army stint, a three-year Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of the Witwatersrand and two years of articles at Price Waterhouse. Accountancy was not the path that this young entrepreneur wanted to follow, and he joined the family business, Teltron, the distributors of Sanyo Electronics in South Africa.
Whilst at Teltron, Brozin became good friends with Fernando Duarte who introduced him to Chickenland, a small Portuguese café in the south of Johannesburg.
It was at this humble eatery in the heart of the local Portuguese community that Robert had the first taste of his dream—traditional Portuguese style chicken. The best he’d ever tasted. Brozin envisioned building a global brand with this product. This brand would not only be built on the best product in the world, but would also capture his dream of building a business philosophy (of having fun and making money).
Brozin and Duarte bought Chickenland, changed it into Nando’s, joined forces with the Enthoven Family, and today that dream is a global reality with stores stretching from Rosettenville to Cape Town, Canada to Australia and the U.K. to Malaysia, to Dubai and Washington, DC. Nando’s is now represented in 26 countries around the globe with 1250 restaurants.
Firmly rooted in South Africa, with an African soul and a global mind-set, Nando’s is not just a quest for global brand recognition. It is the story of how things in the corporate environment can be done differently.
Says Brozin, "Nando’s flame grilled peri-peri chicken is undoubtedly the best-tasting chicken in the world and is at the core of what Nando’s is all about. But it is nothing without great people, and it is the philosophy of Pride, Passion, Courage, Integrity and Family and most importantly ‘the People that make the chicken’."