About Us
The roots of GeoAfrika go back to the 1980s when the founders, the late John Manning and Peter Hoffmann formed a partnership and started a surveying company, Manning, Hoffmann and Partners (MHP). Peter, the CEO of the company, says as surveyors, they soon realised the need to network with other professionals.
Peter Hoffmann
Our Heritage
GeoAfrika was founded in 1998 as an association of leading independent businesses, all providing specialised technical expertise that primarily operated in the built environment. These businesses consisted of a surveying company, MHP Geomatics, a specialised law firm, HSG, geographical information systems providers, MHP Geospace and a property management company, Thistledown. The associated companies could network effectively, and all they shared a similar vision for the industry. They developed mutual trust and all benefitted from being able to utilise the skills of reliable partners.
The companies were all successful individually and as a collective. The group became the biggest in the survey field on the African continent. With the landscape around the group changing and the different businesses becoming increasingly closely linked, however, the decision was taken in late 2018 to consolidate under united brand, to integrate services and resources, become more efficient overall and to better serve the market.
As a result, the four different businesses became divisions under the overarching GeoAfrika brand, with a consistent brand identity. MHP Geomatics became GeoAfrika Surveys, MHP Geospace became GeoAfrika Technologies.
Our People
GeoAfrika has provided bursaries to young, black land-surveying students for more than 30 years, and also offers new graduates the opportunity to complete their articles in the group. This created transformation long before it was a B-BBEE imperative, and has formed the basis for a strong diverse professional team.
Peter explains, “from the outset in the 80s, we decided to offer bursaries to young, black land surveying students, and we also create opportunities for new graduates to do articles with us. Of course, this has also helped us to build up a loyal team of good, professional surveyors. The company now employs more surveyors than the large SOCs and we have created an environment to retain them. This is where they have built their careers”, says Peter, “and this is where they want to be”.
Our Successes
GeoAfrika has become the biggest business of its kind on the African continent, the most successful by different measures.