Current title
Co-founder and Director, Bank Zero
Course at Wits Business School
Master of Business Administration, 2003
A defining moment in my career
The defining moment of my career was when I left a successful career in the corporate world to join a few ex-colleagues and friends in starting a new bank. This was a daunting move after having spent most of my career in a world where complex challenges were sheltered by the relative security of size, then moving to another world of complex challenges with no security.
Daunting, but exhilarating. I was fortunate that a varied career path enabled this: starting in the Cape Flats as an industrial engineer in a textile factory, followed by a detour through America developing international methodologies, and then without pre-planning landing up in the world of banking, first as a consultant to some of the big banks in South Africa and thereafter as the CEO of various businesses within the FirstRand Group.
By directly driving the turnaround of businesses as well as building successful businesses from small start-ups, I received enough scars and participated in enough happy stories to help me know what to focus on to make a business successful. My career’s digital evolution started with my involvement in the dot-com bubble and later continued as part of a team that shaped the digital journey of a bank. This equipped and prepared me for where I now find myself, helping to start a new digital bank.
