Neville Williams, Remgro CFO
You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again:
IT’S ALL ABOUT DISRUPTION
In the last quarter of 2019, CFO South Africa hosted two dinners at The Stack in Cape Town – one with inspiration from Capitec CFO André du Plessis and the other with disruption guru Ian Russel.
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n 29 October, CFOs gathered for a dinner supported by alternative stock exchange A2X, with Capitec CFO André du Plessis as the special guest, to talk about the opportunities and challenges that disruption provides to CFOs and their companies, and what excites them most about disruption. Pick n Pay CFO Lerena Olivier zoomed in on the “energy” that disruption brings to the wider economy “even at companies that are not the first to disrupt”. Curro Holdings FD Bernardt van der Linde spoke about the ways disruption can “create something better for society”, while Coronation Fund Managers CFO Mary22
CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA
Anne Musekiwa focused on the ever-improving customer experience. André challenged the notion of Capitec being a disruptor and interrogated the difference between disruption and innovation. “We weren’t outsiders doing things in a totally different way, like Netflix for example. We were a bunch of bankers, who focused on simplicity and transparency.” He spoke about disruption in the banking world and stated that digital banks – like Tyme Bank – are not disruptors in his eyes. “All the big banks in the world think about digital all the time and use machine learning and AI.”
