CFO Magazine South Africa - 2017 - 2nd issue

MAG AZINE FOR FINANCE PROFESSIONALS IN SOUTH AFRICA 2 • 2017 CFO.CO.ZA

Nonkululeko Gobodo Women CAs: don’t quit!

Markos Davias CFO RMB Leading from the back Refilwe Nkabinde CFO BCX The making of a CFO

A lasting legacy Who is Standard Bank’s new CIB boss Kenny Fihla?

Deep thinking + planning Deloitte’s Andrew Mackie describes his favourite CFO

Garry Pita CFO Transnet For continent and country

LOVE, FAITH & DISCIPLINE The remarkable story of the Kathan family

CFO of the Year 2017

Till Streichert

Vodacom’s stunning turnaround

“Creating energy.”

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Africa thrives on smarter energy solutions, and the bright ideas behind them. Our presence across the continent can give power to your purpose. Let us be your partner for growth on this continent we call home. standardbank.com/CIBinsights

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12 & 13 October 2017

Sandton Convention Centre Finance Indaba Africa is the biggest annual expo and conference for finance professionals. It brings together peers, technology suppliers, platforms, banks, tools, specialists, CFOs and thought leaders. 5 000 visitors tap

into a wealth of resources, knowhow and inspiration.

Gain unparalleled insights. Cut costs dramatically, send sales & productivity through the roof and boost your company’s profits.

Register for FREE: www.finance-indaba.co.za

Exhibit at the Finance Indaba Africa 2017.

Visit www.finance-indaba.co.za to ensure your exhibition space and reach more than 5 000 finance professionals, CFOs and FDs.

BUILD A BETTER FUTURE

Finance Indaba 2017: build a better future Are you ready to build a better future? All finance professionals are invited to the Finance Indaba Africa 2017, the biggest learning and network platform in Africa and the most important annual event for accountants and finance teams.

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onfirmed speakers like Nonkululeko Gobodo (see page 66), AuditorGeneral Kimi Makwetu and top CFOs Mary Vilakazi (MMI Holdings), Nishlan Samujh (Investec) and the Dutch ‘lifehacker’ Martijn Aslander are just the tip of the iceberg. Early this year, Standard Bank was unveiled as diamond sponsor for the 2017 edition of the event and with financial institutions, cloud services, consultancies, IT providers, recruiters and other great exhibitors lining up to present the latest and greatest to South Africa’s finance community, the excitement is palpable.

“It is fascinating to have an event of this size and magnitude with content of exceptional quality.

The Finance Indaba is something that is needed for our profession in this country,” said JSE Limited CFO Aarti Takoordeen after last year’s event, with SAICA’s Kelly Masete, Project Director: Members in Business, echoing her assessment: “The Finance Indaba is a brilliant platform for people to network, interact and share knowledge and information.”

Finance Indaba Africa is the only annual event on the continent where 5000 registered accountants and other finance professionals gather under roof for two days to advance their knowledge, networks and careers. CAs and members of other professional bodies also qualify for up to 14 CPD hours by visiting the exhibition and a selection of the 100+ learning sessions. “Given the incredible range of opportunities to learn among peers and industry leaders, CFOs would be crazy not to send their teams,” says Graham Fehrsen, MD of CFO South Africa.

During last year’s inaugural event, the unparalleled insight from finance’s service providers was astounding and many accountants felt like children in a candy store. “We were absolutely spoilt for choice!” said CA(SA) Sharad Gokal, there was “an abundance of networking opportunities available”, said Tyler Palmer (Nedbank), “the topics were relevant and facilitated constructive dialogue”, added Nomcebo Ngcobo (KPMG), while Philani Mchunu (Standard Bank) called the event “simply the best and one of a kind!” l

“Finance professionals across South Africa need this.”

Vusi Thembekwayo

5 things you need to know 1. 12 & 13 October 2017 at the Sandton Convention Centre 2. Free of charge for finance professionals 3. Twitter hashtag #findaba17 4. Finance-indaba.co.za to exhibit or register 5. Email schalmers@cfo.co.za for team registrations

CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Till Streichert

Nonkululeko Gobodo

In only a few years, Till Streichert turned Vodacom’s finance team into a flourishing intelligence unit that keeps raising the bar globally. No wonder the German executive was named South Africa’s 2017 CFO of the Year, also adding the Strategy Execution Award and the Finance Transformation Award to his collection.

“If women are quitting, we are not going to produce the leaders we need,” warns Nonkululeko Gobodo in a candid interview about being the role model for female CAs, her deliberate but painful departure from SizweNtsalubaGobodo and the new chapter in her professional life as a leadership consultant.

58 Nishant Saxena

48

From a struggling, low-margin entity, Nishant Saxena turned Cipla SSA into one of the most profitable pharma players in South Africa. The success yielded double success at the CFO Awards in May 2017 for the Indian expat, who played a key role in shifting the strategy and improving the finance team.

CFO South Africa is the organisation for finance exec-

MANAGING DIRECTOR

utives in South Africa. Our goal is to connect finance

Graham Fehrsen

professionals online and off in order to share knowledge,

gfehrsen@cfo.co.za

EDITOR IN CHIEF

exchange interests and open up business opportunities.

+27 (0)79 898 0227

Joël Roerig

CFO South Africa

Johannesburg

HEAD OF OPERATIONS

CFO Enterprises PTY ltd

South Africa

Sarah Chalmers

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schalmers@cfo.co.za

SENIOR EDITORS

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CFO.co.za

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PHOTOGRAPHY Patrick Furter, Liezel Badenhorst

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OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Careers 14 Keeping up with the Kathans 22 High care to high value: Kenny Fihla 26 The making of a CFO: Refilwe Nkabinde

Talent 29 CFOs vs. machines 32 CHRO South Africa May event

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34 Talent, tech and transformation: RMB CFO Markos Davias

Governance 40 Competition law meets radical transformation

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44 Making reporting great again

Growth 53 Saving the SANParks audit: Rajesh Mahabeer 56 Cloud and volatility: March Cape Town event

Leadership 64 For continent and country: Transnet’s Garry Pita 67 Property-savvy CFOs share insights 70 Deloitte’s Andrew Mackie describes his favourite CFO

And further 5 Finance Indaba: build a better future 8 From the Editor in Chief: turnaround superstars 10 CFO Awards 2017: sky is the limit 12 From the MD: proudly South African

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13 On the move: new CFO appointments 77 Work smarter: training a big success 79 Calendar CFO South Africa events 2017 CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

Turnaround superstars

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hy don’t you go home at two o’clock, sit on your porch, stare at your garden and wrestle with some important issues? It could have been a question derived from CFO South Africa’s incredibly well-received productivity training seminar, ‘Work smarter, not harder’ (page 77). Instead, it comes straight from an exciting interview with Andrew Mackie (page 72), Deloitte’s newly appointed audit boss for the whole of Africa. “A business needs intellectual horsepower and it is up to the leadership to generate that,” he says.

“You do not do that by clearing 400 emails.”

Superstar CFOs have 24-hour days like all of us, but they do find the time to think deeply about the things that matter. It allows them to take their business and their finance team by the scruff of the neck and first drag them – and then spur them on – to a higher plane. The recent turnaround fairytales of Vodacom (page 48) and Cipla Sub-Saharan Africa (page 58) are perhaps the strongest examples in this issue of CFO magazine. No surprise that their respective CFOs – Till Streichert and Nishant Saxena – took home half the prizes at the 2017 CFO Awards (page 10).

One of the most impressive turnaround titans in this magazine is not a CFO but a banker who studied mechanical engineering and happened upon the world of money by chance. We spoke to Kenny Fihla, the recently promoted chief executive of Standard Bank’s Corporate and Investment Banking, about his biggest obsession: creating a lasting legacy (page 22).

Whether it is Till, Nishant or Kenny, they all mention technology as part of their

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successful recipes. It is telling that this 80-page magazine has no technology section. The theme is simply so pervasive that analytics, automation and ERP crop up in almost every article. “We need to find a balance between transforming our platform, bringing robotics and attracting the right workforce and talent to complement that,” says RMB CFO Markos Davias in a candid and in-depth conversation about talent, tech and transformation (page 34).

The two most inspirational stories of this issue both start in the Eastern Cape many decades ago – and they both reach pivotal points in the hustle and bustle of Mthatha. For young Nonkululeko Gobodo, it was the inspiration of Wiseman Nkuhlu, South Africa’s first black CA and member of the CFO Awards judging panel, that provided her personal turnaround – herself becoming the country’s first female black CA. In an interview about dreams, letting go and wise leadership, she calls on female accountants to stay the course – and never give up on a successful career (page 66).

The five siblings of the Kathan family also blossomed in Mthatha, where they “caught a glimpse of what South Africa could be” during the dark, discriminatory days of apartheid. In a warm family portrait, CFOs Veran Kathan (Vodacom Business), Christine Ramon (AngloGold Ashanti) and Mark Kathan (AECI), Deloitte exec Justine Mazzocco and medical doctor Sunita Maharaj honour their mother (page 14). Perhaps she is the biggest turnaround superstar of all, for the role she has played in catapulting her children out of poverty with three ingredients for success that supersede any management manual: love, faith and discipline.

Book your seat for the 2018 CFO Awards today

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Nishlan Samujh, Group CFO Investec accepting the 2017 Compliance and Governance Award

CFO AWARDS CFO Awards 2017 winners: Garry Pita (Transnet), Debbie Ransby (Takeda), Wayne Koonin (Omnia), Till Streichert (Vodacom), Nishlan Samujh (Investec), Ramasela Ganda (Ekurhuleni), Graham Fehrsen (MD CFO South Africa) and Nishant Saxena (Cipla).

CEOs Lwazi Bam (Deloitte SnA) and Terence Nombembe (SAICA)

Vodacom execs Matimba Mbungela (CHRO), Till Streichert (Group CFO) and Veran Kathan (CFO Vodacom Business)

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CFO AWARDS

The sky is the limit: CFO Awards 2017 Vodacom’s CFO Till Streichert was the big winner at the 2017 CFO Awards, taking home the title of CFO of the Year and the coveted Strategy Execution and Finance Transformation awards.

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he annual celebration of excellence in the finance profession was the biggest, best and brightest edition of the event to date, as the crème de la crème of the country’s finance leaders gathered at the stunning Summer Place in Hyde Park, Johannesburg.

“What fascinates me about finance is that the sky is the limit,” said Till Streichert after receiving the CFO of the Year Award from Deloitte Southern Africa CEO Lwazi Bam. Till has done incredible turnaround work at Vodacom, salvaging an ERP implementation, cutting costs and building a strategy that makes the telecoms giant futureready (see interview on page 48).

Ramasela Ganda, who recently moved from Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality to a division of Barloworld, received the Public Sector CFO of the Year Award and asked for a moment to remember public sector CFOs who have lost their lives because of their efforts to do their jobs ethically and with dedication. “I’d like to dedicate this award to all public servants in our country who serve

us diligently and with honesty.”

Another big winner on the evening was Nishant Saxena, the flamboyant Cipla CFO who was named Young CFO of the Year and also scooped the High Performance Team Award for his turnaround work at the pharmaceutical company (see interview on page 58).

Glitz, glamour and anticipation had dominated the early parts of the event, until celebrated speaker Vusi Thembekwayo brought the finance leaders back to reality during a hard-hitting masterclass about race and transformation.

The evening then assumed a lighter tone, as 350 CFOs and business leaders reconnected over drinks and dinner prepared by top chef Franz de Waal.

The first award of the evening – the Governance & Compliance Award – went to Nishan Samujh, the soft-spoken and well-respected finance boss of Investec, while other honours went to Debbie “Africa-is-not-for-sissies” Ransby (Takeda Africa), IT wonder boy Wayne Koonin (Omnia) and Garry Pita (Transnet), who talks about his “love” on page 63. l

Winners 2017 CFO of the Year Till Streichert (Vodacom) Public Sector CFO of the Year Ramasela Ganda (Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality) Young CFO of the Year Nishant Saxena (Cipla SubSaharan Africa) Strategy Execution Award Till Streichert (Vodacom) Transformation & Empowerment Award Garry Pita (Transnet) High Performance Team Award Nishant Saxena (Cipla Sub-Saharan Africa) Compliance & Governance Award Nishlan Samujh (Investec) Finance Transformation Award Till Streichert (Vodacom) Moving into Africa Award Debbie Ransby (Takeda Africa) Finance & Technology Award Wayne Koonin (Omnia)

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FROM THE MD

What does South Africa mean to you?

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FO South Africa is a proudly South African platform, even with its Dutch roots. At the recent CFO Awards we hosted a masterclass with leading CFOs on the topic of race and transformation. What would we say if we spoke openly about these issues and how would it reflect our values and attitude? It was one of the most powerful conversations ever hosted in the CFO South Africa space and attendees have all asked that we continue this conversation.

What this tells me is that CFOs and executives believe in the power of conversation and collaboration but often lack effective forums.

I am an unashamed patriot: proud to be South African because it is what I know and love deeply. I often wonder what keeps me connected to this country and why I feel so strongly about the future of South Africa. Patriotism washes over people in different ways. For some it is so strong that they feel it was wrong for two foreigners to win five of ten awards at the CFO Awards. Is this staunch patriotism a form of xenophobia? It certainly took me by surprise and the fact that it came from people I know and respect made it even more surprising. But ultimately, in this time where South Africans are looking for certainty and clarity around their future, perhaps it is understandable that we look at foreigners with a degree of scepticism or even cynicism.

Bu what of these foreigners – the Guptas aside – who contribute to the very fabric of South Africa? What do they find here? If it isn’t patriotism, what is it?

Perhaps it is simply a love of this powerful kaleidoscope of people, culture, beliefs

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and hope. Certainly the Dutch founders of CFO South Africa fell in love with all these elements and not only visit regularly with their family and friends, but are committed to building a business and contributing to the growth of the economy.

Expat CFOs often talk about how much they love South Africa and all that comes with it.

And if you feel no connection to South Africa or its future? In a world where we are increasingly disconnected despite the ever-increasing connectivity, there is a good chance that more and more people feel less of a connection to the state or the borders that define one. A good number of South African CFOs have talked to me about educating their children overseas in what I interpret as hope that it will free them to live and work in a country of their choice. This is a global citizen’s perspective and if you have the means, why would you not give your children the best opportunities possible?

However you feel about South Africa and its future, the truth is that your attitude and contribution will make a difference.

This is true of the impact individuals can have on families, communities and countries.

CFO South Africa is committed to remaining a platform where you are able to learn and network for the good of your own knowledge and career, the broader finance community and South Africa as a whole.

On 12 and 13 October we will host the second Finance Indaba Africa – the continent’s largest platform for accounting and finance professionals to learn and network together. We hope to see you there!

MOVERS

New CFOs for Neotel, Pioneer and Oakbay

On the move Some of South Africa's greatest finance minds changed jobs in the last few months, with notable appointments at South African Airways, Murray & Roberts, Pioneer Foods, Interwaste and Oakbay Resources.

Raj Jandu

Gupta-owned Oakbay Resources recently appointed Melanie Chong as FD. With several years of experience in credit application at Investec, a six-year stint at Deloitte and the position of chair of the Audit & Risk Management Committee of JSElisted South Ocean Holdings Limited, she comes into the role with a good amount of experience on her CV. South African Airways officially named Phumeza Nhantsi as its new permanent CFO. She had

Juan Mostert

already been acting in the role since November 2015, after the tumultuous departure of Wolf Meyer. Another previous SAA executive, Michael Muller, joined one of Africa’s newest low-cost airlines, fastjet, as its new CFO. Michael built up CFO experience at SAA’s catering subsidiary Air Chefs. He took over from Lisa Mitchell at the end of April.

Another much-talked about South African company, Neotel, named Raj Jandu as CFO. Raj was already making a name for him-

self in the Liquid Telecom stable.

Since 2013, he worked as CFO for the East Africa at the telecoms firm that recently acquired Neotel. Former MTN CEO and co-founder Zunaid Bulbulia joined telecoms service company Huge Group as its new CFO at the end of March. Zunaid is the first direct employee of Huge, with all other staff in the group currently employed by the operating companies.

Pioneer Foods finally announced the replacement for 2016 CFO Awards nominee Cindy Hess, who moved to Media24 at the end of last year. On 1 July Pioneer veteran Felix Lombard started as CFO, moving from his role as head of the groceries division.

Felix has been with the group since 1995, when he joined as head of information systems at Bokomo.

Robert Lumb took over as FD of Interwaste on 1 May, filling the shoes of Andre Broodryk, who was nominated for the CFO Awards in 2015. Murray & Roberts appointed Daniel Grobler as its new group FD, effective 1 April, taking over from Cobus Bester.

Brian Joffe’s new investment firm Long4Life, which listed recently on the JSE, unveiled Peter Riskowitz as its new CFO. Peter started in May and will have a strong focus on merger and acquisition activity for the firm.

Long time CFO South Africa supporter Juan Mostert left Hitachi Data Systems Sub-Saharan Africa, where he was Head of Finance, to join Bidvest Prestige as its CFO effective 1 April. l

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Justine Mazzocco, Managing Partner Deloitte

Christine Ramon, CFO AngloGold Ashanti

Keeping up with the Kathans 14

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Veran Kathan, CFO Vodacom Business Sunita Maharaj, Medical Doctor

Mark Kathan, CFO AECI

LOVE, FAITH & DISCIPLINE The remarkable story of the Kathan family

Five siblings, five exceptional professionals. This is the remarkable story of the Kathan family: one medical doctor, one Deloitte executive and no less than three CFOs. CFO Magazine sat down with Veran, Christine, Justine, Mark and Sunita and spoke to them about the forces that shaped their lives, what motivates them and their hopes for their children. By Graham Fehrsen

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CAREERS

Christine Ramon, CFO AngloGold Ashanti

“G

eoktrooieerde rekenmeester!”

Almost in unison, Veran, Christine, Justine and Mark cry out the Afrikaans term for chartered accountant and then burst into contagious laughter, with their only non-accounting sibling – Sunita – joining in too. The joyous burst has been prompted by a warm recollection from their childhood, when one day their mother came home and started chatting to them about a future career as auditors.

Working as a bookkeeper at the local municipality, mother Mala compensated for her lack of formal training in accountancy with a natural flair for the work.

One day, she had asked one of the auditors what it entailed to become as CA. He jotted down

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some information, entirely in Afrikaans, providing initial bemusement and then years of amusement.

Many decades later, four of her five children are in fact top finance professionals and one is a doctor. “We can probably thank our mom for our careers as chartered accountants,” confirms Christine, award-winning CFO of mining giant AngloGold Ashanti and – with a previous stint at Sasol – probably the country’s most famous female chief financial officer. “She was a huge pillar of strength for us and so much of our work ethic and approach to life in general is shaped by who she was and the values she lived by.”

As the accomplished siblings reminisce about their childhood in Queenstown, their younger

selves are in the room too, listening to their mother’s advice once more as they complete each other’s sentences, laugh, joke and debate with all the ferocity of loving siblings. As the oldest sibling, Veran is the natural spokesperson, which is why the five have gathered in his comfortable residence in Bedfordview, although the conversation takes the sisters and brothers right back to the Eastern Cape. “Our mother was hugely influential shaping our personalities and giving us direction,” says Veran, now CFO at Vodacom Business. “She was incredibly hard working, resilient, humble and determined despite the challenges so many women of colour faced during the seventies and eighties in South Africa.”

Pair of shoes The challenges the Kathans faced are hard to comprehend given how they are now highly respected voices in boardrooms from Sandton to Buenos Aires.

Originally from the windy city Port Elizabeth, when their parents divorced, the kids moved to Queenstown with their mother.

It was the height of apartheid.

“We were really poor and shared a tiny single room home. One pair of shoes covered school, soccer, cricket, athletics and Sunday best for church. When they wore through we used cardboard inside the shoe.” says Veran. Queenstown had schools for whites, blacks and coloureds

CAREERS

Sunita Maharaj, Medical Doctor

and they were required to attend the coloured school and learn in Afrikaans. “The challenge was immense but our mother never allowed us to wallow in our situation.”

Their memories of their childhood are vivid but not bitter. “We walked five kilometres to school and five kilometres home each day, come rain, shine and winters in the Eastern Cape,” says Justine, twin sister of Christine and member of the Africa Executive Committee at Deloitte. “Our

home was tiny but filled with love, faith and discipline. We had nearly nothing, but in so many ways we had so much.” Although their dad Jude did not live with them through those formative years, he had high expectations of the children. “When we talked on the phone he was always quizzing us about our academic performance and it really drove all of us to excel at school,” recalls Justine.

Justine Mazzocco, Managing Partner Deloitte

They have come a long way from Queenstown days, but the bond is palpable between the five, who all live within a few kilometres of each other. Listening to them disagree on some of the details from time to time – who was or was not the dux scholar, which sibling did what and which year certain events took place – paints a picture of what mealtimes in their family home were like.

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CAREERS

“Our home was tiny but filled with love, faith and discipline. We had nearly nothing, but in so many ways we had so much.”

No longer pariahs In the early eighties, their mother fell in love with an Italian. Their relationship across the ‘colour line’ was illegal under the apartheid regime’s Immorality Act, so in 1982 the family packed up and moved to Mthatha (then Umtata). This new environment was much less restrictive than life in Queenstown. “In so many ways we caught a glimpse of what South Africa could be and it was incredibly exciting. We were no longer pariahs, we shared the streets, the store, the barber, school and everything else with people from all walks of life and it was a revelation” says Veran.

Umtata – she promised to put in a good word.”

Unisa and that, as they say, was that”.

“I remember it clearly, not only because it was a landmark event for my future career, but also because I felt quite embarrassed by my appearance” says Veran.

“My long pants were too short and my shoes weren’t in great shape, but after a short interview in June 1983, Neville Thomas offered me the chance to start working at Coopers & Lybrand Umtata office from January 1984.

I would begin my studies through

Contributing Twins, Christine and Justine, were also exceptional students and regularly cleaned up the annual school awards evening.

“We’re not competitive,” insists Christine. “But our drive to succeed was immense and we could see a better future through academic performance.”

When the girls entered their matric year, Veran had left a very

Their mother took up a position in a local pharmacy and by 1983, Veran had started his matric year. There was very little money and certainly not enough to fund a tertiary education. However, one interaction inside the pharmacy shaped their lives and careers forever.

Christine is quickly into the story: “A school teacher was in the pharmacy being helped by my mother and remarked that Veran was a bright and capable student with a particular flair for accounting. When she asked my mother what Veran was going to do next year my mother said she was sure he would look for work. It just so happened that this woman was married to a Mr. Neville Thomas, then senior partner at Coopers & Lybrand

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Mark Kathan, CFO AECI

CAREERS

positive impression on Neville Thomas and it was not long before he enquired about the two academic superstars. “Anyone who is a twin will understand the need to have their own identity and I was very reluctant to simply follow Veran and Christine into the Coopers & Lybrand office,” explains Justine. “I guess that came through and fortunately Neville Thomas picked up the phone to his colleague at Deloitte, literally across the road, and I was offered a chance to start my career there after I completed matric. It was incredibly exciting, but perhaps the thing that made the biggest impression was that the three of us were now all earning an income and contributing.”

As Mark reached the end of his Standard 9 year (Grade 11), he dreamt of becoming a doctor. “I

applied on my Standard 9 results and was accepted, but it just wasn’t financially feasible,” says Mark, who was nominated for the CFO Awards in both 2015 and 2016 for his CFO role at AECI. In the end, I was also lucky enough to have an opportunity in the Coopers & Lybrand space, setting me on an incredible career path that I have no regrets about.”

Laatlammetjie

Studying part time and working full time was yet another challenge for the Kathan accountants and they reflect on the times they would finish work and immediately begin studying. Their mother brought them dinner at the office and the studious bunch kept their eye on qualifying. Once board courses began, they would commute to East London and it was not long before CA(SA) titles followed their names.

There is some gentle ribbing of the doctor who wanted to work with animals and rebuttals about being the only one with a personality, but again the love between the siblings is tangible. “I stopped practicing a few years ago to focus on my family and we’re busy with a home renovation so I am learning a whole new set of project management skills,” says Sunita.

Sunita is the proverbial laatlammetjie, who was faced with an entirely different set of circumstances and in her own words “had the chance to pursue the career I dreamt about”. That was definitely not going to be accounting as she set out to be a vet. “When I wasn’t accepted, I applied for medicine and it was a good choice.”

All the siblings feel that they CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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CAREERS

“If you can lead by example and give others the chance to grow, I really believe you can make a huge impact.”

Veran Kathan, CFO Vodacom Business

made the right career choices.

“No two days are ever the same but my real passion is growing others and being a mentor and coach,” remarks Veran. His sister Christine, who scooped the Finance & Technology Award at the 2016 CFO Awards, agrees. “I enjoy having the opportunity to influence the profession,” she says, referring to her role as chairperson of the much-vaunted CFO Forum, a collective of the country’s most important CFOs that lobbies for optimal regulations.

Justine is also upbeat. “I have been fortunate to have a rewarding career with Deloitte for over 30 years and now also have a responsibility for Africa talent and transformation, which I really enjoy. If you can lead by example and give others the chance to grow, I really believe you can make a huge impact.” And Mark

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adds: “I find job satisfaction in the work, but also in driving fairness in the workplace. It keeps me humble and grounded.”

Opportunities As Veran’s children move in and out of the kitchen, the matriarch of this family would be proud to see how close her children and grandchildren remain to the basic values she lived by.

“Education is everything and I would be delighted if any of our kids became an accountant. I think it’s a brilliant profession for the opportunities it can bring you. Mostly, I hope they recognise the value of their opportunities,” says Christine, pondering the future of her own kids.

As the twin who was determined to forge a path for herself, Justine’s hopes for her children reflect her strong independent

character: “I encourage their individuality and always say dream big. Be positive, respectful of others and learn to make the most of the tough times.” Mark and Sunita share some of their hopes together: “I hope they learn to be there for and love one another – family is the most important thing in life. I don’t think any of them will be accountants!”

Veran’s hopes for his children reflect so much of his own journey – and the journey of these five remarkable professionals. “I hope I can skill and support them to be successful in a world I can’t really imagine. But perhaps the thing I want most is for them to have the chance to be whatever they really want to be.” l

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CAREERS

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CAREERS Kenny Fihla – newly appointed boss of Standard Bank CIB opens up

From high care to high value A pivotal role at the City of Johannesburg turned young Kenny Fihla from a mechanical engineer into a finance whizz. A recruitment risk then turned him from a turnaround genius who knew nothing about banking into the boss of Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) at Standard Bank. CFO Magazine sat down with Kenny for the very first interview since his promotion and chatted to him about his remarkable career, his obsession with leaving a legacy and the bank of the future. By Toni Muir

“T

he biggest ambition that I have is to always leave a better legacy than the one I found when I took on a responsibility,” says Kenny Fihla, who took over from David Munro as Chief Executive of Standard Bank CIB in May 2017. “What will the next generation of people or leaders in my role think when they assume the responsibility that I’m currently fulfilling that forces me to think about my actions? I get obsessed thinking about that – the creation of a lasting legacy.”

Although Kenny, who was promoted from the deputy CE role, is known for his knack to turn things around very successfully, he is always mindful of the ones who will follow in his footsteps.

“I’m fascinated with how every business can do things slightly

better,” he says. “I have no doubt that whoever inherits a business from me, they will always find things they can do differently and improve.”

Born in Johannesburg, Kenny spent his early childhood in the Free State, in a small town called Vrede. “I come from a large family of eight siblings,” he says. “So when it came to the younger ones, it was easier for my working parents to send us to my grandmother in Vrede.”

He also spent some time in the Eastern Cape, though the bulk of his growing up was done in Johannesburg, his city of birth.

Crisis in Johannesburg Kenny’s interest in finance came about more by chance than by design, as he actually studied mechanical engineering.

After the 1994 elections, Kenny

returned to South Africa from Zimbabwe, where he had studied, and joined the public sector by taking up a position at the City of Johannesburg. Although he was initially responsible for infrastructure, Kenny says his responsibilities forced him into the finance arena. He developed a keen interest in issues of finance and economics, so much so that he concluded an MSc in Financial Economics through the University of London and an MBA with Wits University during this time.

When the Minister of Finance and the MEC for local government in Gauteng established a new committee to get the City of Johannesburg out of trouble, Kenny became the chair. Initially called the Committee of Ten, it was renamed the Transformation Lekgotla and its lifespan was extended.

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“People thought I was crazy. Of course I was a bit crazy.

But the point of the exercise was to prove that this was potentially a very big business.”

Its objective was to address the financial crisis facing Johannesburg, and it was in doing this that Kenny’s career in finance took full flight.

“The crisis, if left unresolved, would have resulted in the City of Johannesburg having a deficit of R2.5 billion by the end of that financial year, and it was only a matter of time before the city started to default with creditors,” Kenny recalls. “It was struggling to raise capital to fund infrastructure programmes. If a city can’t invest in infrastructure it becomes run down. If you compound the inability to pay creditors and deteriorating infrastructure, it’s a recipe for disaster.” Kenny says this forced him to take a keen interest in financial matters, ensuring he understood the implication of bad financial management on the overall functioning of the city and its long-term sustainability.

Stamina The work of the committee was tough and did not go unopposed.

“We had a tight deadline and we met a lot of resistance. People were used to the spending taps running endlessly. The paradigm in the city was very interesting at that time: the approach was always, how much can we spend in what areas, and thereafter, how are we going to fund this?

What rates and tariff increases would be required? It was the exact opposite of how the city, 24

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or any business, should’ve been managing its expenditure.”

There was also plenty of union resistance and political interference: “The unions tried to stop us, and there was massive opposition within the ANC alliance.

People saw the restructure as a precursor to privatisation. But we believed in what we were doing and this helped to focus the mind and gave us the added energy, stamina and resistance we needed to do what had to be done. Ultimately, we were successful. The city never defaulted on any of its debt and we avoided a financial crisis. The city even began to generate surplus.”

Fast-forward a few years to 2006, after three years of running the organisation Business Against Crime, Kenny joined Standard Bank. “When the bank is willing to take risks on you and you prove yourself, the bank tends to be exceptionally good to you,” says Kenny, who enjoyed an impressive career at the bank in the last decade, among other roles heading Corporate Banking and Client Coverage within CIB. “The bank has been good to me.”

Sick businesses Kenny was hired to run and turn around a division called Financial Asset Services (FAS). “I joined the bank not knowing anything about banking. They took a risk on me,” he says. “They gave me a business that was in high care – it was out

of ICU but still in high care. They didn’t give me that business to run because I was an expert in it, in fact I knew nothing. They gave it to me because I brought with me enough leadership experience and depth of dealing with sick functions and sick businesses.

They saw my experience at the City of Johannesburg as invaluable in turning their business around. Sometimes, we don’t take risks on people because we are looking for a perfect individual who knows everything, instead of identifying people’s strengths and considering where they can add the most value – and giving them a role that plays to their strengths and gives them the greatest chance to be successful.”

When Kenny took over, the situation was pretty bleak. “Staff morale was low. People felt like second-class citizens,” he recalls. “The total revenue generated by that division was R350 million per annum. The business reported to the head of legal, which was quite odd. Even though I was not a banker, it became obvious to me that there were certain things that needed doing to reposition this business. I came up with an idea called FAS 500, where I said we could take the business to making R500 million in three years.

People thought I was crazy. Of course I was a bit crazy. But the point of the exercise was to prove that this was potentially a very big business with massive growth

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potential and opportunities, if only we could focus our minds on achieving that. ”

Really proud It was about being optimistic, Kenny adds, chasing the bigger picture and asking what could be done differently. Within just a few months, all everyone could talk about was FAS 500, and Kenny says this became the mantra. It was at this point that Kenny broached the subject of a name change for the business, and so Investor Services was born. “When I look back, that business is now substantially bigger and is one of the key businesses within CIB, and one of the anchors of its product group.

That business has close to 50 percent of market share now in South Africa. I’m really proud of that. The name and ambition has been retained over the years.”

According to Kenny, the global financial crisis was a big turning point for the bank, especially as far as growing into an emerging market bank was concerned.

At the time, he had only been with the bank for two years. It was also a learning opportunity for him. “The crisis forced me to rapidly grow my understanding of what can go wrong in the bank and in the business I was responsible for,” he says. “It was extremely useful in accelerating my own understanding, growth and knowledge. The financial crisis hastened this learning for me.”

Kenny’s ideal CFO 1. “The CFO is one of the core partners that I need in running the business. The CFO should be concerned with the overall performance of the business in the same way that I am. They are not concerned with whether they are selling enough forex or lending enough money, but about the overall performance of the business. Inherent in this is understanding the revenue and cost drivers of the business, albeit with an altogether different lens. I want someone who partners with me.

They must dig into detail with the end in mind, not just for accounting purposes.”

2. “Business leaders must worry about sustainability. There’s an incentive to focus on short-term deliverables, though these may not be sustainable into the future. The CFO is that important conscience within the business. They have access to information and resources that can help them better know the trade-offs, model where we are likely to be in future years, and know the implications of short-term decisions. For me, a forward-looking view is an important role of the CFO. Outstanding CFOs will distinguish themselves by being good at this.”

3. “The CFO should also be an independent sanity check for the organisation, especially in banking. Banking is a simple business but it is also complex. It is simple in that what we do is done by other banks, complex in that the risks in the bank can in some instances not be that visible, only showing up in years to come. In a CFO, you need a partner who understands the nuances of taking money when the opportunity presents itself but also realising that we are vulnerable and ensuring we create a sustainable business model.”

The crisis brought about a change in CIB’s strategy, in particular the drive to be a business that sought to do business across Africa. “When we shifted to focus on Africa, our own vulnerabilities became visible,” Kenny says. “We realised we had to perform well in the larger markets in Africa.

Suddenly we could see that we weren’t where we needed to be.

It was a very useful turning point for the business because we could now focus on that.”

“CIB is one of the most exciting businesses to work for”, says Kenny, calling the opportunities for growth “amazing”. He says: “We are a large business in South Africa and have a dominant market share in some products.

Despite this, we continue to grow, even in an economy that is close to recession. If you do the right thing, clearly the opportunities for growth are massive. These prospects for growth excite me.”l

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CAREERS BCX’s Refilwe Nkabinde reveals the mentors, experience and attitude that got her to the top

The making of a CFO Four powerful women – a mother, a grandmother, an accounting teacher and a career mentor – helped Refilwe Nkabinde to become BCX CFO at age 37. She spoke to CFO Magazine about her remarkable journey. “I feel equipped with all the tools I need to be a CFO.” By Georgina Guedes

W

hen Refilwe Nkabinde told her mother that she wanted to be a CA, her mother did not know what she was talking about. “Back then, we didn’t have black chartered accountants. I had to explain what it was and why I wanted to be one.”

She explained that she was driven by a love of maths and accounting, and by the understanding that everything has a financial impact and by becoming a CA you can really influence a company’s outcomes.

Refilwe grew up in Pimville in Soweto. She was the only girl between two brothers, and says she was “daddy’s favourite” and always got what she wanted.

“Our generation [of black people] either came from a family of teachers or nurses and I came from a family of teachers – my mom was a lecturer, and my grandmother was a teacher – so I was meant to be a teacher too,” She attended Bapedi Lower Primary, where her grandmother was a teacher, and so she was

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expected to perform. She says this laid the foundations of her work ethic. “I was hard on myself.

Today, I demand a lot from myself and my team – it started from there.”

Her mother was trying to work and study at the same time, and Refilwe’s grandmother offered to take the children so that she could focus on her work. “My grandmother said that it’s not right to go from a school dress to a wedding dress, so she took us and my mother studied all the way up to her Masters.”

Refilwe says that her mother was also a “serious feminist”, and while she and her brothers were growing up, there was no division of household chores along gender lines. “I mowed the lawn, my brothers cooked, all of us washed the car together. I grew up not seeing careers as being for women only and men only.”

Because of the role she occupies today, Refilwe often gets asked questions about what it is like to be a woman in a man’s world. “I hate those questions. I just grew up doing what I wanted, and here

I am,” she says. “I never really think about it, but when I hear the questions and then walk into the boardroom, I realise I am the only woman – but it doesn’t bother me because of my background of growing up with boys and being able to do whatever I want to do, and not creating that filter that says, ‘hang ten, you can’t look at that because that’s for boys only.’”

Spending all the money It was at Mondeor High School that Refilwe first realised she wanted to become an accountant. Her accounting teacher was a woman called Mrs Hamlet.

Refilwe failed her first accounting test – cash receipts journal – and Mrs Hamlet was hard on her, telling her that she obviously did not prepare enough.

“The second test was cash payments journal. I worked really hard and got 100 percent. So now my family jokes that I spend all my money because I got 100 percent for spending. But it was a lesson learnt.”

Refilwe’s accounting skills continued to blossom under Mrs

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Hamlet’s watchful eye. “It could be how she explained the profession to me. She said that these people sit on boards and they help make big decisions for companies. If companies go down, they are responsible. If the company does well, it’s because they are doing their jobs right. It energised me – I wanted to be one of those.”

So Refilwe broke it to her mother (then explained it to her) and went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study her chosen profession. She did her training at Standard Bank as the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA)

had recently introduced Training Outside Public Practice (TOPP) as opposed to Training Inside Public Practice (TIPP).

“I liked my training and knew where I wanted to go. As I did my accounting training, what really appealed to me was management accounting – dealing with corporate finance and financial management. I knew I didn’t want to be an auditor.”

She stayed on at Standard Bank, which gave her a really good insight into the financial management side of accounting. At this time, she also formed a relationship with her TOPP mentor,

Vanessa Olver, who was then the director of finance at the bank.

Always demanding more “She had a positive impact on my career from the get-go. Her work ethic is great, which linked back to the influence from my gran and mom. She always pushes.

That’s what I liked about her. She reminded me to always demand more of myself and not just to be happy with mediocrity. If it’s not great, it’s not good enough.”

Refilwe worked in Consolidations for Standard Bank Africa, where she enjoyed learning that there’s no single brush for dealing with financial matters in differCFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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”If the individual is happy and living his or her purpose, that will naturally spin-off to benefit the company.” ent countries. Then she moved to Risk, still in Africa, and then to Restructured Debt Finance, which she said was her favourite role at the bank. After that she moved into the corporate and investment side of things, which she also enjoyed immensely.

“I learnt to understand about my own risk appetite, and which things to look for to get comfort.

I appreciate that I have certain strengths but sometimes need to bring in other people’s strengths to get an understanding of the assets. That was my big takeout from the banks.”

After almost ten years at Standard Bank, Refilwe realised she didn’t want to be banker and that ten years with a bank would put her in a box. She had a discussion with Vanessa, who had moved on to become the CFO of Business Connexion, as the company was called then, and stressed that she wanted to be a CFO – that was the point of her journey as a CA. When an opportunity came up to be the deputy CFO at Business Connexion, Refilwe applied. She got the job and started working under multiple CFO Awards nominee Lawrence Weitzman (Vanessa was now the Group Executive in charge of the Services Division), and heading up big teams, which she says was one of the skills areas in which she was lacking. She says the highlights were that she gained a better understanding of working capital and good process man-

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agement, and she had a clear sense of what it is that CFOs do.

Leadership training At that point in her career, she had only worked at two businesses, and so, when the opportunity to work at Brandhouse – a joint venture between Heineken, Namibian Breweries and Diageo – came up, she relocated her family and children to Cape Town.

“I was their financial controller, working under the financial director, looking after tax, treasury and financial controls,” she says. “That was another step that was missing in my journey to becoming a CFO – the technical accounting side of things. The biggest advantage was that it was a different industry and global company.”

is that I am clear what my purpose is. I felt equipped with all the tools I needed to become a CFO one day.”

Back to BCX Then the joint venture came to its conclusion and while Refliwe was given the opportunity to stay on with one of the companies, her responsibilities would have become smaller. At the same time, Vanessa asked her if she would like to come back to BCX at a time when Telkom was thinking of using its investment in the company to become a big player in the market. “This excited me. I want to be a part of building something new.”

After she found her feet, she was promoted to become the strategy and commercial finance director. When she interviewed for the position, she made it clear that this was what she needed to be a CFO here or somewhere else and that she wanted to get on with it.

She started on 1 February 2016 as the CFO of the newly created company, now only branded BCX and owned by Telkom. “I am happy to come back and plug into my networks. There are a lot of familiar faces who are also happy to be here. We’re all trying to build a fantastic company for tomorrow, trying to pull the integration together. There are lots of opportunities and everyone has great ideas.”

“The biggest careers shift for me was around leadership.

Brandhouse had extensive leadership training as a world-class organisation. They looked at the individual and actually honed in on what makes the individual great. They believed that if the individual is happy and living his or her purpose, that will naturally spin-off to benefit the company. What came out of that

She says that when she has done psychometric tests in the past, it has shown that while most CFOs are typically very logical and analytical, she is more on the creative spectrum. “When I hire for my team today, I don’t look for people like me, I look for people that are different and embrace the diversity of the team because that becomes our strength.” l

TALENT Become more human! Seven ways to give robots a run for their money

CFOs vs. machines As a CFO, you probably think that machines and robots will affect the jobs of lesser skilled workers, rather than your own. Your are WRONG, writes futurist Graeme Codrington, strategy consultant at TomorrowToday Global. CFOs need to partner with machines to make the most of the new world of work – and become more human to keep adding value. By Graeme Codrington

T

he last two hundred years have shown us clearly that new technologies both improve the world and destroy – or at least transform – jobs. Right now,

it is computers, smart devices, the internet, social media and algorithms that are revolutionising how we live and transforming – and destroying – jobs at an alarming rate. As a CFO or man-

agement professional it is easy to think that this new digital era is likely to affect the jobs of lesser skilled workers and staff members, rather than yourself. But actually, the next wave of job losses is going to be among professionals – and accountants are likely to be some of the first to be affected, unless they focus on learning some new skills.

There are a few key intersecting technologies that are at the heart of this revolution. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most significant right now. This is the set of computing methods that allow for automated perception, learning, understanding and decision-making by machines.

AI is used in GPS systems to select the best route out of millions of options; it’s what allows Siri and Google Now to recognise our voice commands, and to translate what we say into other languages in real-time; it can recognise faces, see patterns in data and ensure that we get just the results we are expecting from search engines, and receive recommendations at our favourite

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online stores and websites. Each of these capabilities involves a complex network of microtasks, and it is these small intelligent subsystems – called algorithms – that will start finding their way into our lives and our jobs in the near future.

The next level beyond this is machine learning or deep learning, where machines do not simply complete tasks assigned to them, but actually decide for themselves what the tasks should be. They are sent in a general direction and make up the rules as they go along.

We are about a decade away from computers becoming more intelligent than we are, although they can already do many parts of our jobs better, faster and cheaper than we can now. This does not mean we expect an army of sentient machines to invade our workplaces. Instead, slowly at first, and then increasingly bit by bit, our jobs will be eroded as machines do more and more of what we do today.

Machines are better Machines are already better than humans at a whole range of tasks, including: predicting the weather, reading an X-ray, correcting grammar and spelling and checking for plagiarism, picking out a face in a crowd, storing and retrieving data, flying an airplane long distance, reading documents and doing discovery in a lawsuit, detecting a fire or a water leak, trading stocks and currencies, playing poker or chess, choosing what movie to watch next, auditing a bank 30

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statement, watering your garden, sorting packages, maintaining the correct temperature in your building, monitoring a critical care patient in hospital, eye surgery and diagnosing cancer.

The last item on that list is interesting, and provides a nice case study for CFOs to consider. IBM’s Watson computer – the third most powerful in the world – has spent the past few years learning about cancer and related diseases. It has access to more data than any human doctor ever has had, and right now is outstripping human doctors in its ability to correctly diagnose diseases. Human doctors get about 75 percent of their diagnoses right, whereas Watson is close to 99 percent accurate with the same information. There is no doubt that if you had the choice, you would want Watson to diagnose your disease. And if Watson is doing the diagnosis, then the machine might as well prescribe your treatment as well.

What is left for the human doctor to do?

The same is true for other professions – or will be as soon as large computers are focused on each of them. CFOs for example, should all look at the audit software Auvenir, which has been making a splash at accounting conferences for the past two years. Using AI and blockchain technologies, it pretty much automates the audit process.

Key human skills Over the next few years, we will see more and more work done

by machines. But they will not take all of the work from us – we will still need a few key human skills in the system. It is these skills that professionals should be focusing on if they want to remain relevant. Trying to beat the machines at the things they can do better than us is an exercise in futility.

Here are some of those skills: 1. Creativity and ingenuity.

Coming up with novel ideas and new insights, and having the desire to do so, is something machines will battle to do.

Computers can be taught the mechanics of originating new ideas, but true creativity and new insights seem beyond their reach.

2. Sense-making. Too often the finance department appears to do little more than generate reports and summarise data – machines do that brilliantly.

Analysis, insight and sense-making is what is required from people. The CFO of the future will use machines to crunch data, but will rely on smart people to make sense of it all, to communicate it effectively, to engage with the business and be thought leaders.

3. Unstructured problem-solving. Solving problems for which the rules do not currently exist.

Many finance departments are gatekeepers of the company purse and manage the budget.

They will need to become more proactive problem-solvers and bring strategic insights to the business to be relevant in the future.

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there is an almost certainty that AI will not run entirely smoothly.

To build AI systems that can identify errors in AI systems will take many decades, and so, for now, we’re going to have to rely on human beings to keep an eye on our machines to ensure they behave themselves.

7. Empathy, love, care and compassion. In many professions these are considered ‘the soft stuff’, but we know that it is these very human, relational traits that bond a team together and help motivate people to give above and beyond expectation. This also includes self-awareness, personality and consciousness – three key things that science really battles to understand. The human touch is indispensable for most jobs – even in the finance department.

4. Common sense. We typically call something ‘common sense’ when we put aside the strict and rigid application of rules, systems or logic, and go with some form of gut instinct. In reality, we select one set of principles to trump another. It is very difficult to write an algorithm for common sense, which is why most of us have experienced frustration already when we come up against automated systems.

Humans are needed to help us escape from these rigid systems.

5. Ethics and morals. Many of the

choices we make in life are made by balancing multiple sets of information and options. It is not always obvious which choice is the right one. In legal terms we talk about what the ‘reasonable man’ would do. It will be a long time before a machine masters the subtleties of doing this. An intelligent machine’s ‘moral code’ is only as good as the data it receives from humans – it does not have metacognitive awareness itself.

6. Identifying errors. Whether it is through programming mistakes or malicious cyber attacks,

Intelligent technology can certainly improve human outcomes, but it needs educated, imaginative and emotive humans to realise its full potential. For the foreseeable future at least, we need to partner with machines to make the most of the new world of work. And to make the most of our own personal careers and futures, we need to focus a lot more on developing the set of skills outlined above. These may not come naturally to many CFOs and their teams, but mastering them will most certainly give you a competitive edge in the years ahead. In other words, CFOs should focus less on competing with the machines and trying to do better what they can do best, and instead should focus on becoming more human. l

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TALENT Second roundtable event CHRO South Africa dives deep

Bringing the Human back into HR CHRO South Africa hosted its second ever roundtable in which executives discussed the need to bring humanity back into the HR profession.

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osted by Deloitte’s Anneke Andrews at The Woodlands Office Park in Woodmead on 25 May 2017, the group of attendees broke away into separate sessions, which were led by CFO South Africa CEO Graham Ferhsen and CHRO SA executive manager Didi Sehume, before enjoying dinner and some drinks while networking.

their organisations. “The leader sets the tone in the organisation. And, in many ways, if you don’t get buy-in from the leader – whether it’s regarding a recognition programme or trying to get people within the organisation to connect more – any initiative to drive a certain culture within the organisation is bound to fail,” said Zoraydah Shedrick from FNB.

In partnership with Workday, CHRO roundtables give HR executives practical insights that would allow them to go back to their work environment with a fresh perspective. Workday is a financial management and human capital management software vendor, which has been instrumental in the launch of CHRO South Africa, an organisation that connects HR leaders and helps them boost their knowledge, career and network.

Authentic

One of the biggest takeaways from the sessions was that HR professionals needed to have the courage to address frailties and insecurities of leaders in order to bring back the humanity within

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Cebile Xulu, who recently joined Mondelez International, said that there was nothing more damaging to organisational culture and sentiment than leaders who are not authentic. If leaders are simply going to take a box-ticking approach to the way the engage with their employees – and not really value their inputs – employees will sense it and they will begin to disengage with whatever message comes from leadership.

But this is something that is much easier said than done because, while some leaders are open to new ideas and willing to change their approaches for

the betterment of the organisation, many are set in their ways, not only because their way of doings things is what got them to where they are in their careers, but also because they are simply not as interested in people issues as they are in improving the financial performance of the organisation.

“I found it very difficult early in my career when I first started sitting on executive committees, to challenge some people because, as soon as I did, the person would get very defensive and switch into business mode to talk about operational figures and other aspects of the business,” said Mhlo Ntshangase from Saint-Gobain Construction Products. “My concerns would then be ignored because those matters would often be beyond the scope of my portfolio. What helped a lot was when I started spending time in the operations divisions and understanding that aspect of the business so that, when I did challenge someone, I could back up my argument in a language that would not allow the person in question to side-

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Jane Waters, Allen & Overy

Glenda Van Wyk, GVW HR Consulting

step my concerns.”

Become the conscience Trevor Page, Director within Deloitte South Africa and a leader in the Human Capital Consulting practice, perhaps captured the spirit of the roundtable discussions best when he said that HR, over the last 20 years, had been too self-absorbed and forgotten the essence of what its purpose is, which is to make people the best that they can be.

“We’ve been on a journey of our own self-discovery and we have become process-driven,” said Trevor. “And when you become process driven, you lose the essence of what you’re about.

Anneke Andrews, Deloitte

Everyone has touched on it here today. The transformation that we have to make as HR people is to become human developers again. We have to become the conscience of the organisation, whether it relates to the individual at the cultural level, at the skills-development level, at the transition-of-people level, and at the honesty-and-integrity level – and I think we have lost that a little” Clinton Voskuil, who is now only a few weeks into his new role at Sage, said he had once been given a mandate to improve the happiness of employees within an organisation, even though the behaviour of the leader that had

given that instruction was inconsistent with that message.

Anneke found the whole notion of making HR responsible for improving the happiness of employees quite unreasonable, saying that it is was tough enough for a person to take charge of their own happiness.

Shifting the responsibility for things like that, to her, was akin to telling teachers at your children’s school that they were responsible making sure they had good values. “When you take ownership and responsibility away from individuals and seek to outsource it to another division, you are bound to get into some trouble.” l

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TALENT RMB CFO Markos Davias about talent, tech and transformation

Leading from the back Markos Davias goes through extremes to keep a low profile and maintain an image of unassuming, part-of-the-team-type finance exec. To no avail. His passion for young accounting talent, promoting diversity and embracing cutting-edge technology makes the 36-year-old RMB group CFO stand out as a massive inspiration. By Joël Roerig

A

solid centre-back, strong in the air, leading from the back, stopping goals at all costs – including a broken bone or three...

These are all phrases Markos Davias uses to describe himself on the soccer field and in many instances these correlate with his approach to leadership. “My family, more recently fatherhood, sport and specifically soccer have all had an influence on my life and career choices,” he says.

At the office, his biggest joy is spending time guiding young professionals on their career choices in the fast-paced world of corporate and investment banking. At

“RMB is a company that encourages fun, accountability, trust, humility and learning.”

36, he has not only the energy of youth on his side, but as RMB’s chief financial officer he is also able to play a critical part in grooming future financial professionals, equipping them to embrace the waves of technology enhancements that are disrupting most finance teams.

With Markos striving to be a role model for the young chartered accountants that he interacts with during RMB’s Count CA Programme road shows, he plays in the frontline of dealing with the most current issues. “Every year I find the questions I get from students are more difficult and specifically technology orientated,” he says. “How are the banks dealing with FinTech?

Will a bricks-and-mortar bank still exist in ten years’ time? Will technology solve Africa’s problems? What are banks doing about cybersecurity?”

The RMB Count CA day is a

development initiative of the bank to explore the future career avenues that CA trainees can consider in a corporate and investment bank. The students are recruited from Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg and get the opportunity to meet some of RMB’s inspiring leaders and top talent. Markos is very excited about the fact that the RMB Count CA Programme is this year for the first time also open to accountants (CA, ACCA or CPA) from Nigeria, Namibia and Botswana.

200 CAs “We started the initiative in 2013,” he explains. “Collectively, my colleagues and I interact with over 200 CAs and historically we have hired about ten to 15 CAs off the programme depending on RMB’s staffing requirements. We also run a two-year CA rotation programme whereby successful candidates get the opportunity to rotate through several supCFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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“Defenders must also be able to contribute goals when joining the attack during corners and free kicks. The same applies to business.”

port and front office roles, receive training across a variety of disciplines, interact a lot with our CFOs – including myself – and ultimately find which area best aligns with their interest, skills and career aspirations. It’s effectively a two-year interview that works both ways,” says Markos.

While the role of finance as a controller is important and must be done flawlessly, Markos believes that finance’s role does not end at only being a good defender. Modern-day football also expects more versatility from its defenders. “The way I see it is that defenders must also be able to contribute goals when joining the attack during corners and free kicks. The same applies to business,” he says.

“At RMB, finance is expected to add value in managing, optimising and allocating financial resources, as well as contributing significantly to the general management of the business and in the formulation and implementation of business strategies.

Converting business strategy into a financial vision has been a key role finance has played at RMB over the past year. Finance is no longer viewed as ‘just accountants’, but rather as business partners with a strong commercial acumen and the ability to engage with a broader set of stakeholders,” Markos notes.

Apart from the many industry-re-

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lated questions Markos has to field, students often want to know why he chose a career in the financial services industry and what it entails to be a CFO of a big company like RMB. At 20, Markos had the tough choice between trialing overseas as a professional soccer player or following in the footsteps of his father and pursue his studies to become a CA. With no regrets he chose to stay in South Africa and complete his studies at the University of Johannesburg. Thereafter “lady luck”, as he calls it, landed him in the financial services industry division at Deloitte, where RMB was one of his clients.

True heroes Markos evidently still enjoys drawing analogies between sport and business. True to his humble nature he prefers to be in the background and make sure finance and risk do not score own goals. Even convincing him to do an interview with CFO Magazine required significant persuasion.

“As a defence, we always want to make sure we win the ball fairly and pass it forward to the midfielders and strikers. If a team has a solid backline, they can then attack freely, trusting their defence to do its job. Strikers should be the true heroes.”

It was at RMB that Markos found his calling – a proud African corporate and investment bank built on Traditional values and Innovative ideas. “RMB is dif-

ferent,” he says, describing his employer as his family away from his family. “I was drawn to the bank’s people values and commitment to excellence. RMB is a company that encourages fun, accountability, trust, humility and learning. There are no pedestals or glass ceilings here.

As a corporate and investment bank we are often being humbled by the markets or macros.

Without our clients we have no business so adding value to them and becoming trusted business partners is a critical focus area.”

This is Markos’ tenth year at RMB and he has worked in all of the finance departments, except private equity. He became RMB CFO in 2015 and acknowledges experience can only be earned with time, adding that is lucky to have several experienced colleagues and mentors to draw guidance from. With a smile, he adds: “Sadly, most people think I am over 40 anyway.”

Look in the mirror Markos has learnt from some of the best in the industry.

“Everybody needs a good mentor to coach you or a sponsor to guide your career. I have had many mentors and sponsors throughout my career. While at Deloitte many partners gave me good guidance and honest, hard feedback which made me more self-aware and resilient. More recently I have also been blessed to have various RMB mentors and sponsors.

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responded to a comment in a particular meeting by shooting from the hip. Hugh was also in that meeting. I didn’t handle it very well and afterwards he was clear in his feedback on how I could have handled it better,” says Markos, who does not mind that his mentor now officially reports to him. “You can’t change such a relationship and he is still my mentor. It gets lonelier as you become more senior in an organisation, so you need lots of trusted sounding boards and welcoming criticism is important.”

RMB’s former CFO was instrumental in guiding and skilling me for the future, making my transition into his big shoes a little easier. I was also fortunate to have worked for two amazing co-heads in the investment banking division who helped mature and hone my commercial, financial and EQ skills.

Being forced to look in the mirror daily and be aware of my blind spots has definitely been a big part of my personal and business growth,” says Markos.

and journey from early in my career is Hugh Harrison,” he adds. “He was a partner I worked for at Deloitte. He is now our RMB Global Markets CFO, but even in this role he still challenges, advises and guides me.

In him, I have always had someone whom I could trust to place the mirror in front of me. He is brutally honest but fair in his feedback and if it means he needs to make you a little emotional and teary eyed so be it.”

“One of my mentors that has impacted my leadership style

“I remember a few years back, as RMB Head of Finance, I

One of the things ambitious youngsters should do, is to find such guidance, says Markos. “In most specialisations, you can teach the important technical skills, especially to people with a strong background of learning.

But there are personal leadership characteristics that are harder to convey or teach. For example, we have a flat structure with a lot of informality at RMB. You cannot teach people to be good delegators, negotiators or be comfortable with an unstructured environment. Staff needs a high level of EQ and need to learn to confront conflict as opposed to hiding from it. That is not something you always learn during articles at audit firms and neither at university. These are some of the additional things we look out for when we recruit new talent.”

Diversity Another aspect we look at when CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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“We need to find a balance between transforming our platform, bringing robotics and attracting the right workforce and talent to complement that.”

recruiting is diversity, which is a key element of the RMB culture, Markos explains. “When I look at potential recruits, I ask myself: how do you, as an individual, bring diversity to the team? That can relate to race, gender, coming from different firms or different universities. Each comes with a different way of thinking and has a unique stamp from their lifeto-date experiences.”

Markos emphasises that the bank’s diversity drive also means hiring youngsters that have audited manufacturers or other industries different from financial services. He also likes to look outside the Big Four. “People from smaller firms are often hungrier. They have had to do it the hard way. When you give them a chance, they give it ten times back in discretionary energy.

While we may have to invest a bit more in technical skills than with guys that come from the Big Four or that have financial services experience, the commitment levels always seem higher due to us giving them the opportunity.”

RMB believes that exceptional performance is only possible with exceptional people and that creativity and innovation unlock the strength of diversity, says Markos, adding that gender diversity is a key part of the bank’s overall transformation strategy. “We acknowledge the critical role that both men and women play in the success of our business. Women

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make up more than half of my finance workforce and it is essential that we continue to attract, develop, advance and retain female talent at all levels,” he says. “We have a gender equality initiative called Athena to create an environment where women feel empowered to achieve their individual career goals, and to grow the number of women in financial services in South Africa.

With more women filling leadership positions, the discussions have started to change and are much richer – our female colleagues are very persuasive, challenging and insightful.”

and anticipating the role of cutting-edge technology. “We need to find a balance between transforming our platform, bringing robotics and attracting the right workforce and talent to complement that,” he says. “My team and I call it intelligence amplification – IA as opposed to AI – as we believe technology will amplify our employees’ ability to be effective. These days, I spend about 35 percent of my time on technology, partly operational and around cybersecurity, but also often high level ideological discussions about where technology can take us.”

Centre-backs are known to be solid players and perhaps a bit more cautious and conservative than their teammates, but soccer fans can also list many central defenders that have made great, world-renowned captains.

Markos says he sees it as his mission to help create and protect shareholder value for FirstRand, he has not thought of a career beyond that. “RMB CEO James Formby appointed me and I want to ultimately be part of the team that make his tenure as CEO very successful,” says Markos.

“I also really enjoy seeing new deal structures and translating these into their financial outcome,” says Markos. “In my current role, I hope to continue focusing on being a business partner – trying to make our business unit CEOs think about things they haven’t thought about yet, especially when looking at earnings volatility, risk and returns. The future of finance will require a convergence of risk and finance, and being cross-skilled across both disciplines is where the future growth opportunity and niche is. I find more and more that alignment between our CRO and myself and our teams is critical to understanding the full risk and finance value chain.” l

Intelligence amplification One of the most challenging and demanding tasks for banks in the next decade will be to incorporate the latest technology, while maintaining an ambitious and happy staff complement. Markos spends a lot of time working on

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GOVERNANCE

Minette Smit and Marylla Govender explore the rise of ‘the Patel factor’

Competition law meets radical transformation CFOs feel the Competition Commission is increasingly used for political goals like employment guarantees, creation of learnerships and radical economic transformation. In this guest article, competition experts Minette Smit and Marylla Govender explore the most recent trends in competition law and the rise of ‘the Patel factor’. By Minette Smit and Marylla Govender

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t is 17 years since the inception of the South African Competition Act and competition law enforcement continues to be vigorous and successful.

Some now argue that competition law and its associated institutions are becoming a victim of their own success.

Where other regulators have mostly proven toothless, the Competition Commission and the Competition Tribunal have been able to pry open cartels and punish offenders. Where broader economic policy has failed to force companies to change tack, competition policy clearly has not disappointed.

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It is not surprising then that recent pronouncements by Government allude to effect further changes to the law and its application to use it to achieve its goal of ‘radical economic transformation’, a trend that has started when the regulator moved from the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) to the Economic Development Department (EDD) and Ebrahim Patel was appointed minister in 2012.

While the objectives of the Competition Act do encompass elements that go further than simply remedying market failures and regulating mergers – to include certain broader

socio-economic goals which are included in its public interest mandate – the authorities have in the past steered clear of pursuing a political agenda.

However, its success in promoting free and fair competition seemed to have encouraged some role players to attempt to push the authorities to go beyond its mandate when addressing public interest concerns through merger regulation. There seems to be a real danger that the Competition Act and the competition institutions may be used to pursue goals far beyond those intended by the act.

What does the future hold for

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There seems to be a real danger that the Competition Act and the competition institutions may be used to pursue goals far beyond those intended by the act. past efforts in uncovering cartels in sectors such as cement, construction, building products, and bread have been widely publicised and applauded by consumers and politicians alike.

Marylla Govender

this important area of the law if its focus is re-directed from seeking “to maintain and promote competition” to “transforming the economy”? Is there a risk of “regulator capture”?

Uncovering cartels Let us take a step back. In recent years, there have been three noteworthy developments that may cast some light on this issue: the criminalisation of cartel activity, the first successful follow-on damages claim due to a competition law violation and a marked shift in focus towards public interest considerations in the context of merger proceedings, something CFOs refer to as ‘the Patel factor’.

Cartel activity, which relates to price fixing, market division and collusive tendering, is widely condemned as the most egregious and harmful violation of competition law. No-one disputes that its eradication should be high on the agenda for any competition authority.

In February this year, the Competition Commission announced that banks and currency traders were involved in price fixing and market division in the trading of foreign currency involving the rand. Since then, further cartels have been uncovered in relation to fire protection equipment and car shipping.

The Competition Commission’s

To support its cartel detection and enforcement efforts, the Competition Commission has made use of several levers including an effective corporate leniency policy, which grants immunity to applicants choosing to disclose information regarding their participation in a cartel; and the use of dawn raids, which are surprise search and seizure operations conducted on a company’s business premises.

Jail time Cartel contraventions will in future have a more direct impact on management: where fines and reputational damage in the past had an impact at a company-wide level, criminal sanctions now take the form of fines or imprisonment for individuals. It is an offence for company directors or persons in a position of management authority to engage in or “knowingly acquiesce” in cartel conduct. The amendment that came into force in May last year brings competition law in line with other jurisdictions such CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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as the United States and more recently Australia and the United Kingdom.

The future thus could look quite different for those involved in cartel activities: prosecution of the directors or managers of a firm by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) (and not only the competition authorities), personal liability for fines and jail time are all probable. While this could raise some interesting legal dilemmas such as its effect on the Competition Commission’s corporate leniency policy, companies will have to ensure that managers are adequately trained and prepared for such an event.

Follow-on damages and class action claims by persons or companies that have suffered harm due to anti-competitive behavior (such as cartel conduct or abuse of dominance) has also now become a reality. Last year the High Court ordered SAA to pay Nationwide Airlines R97 million in damages in what was the first successful follow-on damages claim due to a competition law violation in South Africa. Earlier this year the Court awarded a damages payment of R554 million plus interest to Comair in relation to a travel incentive scheme that was implemented by SAA. While these damages claims were awarded following lengthy legal proceedings dating back to 2003, it could provide an indication that the era of pursuing follow-on damages may be gaining momentum in South Africa.

However, will these developments

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contribute to ‘economic transformation’? The eradication of cartel activity and the threat of damages claims will certainly help to transform the way business is conducted and could contribute to ensuring lower prices for consumers and in some cases even compensation for those who suffered harm (a form of redistribution?). One could therefore argue that effective competition law enforcement and harsher punishment for noncompliance certainly contributes to ‘transforming the way business is done’ or ‘the economy’. In other words, if the competition authorities continue to vigorously take care of competition, it should be enough.

But is it the economic transformation that politicians have in mind? Trends in merger adjudications seems to suggest otherwise.

Turning point Merger control is an important part of competition law enforcement in South Africa. Assessing the impact of a merger on the public interest is one of the aspects that the competition authorities must consider.

The Walmart/Massmart merger represented a turning point in the prominence given to the public interest in a merger that raised no competition concerns. (On the contrary, there was a view at the time that the entry of Walmart was potentially pro-competitive). Several government departments and certain trade unions intervened in these merger proceedings by seeking to

secure conditions that protected local employment, procurement and small businesses.

While the merger represents an important example of the intersection of competition law with the broader goals of industrial policy, the Competition Appeal Court was particularly critical of using competition law as a panacea for curing various economic ills by noting that: “Manifestly, competition law cannot be a substitute for industrial or trade policy; hence this court cannot construct a holistic policy to address the challenges which are posed by globalisation.” The Competition Appeal Court also raised a concern that government intervention may have the effect of threatening foreign direct investment into South Africa.

Notwithstanding the view of the Competition Appeal Court in the Walmart/Massmart case, there has certainly been an increase in the number of mergers (with no real negative competition implications) that have been approved subject to employment and other public interest related conditions.

Many of these conditions impose the addition of learnerships and a moratorium on merger-related retrenchments for a period of two years from the merger.

There is little doubt that the successes of the competition authorities in extracting certain concessions from companies (such as those related to job losses, conditions of employment and procurement) in merger proceedings will continue and may

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There is corridor talk emerging of amending and using the competition regulations to break up dominant firms.

Minette Smit

even become a primary focus of merger adjudications in future.

The message is clear: merging parties may have to be prepared to contribute to ‘economic transformation’ in some form or other to obtain merger approval in future. Business and competition law practitioners alike are frustrated about these developments and rightfully so as concessions extracted only for the sake of driving transformation will in all likelihood outweigh the economic gains from the merger.

Losing focus The objectives of the Competition Act do include broader socio-economic goals. Since its inception,

a debate has ensued as to whether the Competition Act itself is the appropriate instrument to achieve these goals. It is clear that, increasingly over the years, in the application of the law, the competition authorities have pursued public interest issues as an important element in their decision-making.

It is remarkable that none of the merging firms that have had to swallow concessions unrelated to achieving merger-specific competition concerns have challenged this in court. We do not believe that competition law itself could be used to solve the South African economy’s systemic and structural challenges.

Besides that, there is a great risk that the Competition Commission loses its focus on free and fair competition, especially now that there is corridor talk emerging of amending and using the competition regulations to break up dominant firms, outside the context of mergers. The challenges facing South Africa of achieving economic growth and job creation will not be solved by simply amending or using competition legislation.

Rather, cognizance needs to be taken of the broader economic and global context in which firms do business when crafting such policies.

As long as the competition authorities show that they have teeth where it matters, the temptation to use the regulator for purposes outside of its mandate will remain. While we still have checks and balances through the Appeal Court, we believe it would be much better to leave politics out of the competition arena in the first place. l Minette Smit and Marylla Govender are Managing Director and Director of Compliance at Compliance Online, a training solution provider. They are also co-authors of the book A Practical Guide to the South African Competition Act, of which the updated second edition was recently launched.

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GOVERNANCE Lessons from ‘The End of Accounting’ by Prof Baruch Lev and Feng Gu

Making reporting great again: five building blocks Quarterly and annual reports are largely irrelevant to investors these days, argue Prof Baruch Lev and Feng Gu in their book ‘The End of Accounting’. CFO Magazine’s international correspondent Jeppe Kleyngeld read the book and – using five building blocks – explains how racially improved disclosure around strategic resources, assets and value can make reporting great again. By Jeppe Kleyngeld

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n ‘The End of Accounting’ Baruch Lev and Feng Gu demonstrate that corporate reports have lost most of their usefulness in doing what they are supposed to do, which is providing investors with information that they can use to make optimal investment decisions. Their conclusion: the very pricy financial reports only provide five percent of the information upon which investors base their decisions.

Lev and Gu propose a new method called the ‘Resources & Consequences Report’ that is mainly focused on non-accounting information, but instead focuses on the enterprise’s strategy (business model) and its execution, and on highlighting fundamental indicators, such as the number of new customers

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and churn rate for internet and telecom providers. The focus of the ‘Resources & Consequences Report’ is on the strategic, value-enhancing resources (assets) of modern enterprises, like patents, brands, technology, natural resources, operating licences, customers, business platforms available for add-ons, and unique enterprise relationships, rather than on the commoditised plant, machines, or inventory, which are now prominently displayed on corporate balance sheets.

100 years No economy can grow and prosper without an active and deep capital market that channels the savings of individuals and business organisations to the most productive investment uses by the private sector. The ‘fuel’ running this sophisticated capital

accumulation and allocation ‘machine’ is information: the information available to investors and lenders on the prospects of business enterprises, translated to expected risks and returns on investments.

While business models of organisations have radically changed during the past 100 years, the financials reports of companies have hardly changed at all.

Therefore, the current reports are fit for companies from the industrial age, not the current information age in which intangible, intellectual assets largely determine the success of businesses.

Non-event One of the major issues is that complex regulations (IFRS/US GAAP) demand uniformity while

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sists of five important attributes that show how the company is creating sustainable value for customers and shareholders.

1. Strategic resources Strategic resources – that are currently hardly mentioned in financial reports – are what give companies their competitive advantage. They share the following attributes: Baruch Lev

optimal reporting is sector specific and can only arise through trial and error. The consequences of the standstill of developments in corporate reporting is that the relevance of reports has enormously declined during the past half century. For investors, the publication of quarterly and annual reports is now usually a non-event from which they learn nothing new.

• They are valuable.

• They are rare.

• They are difficult to imitate.

• The notion that accounting is becoming less and less fact-based. The figures are increasingly based on the subjective estimates of corporate managers.

In their book, Lev and Gu also show the path forward for financial managers. Their ‘Resources & Consequences Report’ con-

The most important reasons for the decline in usefulness of financial reports by investors are: • The ignoral of intangible assets by the accounting system while these are increasingly important for gaining a competitive advantage.

• The ignoral of important business events, like increases in customers ‘churn rate’ (termination) of telecom companies, by accounting. Only transactional information is being reported.

Enterprises owning and operating such strategic assets efficiently, are able to consistently implement value-creating strategies that their present or potential competitors cannot put into effect and thereby gain a sustained competitive advantage.

Examples are the algorithms that Netflix uses to make recommendations, the exclusive rights to content (movies, TV series, sport programmes) that the company owns, and unique collaborations.

Customers and human capital also fall under strategic resources.

2. Mapping investments in resources

Feng Gu

Strategic resources are not free.

Instead, they are generated by targeted corporate investments, such as R&D, brand enhancement or acquired technology.

Therefore, a quarterly and annual report should inform investors with specificity how the company invests in building the enterprise’s strategic assets.

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For instance, a pharmaceutical company could spend considerable R&D funds in quest for a drug, or alternatively, acquire a small biotech company that is already developing that drug. The two routes will obviously have different costs and time to market. Explaining why and how the choices are made is very important for investors evaluating the firm’s efficiency in creating and acquiring strategic assets.

Since customers are also strategic assets, the acquiring costs of new customers or costs to keep existing customers satisfied also belong to this reporting category.

3. Preserving and renewing strategic resources Since strategic resources are the means to create customer value, companies should be deeply concerned about competitors infringing on their assets.

But infringement by rivals is not their only concern; disruption is another. Digital photography replacing chemical photography, Wikipedia replacing traditional encyclopedias; disruption is an even greater threat to owners of strategic assets. Given the serious and continuous threats of infringement and disruption of strategic assets, and consequently the harm to the enterprise’s business model, investors and other constituents should be regularly informed of those threats and the measures taken by the enterprise to safeguard and preserve its strategic assets.

Such measures should fall under the risk management function of the company, which is a

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major component of its internal controls. Included in the preservation of strategic assets are efforts to slow down the obsolescence of these assets. Brands decay (lose their price advantage) without continuous maintenance by advertising and promotion; customers drift away without company attention and communication; media content, like TV series, wither without sequels; and certain patent lives can be extended by modification of the invention. The battle against resource obsolescence should be a continuous part of the business model of the enterprise; as such, its essentials should be shared with investors.

tent or the rental of DVDs. Or if products were sold to customers directly through own online channels or via external brokers. Understanding which roads were chosen enables investors to understand how a company actually implements its strategy.

5. Measuring the value created

How a company deploys strategic assets determines the creation of value. Broadband capacity may be fully utilised or only partially used. Big data on the firm’s customers can be extensively mined to enhance sales, or this resource can waste away on the firm’s servers. Patents can just lie dormant, or they can be developed into profitable products and services, or alternatively, licenced out.

The value created from the chain of resource creation-preservation-deployment is the fifth and final building block of the proposed information system. It involves quantifying and reporting the consequences of managers efforts to create value with the company’s strategic assets. The focus in this chapter should be mainly on the cash that was generated. Revenues and earnings usually contain a lot of estimates and noise and thus will not give a clear view.

Currently, financial reports only give insight in the outcome of the use of strategic assets, but nothing is written on how this outcome was accomplished. And the choices made can make a big difference in how investors evaluate the long-term outlook of companies. For the sustainability of the revenue, for instance, it would matter if the company made money via streaming con-

Many financial managers are already aware of the shortcomings of current financial information, and are therefore open to make serious improvements. The strong incentives to reduce investors’ uncertainty, thereby increasing share prices and reducing the cost of capital, will undoubtedly contribute to managers’ willingness to adopt this proposal. l

4. Strategic asset deployment and operation

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GROWTH

How CFO of the Year Till Streichert used an ERP project to attain credibility and success

Vodacom’s stunning turnaround In only a few years, Till Streichert turned Vodacom’s finance team into a flourishing intelligence unit that keeps raising the bar globally. No wonder the German executive was named South Africa’s 2017 CFO of the Year, also adding the Strategy Execution Award and the Finance Transformation Award to his collection. CFO Magazine decided to pick the brain of the miracle man himself to figure out what makes him so special.

By Ebrahim Moolla and Joël Roerig

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or a textbook example of a finance executive who has used the first 100 days of his tenure to make a swift and decisive impact on his organisation, there is no need to look further than Till Streichert, CFO of Vodacom Group. Following a successful stint at Vodafone Romania, Till moved to the Midrand Campus in 2014. His most pressing issue was to drive the group’s “muted” ERP implementation, after Vodacom had gone through a significant and remarkable transformation project: switching its ERP from Oracle to SAP. “The implementation left some challenges to bed down, which is why I was brought in, as I had overseen such projects in the

past,” says Till. Although he is careful to choose his words, the CFO admits the situation needed attention. “At some stage, we had a pretty low paid-on-time ratio, which led to obvious reputational impact.”

Just about 15 months later and the finance team of Vodacom was suddenly ranked in the top-three of all Vodafone finance teams globally, and another year later the South Africans became the absolute global number one and won four group awards, a first for Vodacom. “It was a big thing, because we compete against mature European divisions,” says Till. “It was a stunning turnaround and an astonishing achievement for the finance team.”

How did he do it? Till says that successfully tackling the ERP conundrum was the source of his success, something that provided him with the credibility that he needed to reach for the stars.

No more consultants “We put in a 90-day improvement plan in the finance operations area and analytically deconstructed the processes before restructuring,” says Till, who showed the door to all the consultants that were circling the project and kept the door shut even though he was offered resources to hire help. “I had the right people in the right places, which was crucial because I had only been at the company for three months and my judgement was more based on a gut feel.”

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“As an incoming leader, I was able to cut through the noise, being authentic, while being open to ideas and really listening to people.”

With the ERP system starting to hum, smiles returned on faces behind the desks, at the coffee machines and in the corridors.

“Now we’ve reached a high level of automation with regard to balance sheet controls. Our internal business partners could start doing their jobs properly.”

Finance had become – to use the cliché just once more – a true business partner. “You can call us the intelligence function or precision management,” says Till. “You can give it many different names, but the most important thing is that we now bring more of a scientific approach to the future. We

CFO of the Year: a privilege “I was quite surprised and felt very privileged to be the 2017 CFO of the Year,” says Till, who also won the Strategy Execution Award and the Finance Transformation Award during the prestigious gala event on 12 May 2017. “The awards are testimony to and an acknowledgement of the great work that the entire finance team has done, especially considering where we have come from and where we are now. The awards make a lot of people at Vodacom very proud. It is really hugely positive and there was a lot of enthusiasm after the awards were announced internally.”

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are doing a lot of modelling and we are looking at incorporating trends like artificial intelligence, robotics and automated journal entries and reconciliations.”

Clarity about roles One of his most important early contributions was clarifying people’s roles and what expectations he had of them. “There is a lot more clarity now about what people need to achieve,” says Till, whose nearly 900 people strong finance team is now in good shape to meet financial targets and has set itself as a goal to remain the benchmark for finance teams in the Vodafone family. “As an incoming leader, I was able to cut through the noise, being authentic, while being open to ideas and really listening to people. That unlocked an enormous amount of individual contributions, collective wisdom and combined power.

We also hired a number of very skilled and smart people, some of them actuaries and data scientists, that helped us make finance a lot smarter.”

Till built up a diverse CV before he moved to South Africa with his wife and daughter. He occupied various key roles at T-Mobile in both Germany and the UK, before joining the consulting firm BCG. Between 2008 and 2013 he made his mark at Vodafone Romania, where he was part of the team that managed to return the company back to growth fol-

lowing a downturn on the back of the global financial crisis and a ratings downgrade of the country.

Many of the lessons Till learnt in Romania, where he managed to get Vodafone growing again, he brought with him to South Africa. A lot of it comes down to discipline, perhaps even better embodied by the German word Gründlichkeit, which means both carefulness and thoroughness.

“What I have tried to bring in is a vision of seeing where we should be and a self-understanding of what finance should be doing. I take a systematic and focused approach when tackling issues and challenges, following a strict methodology, using root cause analysis, optimising our processes and promoting rigorous implementation of what we have set out to do.”

Becoming future-proof Although one of Till’s successes at the Vodacom finance team has been supplementing chartered accountants with differently skilled colleagues, he feels that the exact qualification of finance team members matters less and less. What is more important in a fast-changing world is the desire to stay current, he argues. “As a company, you need to make sure that your people get trained sufficiently through dedicated courses or conscious learning on the job. You have to develop yourself, both as a collective and individually, to be future-proof.”

GROWTH Four ERP implementation lessons from Till Streichert “Do not underestimate the size of the challenge. It is not just a finance project but a complex process that involves the entire organisation.”

“Make it a top-three priority. It cannot be number seven or eight on your priority list. It needs to take around 20 percent of your time for about 12 to 18 months.”

“Incredibly good project management is important and finance needs to play a key role.”

“Understand your starting point.

When system implementations are sold to you, vendors always begin with where you need to end up, but you first need to really understand your starting point.”

CFOs are no exception and need to be future-proof too, says Till. “I have the opportunity to do training, meet other CFOs and meet very smart and senior people that I can learn from. I also try to reserve a little bit of time to think ahead and embrace what is going on in the digital space. As CFO, you also talk a lot to investors. Such conversations are always very insightful, as you hear what other people think about your business, which helps you calibrate your own thinking.”

Till is excited about the future,

full of connected devices, drones, driverless cars and other groundbreaking inventions, especially as telecoms businesses like Vodacom have a significant role to play, with telephony quickly taking a backseat to data consumption. “There are huge things coming our way in the next five to ten years,” says Till, but he is quick to add that this is not what he finds most attractive about working in this industry. “What does excite me most is connecting people, in particular in Africa, where we can make a huge difference to people’s lives.” l

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Five Big CFO Issues.

Till Streichert on… ...the CFO role “As a CFO, you have a unique scope. You can dive deep into very specific topics or reach as far as to co-pilot the business with the CEO. This is an incredibly rich remit and if you play it right, you can be incredibly influential and help steer the organisation. I love my job and the profession.” ...leadership “I listen to people, try to create an environment in which people feel good and enjoy to come up with great ideas. Of course, you sometimes have to lead from the front. I am still in the space of partnering and learning from colleagues, harnessing the intellectual firepower of my team.”

“I have an open-door policy and make myself available at short notice. If people want to see me, they will see me on the same day.

At Vodafone Romania, we implemented an open-floor policy, with a clean desk at the end of each day and choosing where we sat from day to day. This worked very well, with people passing by and talking to us.” ...his toughest task “Our subsidiary in Tanzania has been subjected to comply with a listing mandate called out in July 2016. Six months is an incredibly short timeframe to prepare a company for an IPO, but through working closely with all key stake-

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holders we made it successful.” ...succession “We have a big focus on developing our people. We do that through positioning people in the right roles, which gives them the right challenges so they can learn. Succession planning is incredibly important and this is reviewed regularly by the relevant board committees.” ...transformation “In the past 18 years, Vodacom has spent more than a billion rand to transform the lives of

people through the Vodacom Foundation. Reflecting on our 2015/2016 financial year, Vodacom achieved a level 2 B-BBEE status, scooping up the most empowered company award on the JSE. During this period, we invested R28 billion with B-BBEE suppliers of which R2.8 billion was spent on black-owned small, medium and micro enterprises, R7.2 billion to greater than 51 percent blackowned suppliers and R5 billion to greater than 30 percent black women-owned suppliers.” l

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Former CFO Rajesh Mahabeer talks about leadership and his move to Garuda Capital

Saving the SANParks audit A clean audit, a revamped finance team and stable finances are what Rajesh Mahabeer was hired for at South African National Parks (SANParks) and that is what he delivered – in just two years. After a career of public sector CFO roles, crowned with a CFO Awards nomination in 2017, it was finally time for him to move on from the lions and elephants.

We spoke to Rajesh about the spectacular finance transformation at SANParks and his new job at Garuda Capital. By Toni Muir

“I

t was fascinating from day one,” says Rajesh, reflecting on his stint at SANParks. With 38 years of finance experience, including CFO roles at the Auditor-General and Walter Sisulu University, he was certainly no stranger to challenges in the public sector. He enjoyed setting his teeth into the challenges at SANParks – which focuses on multiple complementary mandates like conservation and tourism. “This mix creates a different level of complexity. The role was quite different and var-

ied, and very stimulating.”

Even before Rajesh had joined the SANParks team, the board had told him that the entity was at serious risk of getting a qualified audit report. “They wanted me as the incoming CFO to do as much as I could to avoid this,” he says. “I joined on 1 February 2015 and year end is 31 March, so it was a short time. I had to prioritise what to do as an incoming CFO to avoid a qualification.”

There was no time to look at the books in the “traditional

manner”, says Rajesh, so after consulting his new finance team he decided to personally write out the journal entries that would bring the financial records to an auditable state – and which would comply with the accounting conventions of being fairly stated. “Before the audit started I sat with the Auditor-General and explained our process and the entries. They tested and accepted it, which resulted in an unqualified audit report.”

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“SANParks needs more rangers in the bush and needs to invest more in interventions in the park to detect and stop rhino poachers.”

Rajesh says some very critical decisions followed – decisions that were unpopular and not necessarily nice but which had to be made. “Once we got the unqualified audit report, it changed the dynamics at SANParks. The board was more comfortable and the Department of Environmental Affairs and other stakeholders were also more comfortable.”

It allowed Rajesh to make “significant inroads in corporate governance” and strengthen financial administration, creating a finance structure that was leaner, meaner and more relevant, as well as more effective than before. In March 2016, the SANParks finance team even received the clean audit award from the Auditor-General.

Joining a team as the new guy – albeit the new guy in charge – and rebuilding it takes strong leadership skills. “You’ve got to earn people’s trust and confidence,” Rajesh says. “You are there to lead and grow and empower your staff, not to be their friend. They must understand that you are their leader.

When a person has faltered, we

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engage and try to understand, do our best to resolve it, on the premise that the person will learn and grow from the experience and not make the mistake again”.

Vulnerable Rajesh had to work hard to build camaraderie and confidence in the finance team. “When I arrived at SANParks, I realised that people felt vulnerable, insecure and afraid. A lot of them felt inadequate. The feedback they were getting was that they didn’t know what they were doing. Having understood that I said to the various teams: I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to help you and work with you, I’m part of the team. In exchange for that I want you to be completely honest. Tell all of us everything. If you don’t know something, tell me and I’ll help you and later I’ll teach you. People started to open up. Through that journey, a few people had to go, some new ones came in, and confidence levels kept on growing. People are more impactful when they understand what they are doing.”

Rajesh says that SANParks is “not business as usual”, as it is a

system of national parks where the assets include fauna and flora. As such, you have to stay flexible in your approach. “A lot of the parks have been ravaged by the drought. When this happens, you cannot predict the impact on your revenue through tourism and you can’t predict your costs in terms of conservation. So, it’s about having the agility to be able to understand what’s happening and how it’s going to impact the business, and how you respond to that.”

SANParks generates 70 percent of its operating income on its own, Rajesh explains, with the balance coming from government. The operating model is thus quite commercial, although the revenue streams are limited. “But the costs are increasing. SANParks needs more rangers in the bush, needs to invest more in interventions in the park to detect and stop rhino poachers, and needs to pay more overtime. So, at the end of it all, you need an agile business model and to be able to shuffle your money around quickly in the areas where it’s most needed; to respond quickly.

It’s about arranging your funds to get the most out of everything.”

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CFO Awards nomination “touching” “For me as a proud CFO it has been a very touching experience being nominated and I feel quite privileged. To be acknowledged for one’s work is not an often-done thing in the world today.”

In April 2017, he started a new chapter in his life as Head of Public Sector Finance and Deal Origination at Garuda Capital, a company that operates in the mergers and acquisitions and fund mobilisation space, working both in the private and public sectors.

New chapter

“The deal flow is quite healthy, so I expect to be very immersed in the M&A and financing space.”

After the significant impact he made at SANParks and after a long public sector CFO career, Rajesh says it was time for a new challenge; something different. “When I was appointed by the previous board of SANParks, there was a specific mandate I needed to achieve, which included getting a clean audit, setting up a finance team, ensuring we had the right people in the right roles, and creating stability in terms of the finances. I achieved all of this in two years and on a sustainable basis.”

So far, Rajesh is loving it. “Every day, you are immersed in analysing the financial statements of different clients. You need to look at the reasonableness and correctness of these and consider the interests of investment bankers and other investors. But you are also taking this work to the next level, where you do the corporate finance work on it.

I’m very excited about what I’m doing. The nature of the transactions is very different. The deal flow is quite healthy, so I expect to be very immersed in the M&A and financing space. Basically, I am continuing to polish up my corporate finance skills so that I’m able to deliver the results the client is looking for.” l

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Top executives share experiences during jam-packed Cape Town CFO Summit

Cloud power and volatility’s opportunity In an ever more volatile world, chief financial officers constantly have to revise their strategies to anticipate changing markets and currencies, particularly when considering large-scale acquisitions.

T

he CFO Summit in Cape Town at the Radisson Blu Hotel on 22 March 2017 saw two jampacked sessions where delegates discussed these challenges – and opportunities.

Sponsored by Standard Bank and Oracle, the event featured deep insight in ways that volatility can help unlock value to drive growth as well as ways in which to reap the benefits of using the cloud.

CFO of the Year 2016, Reeza Isaacs of Woolworths, and Imraan Soomra, CFO of global fishing company Oceana, shared how they factored in volatility when steering their companies through two massive deals.

“When we were looking at the deal, we looked ahead longer than five years,” Imraan

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explained. “But having said that, we certainly never anticipated Trump ruling America and we expected a more stable environment going forward,” he said, referring to the acquisition the US-based Daybrook Fisheries and the fishing assets of Foodcorp in 2015.

Reeza concurred with Imraan’s views, saying that currency movements in particular are hard to predict with the Australian dollar and South African rand both being particularly volatile currencies.

In 2014, Woolworths bought the Australian-based David Jones brand for $2 billion. According to Reeza, management decided not to hedge but to rather let the cash flow in each country service the debt.

Instinct and data Both guest speakers agreed that CFOs act as sounding boards to their CEOs. “When the CEO has doubts, the CFO has to step in to remind the CEO to stick to the strategy. The two managerial roles tend to support each other and as a CFO, you put your head on the block by presenting all the facts. You have to bring a mix of instinct and data, making decisions based on the facts and following your gut at the same time,” Reeza said. “When you are working on a massive acquisition, it is a rollercoaster and can become very emotional for the CEO. This is where the CFO steps in as the source of ration and reason, allowing the CEO to step back and revisit the deal from a factual viewpoint.”

In the second session on how

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Imraan Soomra, CFO Oceana

Armin Moradi, Oracle

the cloud is changing business models, innovation guru Paul Steenkamp and Spur’s chief information officer (CIO), Patrick Lawson, discussed how CFOs can embrace the leaps in technology to the benefit of their bottom lines. Armin Moradi, territory manager financials South Africa for Oracle, was also on hand to contribute to the discussion.

Cloud benefits Facilitated by Didi Sehume of CHRO South Africa, the session kicked off with Patrick discussing the different benefits of using the cloud. “Currently there is a lot of hype around the cloud.

When websites were first around, everyone was busy building one without a real understanding of what you could do with a website and what the benefits were. Similarly, a few years

ago, everyone started building apps without a clear understanding of the strategic benefits for their businesses. In light of that, I would advocate caution. In our case, we initially went into the cloud for all the wrong reasons and then gained an understanding of the potential benefits for the business. Now we are seeing increased collaboration, ease of access to data – both of which are key drivers for us,” he said.

Patrick explained that first, you need a business strategy which is translated into an IT strategy and then you should get an expert in cloud technology to explain the different consumption models.

For example, the software services, platforms, infrastructure

– you may choose to use different things. “In our company, we have a lot of legacy technology and it’s not feasible to simply decide to migrate everything into the cloud. But a small to medium-sized enterprise could have a very different strategy,” he said.

Technology is an enabler of what the business is trying to achieve and building innovation capability at businesses is often a cultural struggle, said Paul Steenkamp, a former Standard Bank innovation chief and now entrepreneur of his own firm, I am Jack Frost. “Your chances of success increase exponentially if your CEO puts innovation at the forefront of all their communications,” he said. l

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From losers to winners: a chat with award-winning Cipla SSA CFO Nishant Saxena

Prescriptions for growth From a struggling, low-margin entity, Nishant Saxena turned Cipla Sub-Saharan Africa into one of the most profitable pharma players in South Africa. The success yielded double success at the CFO Awards in May 2017 for the Indian expat, who played a key role in shifting the strategy and improving the finance team. By Toni Muir

W

hen the fate of several businesses lies squarely in your hands, decision-making is tough. And when you are an ‘outsider’, it also requires immense maturity. This is where Nishant Saxena found himself when he came over from the “Indian Mothership”, as he calls it, to run finance for the South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) division of pharmaceutical company Cipla.

“Finance had to get deep into our operations and highlight areas we could do better. It had to be the objective voice of conscience, and push back on some business

units and say we shouldn’t be there,” Nishant recalls. “We had to help make choices on what to do and what not to do, hold everyone honest to their KRAs (key result areas), and build relationships with global factories and functions. It took my CEO and me a year to convince everyone. But now this drum-beat and personal accountability have become part of our culture.”

tising empathetic listening, says Nishant. “The icing on the cake is always if finance is able to show real value-add to the business and not just highlight mistakes. We took on added business development responsibility and committed to finding half of the company’s aggressive growth target through partnerships, in-licensing, M&A or any forms of alliances.”

Nishant, in his role as Regional CFO and Director – Business Development, handled $600 million in business across 12 countries. To be able to support the business, it was crucial to keep things transparent and devoid of emotion, while prac-

Bold plan When Nishant moved to South Africa three years ago, as part of the acquisition by Cipla India, the situation was dire, he admits.

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“Cipla is currently the fastest-growing large pharmaceutical company and is the third largest in South Africa. Our margins have doubled.”

had to shut down. We were sitting on a R600 million loan and the factory was losing millions every year. It was my task to create a bold strategic plan,” he says, illustrating the key role his team had to play. “Finance is like an internal venture capitalist responsible for ensuring the right returns on investment, and as Cipla’s largest acquisition ever, all eyes were on South Africa’s performance.”

Nishant’s team calculated that a pharma player worth less than R400 or R500 million in revenue would be too small to be profitable. His bold turnaround plan, and also the KRAs for finance, encompassed three things: heavy growth, doubling margins, and compliance and governance.

The goal was to become the second-largest pharmaceutical company in South Africa. At the time, Cipla was in sixth place. “If the market was growing at eight percent, we needed to grow at 16 to 20 percent. Our margins at the time of acquisition were ten to 12 percent.”

The plan worked brilliantly: “Cipla is currently the fastest-growing large pharmaceutical company and is the third largest in South Africa. Our margins have doubled. The outstanding R600 million loan we had is now fully paid off. Our factory is now fully profitable. Our ROIC has doubled. Inventory is down 30 percent while receivable days

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have halved. And we enjoy the highest standards of governance on audits and compliance.”

Strategic shift Nishant says that in addition to “stretch goals”, a believable action plan and regular status check was also crucial.

“Monitoring is very powerful, as is empowering your people.

When we put up a plan for 18 percent growth, no one thought it was achievable. We said we would focus on business development and M&A to get this growth. The base business was thus responsible for half the growth and new business for the rest.”

Finance’s first priority in all of this was top-line stewardship, Nishant says, explaining how his team played a crucial role in a fundamental strategy shift that worked so well that Cipla is now looking to replicate it globally. “The improved performance of nine percent growth becoming 18 percent growth was because finance worked to find partnerships, alliances, acquisitions targets, and in-licensing opportunities. For example, last year we did a massive partnership with Teva, the world’s largest generics company, and this year with Activis. Finance showing the rest of the business that 18 percent growth was possible was unheard of.”

The beauty of the novel approach was that it turned Cipla’s weak-

nesses into strengths. “Other companies can now obviate their fixed costs and instead leverage Cipla’s vast infrastructure.

We’ve now done a dozen large and small deals with several other companies, who leverage our sales team to grow and share their profits with us. We have low, if any, incremental costs. It’s all incremental revenues. These are either licensing and distribution agreements or we buy the IP and the legal entity.”

Nishant says that while growth hides many sins, the other equally important priority was to get the margins right. A significant cost optimisation programme, working with Mckinsey, led to significant improvements in both margins, cash and ROIC. Through all this, it’s important to maintain a big-picture view, Nishant says. “Every company and its founders have a large vision that keeps the people energised every day. For example, in Cipla, we want to make medicines affordable for all, so that none shall be denied. Finance needs to help convert this compelling vision into reality but do it in a financially responsible and sustainable way.”

Finance boot camp When he took over the finance department, Nishant says it was largely a back-end function and the role of value creation or business partnering was not a focal point. “We had a seven-point

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Nishant’s tips for top teams Have a vision. You need to have a very compelling and inspiring dream at both a company and personal level. The vision of finance as a business partner, for example. Your vision needs to inspire.

Set and monitor smart goals.

Visionaries can become dreamers.

You need to marry the inspirational ability of a leader with the operational effectiveness of a good manager. So, you need to set specific, measurable, time-bound goals, and you need to do regular reviews. Our vice chair says: “People don’t do what you expect, but what you inspect, provided you do it with respect.”

Organisation structure.

Define the structure, based on your key priorities, and then get the right people on the bus and in each role. Never put a round peg in a square hole – work to people’s strengths.

agenda to transform the department. This included setting the right tone from the top, training the team extensively, and automating or simplifying where needed. We also created a shared services department,” he says.

As a rule, on his first day in a new department, Nishant always runs a finance boot camp, training staff on finance skills, business skills and interpersonal skills. After this, he sets up processes: “you obviate and automate”. In his opinion, a good finance team is a combination of

MBAs and CAs, as the combined skill sets go much further.

When asked what percentage of time his team invests in data collection and basic accounting, Nishant says less than previously. “It’s about 30 or 40 percent.

I’ve divided my team equally into shared services – corporate finance, accounting, taxation, and receivables payable – and business finance. Everything is automated and set by the business intelligence team. This time saving can be spent on analytics.

I’m happy with the split that we

Have integrity and trust.

“People don’t care for how much you know until they know how much you care.” You must be trustworthy as a leader and decision-making must be transparent.

Be a good coach. You are in this privileged position because you’ve had exposure. You must create an environment open to learning and share your experience with others.

Be a good communicator. As a leader, you are also the chief evangelist for the function. How will you ensure your message is clearly understood even three levels down the hierarchy?

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have now. The idea of setting up the BI team stemmed from the fact that there is so much data available. The BI team spends most of its time just understanding key business drivers and analysing. Just number crunching alone isn’t enough to get the insights you can. The mandate of the BI Head is to deliver one business impact every month based on the strength of his team’s insights.”

E qualities With regards to where further

improvements can be made, Nishant looks at automation.

“When you acquire an entity, the legacy systems aren’t always where you want them to be. I want to focus more on automation, shared services, B-BBEE, and people development. The managers one and two levels below me are doing fine, but three levels below I haven’t been able to give them enough time. ” Nishant uses the ‘five E model’ of leadership that he learnt while he was with Procter & Gamble. It

says that a good leader has five ‘E qualities’: Envision, Energise, Engage, Enable, and Execute.

Being a good listener also helps, he says. “You get two kinds of leaders: the ones who are sure of themselves, successful, ruthless, courageous, but low on compassion. Then you get those who are compassionate and will listen to your point of view, but who won’t stand up to others. I would like to be a combination of these two, though the balance is difficult.” l

Humbled by double win at CFO Awards Nishant is modest about his success at the 2017 CFO Awards, where he scooped both the Young CFO of the Year, for finance executives aged 40 or younger, and the High Performance Team Award. He gives credit to all but himself.

“It’s a very humbling feeling. I’m not saying that because it’s the right thing to say, but because it is genuinely so. I have a large team, 60 people, and as a non-South African, my style of working is so different.

Despite this, everybody gave their full support and worked to such high quality. I just had to add a little value and things went this well. One such team member, Mark Daly, has now stepped up to be my successor.”

“To make an impact, finance has to touch every part of an organisation, even though none of those parts report into finance. This you can only do if your CEO and other directors fully support you and give you the mandate to get efficiencies in all departments. I’m lucky to have had a CEO, Paul Miller, who has full faith in the finance function and in me personally.”

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“I couldn’t’ have achieved half of what I’ve achieved if it was not for my lovely wife, Saba. We got married 17 years ago, but we’ve been together for 25 years.

These are stressful roles and things will be good or bad at the office. You need that quiet confidence that there’s somebody who will always love you, no matter what happens. That security and friendship is what a good partner provides. And of course my little princesses, Diza and Saania. They are my stress busters, and their angelic smiles make me forget all my worries. A part of my life is devoted to helping them be the best they can be and at 12 years they already have started their first entrepreneurship.”

“I think all of us get our core set of values from our parents. By the time we join the corporate world, our basic value system is already set. My father taught me honesty and loyalty, while my mother instilled sheer diligence and ambition. This combination has worked for me.”

LEADERSHIP Why does CFO Garry Pita love Transnet so much?

For continent and country “I love Transnet and what it means to the continent. I am basically doing my national service,” says Garry Pita, the energetic chief financial officer of one of South Africa’s foremost state-owned enterprises. CFO Magazine had a wide-ranging chat with him after he won the Transformation & Empowerment Award at the 2017 CFO Awards. By Ebrahim Moolla

“I

t has been tricky to get politicians, our people and other stakeholders to understand that we can’t keep throwing capital at our problems and need to focus on operational efficiencies,” says Garry Pita. The Transnet CFO’s verve and unfaltering commitment has been an integral force in seeing his organisation become one of the few stateowned companies to thrive in tough times.

“We have a dual mandate to fulfil: developmental and commercial,” he explains. “This has involved a lot of awareness-raising and transparency around the need to use an agile, flexible operating model. The finance team has been instrumental in integrating our investment plans with those of our clients and our move has been well received by ratings agencies.”

Garry has a refreshingly forth-

right approach to management seldom seen in the public sector.

From holding five-minute meetings to keep from meandering and not bogging down his team with unnecessary jargon to having the conviction to stand down foolhardy ideas, the 39-yearold is on a mission to fast-track organisational objectives without compromising his integrity.

Describing himself as an “operationally connected business partner with an entrepreneurial mindset”, his overarching passion for the business and focus on doing the basics right are paying off.

Granny “I treat the company’s money as if it were my granny’s. My personal passion and commitment to this company plays a big role,” he explains. “I love Transnet and what it means to the continent.

I am basically doing my national service. I look after procurement and capital. Leveraging that procurement spend to create

industrialisation and localisation has a huge impact on job creation. I’m trying to inculcate a culture of resilience and courage, encouraging my team to make big decisions and will protect them when they go wrong,” says

Sharing knowledge and networks

“I think it is important to network with other CFOs, because we are all facing similar challenges,” says Garry echoing the values behind CFO South Africa’s media and events: knowledge, network and career.

“We live in a country where unemployment, inequality and poverty are major issues. We all need to work together to share knowledge and understand how we can drive investment both in the public and private sector to ensure jobs and businesses are created sustainably.”

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“This is not a Garry Pita story, it is a South African one. These are people who are helping to make the country a success.”

Garry, who lists former Transnet executives like Chris Wells (also a former CFO), Louis van Niekerk and Maria Ramos, now Barclays Africa CEO, as mentors.

Transnet is the largest and most crucial part of the freight logistics chain that delivers thousands of tons of goods around South Africa, through its rails, pipelines and to and from its ports.

It stands apart from other public sector organisations in that it is completely self-sustaining and does not receive government support. The company is a net borrower and has bonds in markets all over the world.

A 12-year veteran of the company, Garry succeeded award-winning finance chief Anoj Singh in 2016. Previously he worked as the group’s chief supply chain officer and headed up the International Financial Reporting Standard Conversion and Transnet’s group internal control. The Wits Universityeducated chartered accountant has been instrumental in changing the sprawling organisation’s operating model, dealing diplomatically with a range of political stakeholders, renegotiating triggers with financial institutions and furthering the country’s transformational objectives.

In keeping with the global trend of tech-savvy CFOs, Garry

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is Transnet’s digital sponsor and has a hand in the company’s future-focused initiatives, including a disruptive Uber for containers in partnership with General Electric that offers roleplayers a single port of call and invoice and tracking, with insurance and other products as add-ons. He also champions the Transnet Design and Innovation Centre, a project – operated together with Wits University, the SABS and Centre of Engineering – that gives young people the resources and environment to come up with innovative ideas.

Unapologetic Transnet, with a massive operational budget and infrastructure capabilities, along with a workforce of more than 60,000 people, has a vital role to play in the socio-economic transformation of not just South Africa, but the continent as well,” says Garry, who was overjoyed with receiving the Transformation & Empowerment Award at the CFO Awards in May 2017. “We have the best B-BBEE statistics in the country and are the best enterprise and supplier development-driven company in South Africa. We are never complacent about this.”

Garry says he is in it for the long haul and he is helping put plans in place to see it to it that Transnet delivers on its trans-

A Transnet reunion: from left to right the current CFO Garry Pita, his predecessor Anoj Singh (now CFO at Eskom) and media liaison Viwe Tlaleane.

formative potential long after his tenure has run its course. He is charged with administering Transnet’s R400 million per year enterprise development fund and driving supplier development through via stringent contract stipulations.

“We are unapologetic in driving transformation, forcing global heavyweights to connect with black-owned local suppliers and engaging them for a minimum of 30 percent of contract value.

Many of these local firms are now partnering with these multinationals in other parts of the world. At the other end, we sup-

LEADERSHIP

“A true honour” – winning at the CFO Awards “This is a true honour,” is what Garry Pita said after he climbed the stage during the CFO Awards on 11 May 2017 to accept the Transformation & Empowerment Award, handed out by Sasol CEO Bongani Nqwababa, a former CFO Awards winner himself. “I am very very proud of this. I accept this on behalf of Transnet because it is a team effort,” said Garry. “Coming from a state-owned company, we feel the need to lead in the empowerment and transformation of our supply base in South Africa.

We also feel we need to encourage localisation and industrialisation to the extent that we can become world-beaters as South Africans and create exports.”

port empowerment firms through our enterprise development programmes,” says Garry.

Breaking up Transnet Currently, Transnet is operating through five divisions: Freight Rail, Engineering, National Ports Authority, Ports Terminals and Pipelines. Garry would like to see the massive concern break up into its constituent companies in five years and be run under commodity-driven leaders, eliminating bureaucracy. He expects the finance department to play a key role at supply chain level, which will result in a significantly more agile function.

The modest financial executive and committed family man puts his success down to organisational momentum built by the efforts of its many hard-working employees. “We are changing our operating model and the way we do things. It is important to understand that we at Transnet have such belief in ourselves that we will not take money from the man on the street and pick the sovereign up. Our people have an insatiable desire to hunt for their supper and not rest on their laurels. This is not a Garry Pita story, it is a South African one. These are people who are helping to make the country a success.” l

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12 & 13 October 2017

Sandton Convention Centre

Nonkululeko Gobodo, speaker at Finance Indaba Africa 2017

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LEADERSHIP Role model Nonkululeko Gobodo opens up about dreams, letting go and wise leadership

Women CAs: don’t quit!

“If women are quitting, we are not going to produce the leaders we need,” warns Nonkululeko Gobodo in a candid interview about being a role model for female CAs, her deliberate but painful departure from SizweNtsalubaGobodo and the new chapter in her professional life, in which she gets chased for reports – instead of. By Joël Roerig

“I

t breaks my heart when I see talented young females and they are just sitting on boards as non-executive directors,” says Nonkululeko Gobodo, the country’s first ever female chartered accountant who is eking out a new path for herself as a leadership consultant. Her advice: “How will we ever know how good you are? Pay the cost. Go to the coalface. Surprise yourself.”

Nonkululeko, of course, speaks from experience. She knows all about paying the cost and surprising herself. And about the coalface. In the 1980s, while she was still thinking of becoming a doctor, she used to do the books for her father’s panel beating shop in Mthatha. Auditor for that business was Prof Wiseman Nkuhlu, South Africa’s first black CA, who these days serves as Chancellor for the University of Pretoria and member of the judging panel for the annual CFO Awards.

Prof Nkuhlu inspired Nonkululeko to pursue an accountancy career.

She joined KPMG and qualified. “I was so excited. I didn’t even know I was the first black female CA,” she recalls, adding that she never sought the limelight but was quickly told by many people that her unique achievement was not about her. “This was about being a role model for others. Only then, when people made me aware of it, I realised that I was a trailblazer.”

With a pedestal comes pressure, Nonkululeko admits, but she has been adamant not to shy away from her role ever since. “We all make mistakes, but I am trying to make sure I am the best role model I can be.”

Sissies Part of that job is to inspire – or rather implore – the young female accounting talent of today to stay the course. “We are all impatient with transformation but luckily we are seeing more females and black CAs than ever before. We are living in such exciting times.

Yet, we become so comfortable

and complacent. Most women in the corporate environment struggle with the pressure, demands and sometimes with a hostile environment. Because of that, women often think about quitting, but if women are quitting we are not going to produce the leaders we need. Don’t quit because it is hard. Life is not for sissies. At the end of the day you may not have all the answers, but we only have one life. If we are not prepared to face the challenges, we must be satisfied with small dreams.”

Dreams, Nonkululeko argues, are the driving force behind success.

“How do you make it as an aspiring CA? You need to have a vision for yourself. We have to dream, otherwise you won’t make things happen. Of course dreams are never static, but even so you need to keep dreaming.”

For Nonkululeko, her dream included starting her own accounting firm to challenge the Big Four in both public and private sector.

So when KPMG offered her a part-

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“How will we ever know how good you are? Pay the cost.

Go to the coalface. Surprise yourself.”

nership – which would have been the first ever for a black South African woman – she politely turned it down.

Dream After a period as CFO at the Transkei Development Corporation, the time had come to llive the dream. Nonkululeko started her own business, in 1996 morphing into Gobodo Inc when she expanded significantly and started running a company with ten partners and 200 staff members.

“It comes as a surprise to many people, but I have never enjoyed auditing. When my company expanded and we added partners, I said: I don’t want to ever see an auditing file on my desk anymore.

I never saw one again.”

The bigger dream – challenging the Big Four – had to wait until 2011, when Nonkululeko merged her firm with SizweNtsaluba VSP to become the fifth-largest firm in South Africa, a black-owned and black-managed company to rival the best. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream and SizweNtsalubaGobodo (SNG) is now a firm that boasts a growing stable of public and private sector clients.

It was also the toughest, most agonising episode in Nonkululeko’s career.

“It is so painful to go through a merger,” she says. “The rationale needs to be there in terms of synergies, efficiencies and growth, but the success is all about planning that integration and having the correct governance structure

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in place. Despite warnings from consultants, we were casual about culture around the merger.

We thought our shared history as black-owned firms was enough, but our approach to business was completely different. Whereas Gobodo Inc was driven, decisive and disciplined, SizweNtsaluba’s culture was far more creative and casual.”

Surprise For the first time in a long time, Nonkululeko was not in a position to call the shots herself anymore.

She became executive chair of the board and led the corporate academy that worked on the culture and competence of the new firm, while the CEO role went to SizweNtaluba boss Victor Sekese, who just like Prof Nkuhlu is seated on the panel of judges for the CFO Awards. “You can imagine how frustrating it was. There were so many decisions to be made. Eventually, when we did get to the stage of defining our unified culture, people left. And that was ok. The firm was more ready for the future.”

Then the bomb dropped. “People don’t understand why I left,” says Nonkululeko about her surprise resignation and sale of her stake.

“The business had reached a maturity and now it needs to be driven by one vision and a new governance structure with a CEO and a non-executive chairperson leading the board who can really play an oversight role without being part of day-to-day leadership.

We don’t have a legacy of over 100 years like some other firms, so the

board still needs to play a strong role.” Effectively, for the greater good of the company, Nonkululeko felt there could no longer be two captains on the ship, three years after the merger. “Victor and I have completely different styles.

He is younger, so it made sense for him to continue as CEO.” On paper, the explanation makes sense. In real life, Nonkululeko admits, leaving the dream behind was a tough internal battle. “It was very difficult to let go of the legacy. I spent a few months just dealing with that. I learnt a lot about letting go. You need to do that layer by layer. In the end, you just need to accept it.”.

Coalface When Nonkululeko eventually came up for air, she had to decide what to do next. Together with two partners she established Nkululeko Leadership Consulting, a company advising executive teams, especially after transformative events like mergers. “The work itself is very exciting. We are making a big impact in the market,” she said, smiling when she has to admit it takes a bit of getting used to to run a small business where the PA is also the PR manager, among other duties.

“Now I have to do repooooooorts,” she hoots, followed by her trademark laugh that spreads like wildfire among those who hear it. “It is very strange. I used to be the one chasing people for their reports, now I am the one being chased.”

In many respects though, she followed her own advice: ‘Pay the cost. Go to the coalface. Surprise

LEADERSHIP

us it is an important distinction to make that we don’t do talent, change management or HR consulting: this is about effective leadership. This is about having the right operating model and an enabling culture.”

That leadership is not about racing ahead of the troops is something that Nonkululeko, the ambitious dreamer, had to learn the hard way while running her own firm. “When you are younger, you think life is about you and everybody must live up to how you want things to be done,” she says.

“I realised that doesn’t work. I move very fast. I thought that was normal, but it is actually good that other people slow you down.

It makes you see other potholes.

For people to follow you, you need to be able to work with them. We need to meet each other halfway.” yourself.’ “I am a board member at Mercedes-Benz SA, PPC and The Clicks Group, but I didn’t just want to sit on boards. I decided to go into the leadership space.

But what is that? With the two other partners, we spent a long time planning what we could do, because besides the diagnostic side of the field, the rest is a bit fuzzy. Eventually the business established three pillars: leadership consulting, change and culture and strategy, focused on “enabling the execution of strategy and removing what inhibits that”.

With some A-list clients on the books already, including the executive team of a big telecoms firm, the “integrated approach” that

Nkululeko Leadership Consulting offers seems to be finding fertile ground. “We started with our diagnostic, which is a robust engagement process. We interview board members, the leadership team and other staff members.

Leaders often don’t know how change is perceived by their staff.

It has been exciting to design this method and the response from our clients is always: how did you get all this information?”

Potholes According to Nonkululeko, the response has been encouraging.

“They say we provide a breath of fresh air. ‘Wow, you have taken the fluff out of this leadership thing’, is what I am hearing. For

Realisation is one thing, becoming the most effective leader you can be is another. “It is never easy and I still need to find that balance, but I am getting better and better at it,” says Nonkululeko. “It requires self-reflection and is not painless.

We expect people to address their weaknesses, while as leaders we don’t address our own – that does not work. People really appreciate us when we are vulnerable. As a leader I am not claiming to be everything. There is no such thing as a perfect leader. You need to be a wise leader. Demand, demand and stretch people. Stretch them, but give them the confidence that you will support them. That is when innovation happens.” l

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LEADERSHIP Invite-only dinner discussion about saving money and creating value

Property-savvy CFOs share insights Most businesses have a complex relationship with property. A small group of leading CFOs recently gathered for an invitation-only dinner in The Four Seasons Hotel in Johannesburg to discuss this topic. It was an evening of far-ranging and sometimes unexpected conversation.

“T

here is an old joke about dealmaking that says, if you’re wondering who the fool in the room is, there’s a good chance it’s you. This applies equally to the realm of property and I have always relied on expert insights around this core area,” said Premier Food CFO Kobus Gertenbach, guest speaker on the dinner event on 28 March 2017. He opened the discussion by sharing his own journey as CFO, and in particular, the key lessons around property Property experts from JLL, which partnered with CFO South Africa to organise the dinner, were at hand to enrich the discussion.

According to Kobus, there are some critical challenges to face as a CFO dealing with property issues: legacy property decisions,

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strategic versus non-strategic assets, and knowing that there is a world beyond your immediate knowledge and insight as a finance professional.

Kobus was frank about the fact that as a CFO you often “inherit” property challenges. He said: “We can trace our roots as a business to a mill in Durban as far back as 1852, and as one of the leading baking and milling businesses in South Africa today, we have realised the value of core assets and worked through a number of legacy property decisions. The nature of bread is that it needs to be baked and distributed with great efficiency, and we realised we could lease practically all our property, but that owning our bakeries was non-negotiable as it gave us control of upkeep, maintenance, development and longevity.”

As businesses and the environments in which they operate change, so do their property needs. Luvuyo Masinda, CFO CIB Standard Bank, noted that banking was a hierarchical environment and the move to the highly sophisticated Rosebank premises had, as one of its goals, to break down that natural hierarchy with more open and shared work spaces. “People were skeptical about the idea of hot desks or shared spaces and although I notice that people are clearly creatures of habit with many returning to the same work space every day, there is a much better sense of collaboration and engagement across teams and people,” he said.

Hangovers Many organisations carry hangovers of the past, with executive wings or dining facilities that

LEADERSHIP

Kobus Gertenbach, CFO Premier Foods

Graham Fehrsen (CFO South Africa), Mark Kathan (AECI), Simon Wade (JLL), Johan Geel (Afgri), Kobus Gertenbach (Premier Foods), Luvuyo Masinda (Standard Bank CIB), Wayne Koonin (Omnia), Craig Hean (JLL) and Sandra Atkins-Sadler (IBM).

no longer serve the culture of the organisation. “We made a change to our office space, pulling down the physical barrier between executives and the rest of the business,” noted one CFO. “It was a popular cultural tendency of the eighties but we simply couldn’t afford to work in the same way if we wanted to remain relevant.”

IBM’s Sandra Atkins-Sadler noted that the need for collaborative and effective interaction between highly skilled professionals was at the core of the IBM culture, and was very much a part of the thinking behind the development of their office space at 90 Grayston.

“Buildings today are often smarter than their facilities managers,” quipped Craig Hean, MD of JLL. The comment raised

a laugh and the conversation moved swiftly to smart buildings with predictive abilities and energy-saving technology. Buildings that have the ability to geo-map employees on their journey to the office and trigger the building to open more parking, light more office space and even ensure the right coffee was being brewed on the right floor in time for the arrival of the employee who would be housed, for the day, on a floor different from yesterday, are already a reality rather than some science-fiction concept.

Future-proof “You have to step back and consider the impact of technology, not just on your business but on the building itself,” said Kobus.

“Baking science has moved forward at light speed, allowing us to bake up to 16,000 loaves an hour in a single bakery. Very few

CFOs Johan geel (Afgri) and Wayne Koonin (Omnia)

buildings are designed around or capable of carrying this baking capacity and we are very conscious of trying to future-proof our properties.”

The CFOs were generally in agreement that it is very difficult to future-proof anything.

Property, because of its long lifecycle, is particularly challenging.

For award-winning Omnia CFO Wayne Koonin, technology is one way to help your property assets working for the business. “We have our head office in a 20-yearold office park and although it works for our disparate business units, it isn’t always the most efficient option. We have tried to solve this challenge with the use of great technology and it works for us now,” he said. l

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Deloitte’s audit chief Andrew Mackie describes his favourite CFO

Clarity of purpose and priority Deep thinking, diary management and a street-smart approach set apart the best CFOs from their peers, says Andrew Mackie, Deloitte’s newly appointed Head of Audit for Africa. In an exclusive interview, we chat to him about balancing the ‘four faces’ of the CFO, the added value that great auditors have to offer and his own – proudly South African – career. By Joël Roerig

“I

would encourage every incoming CFO to find a way to do some deep thinking as to who they are and how to fill the role,” says Andrew towards the end of our conversation. We have talked about his passion for audit and transformation, we have talked about the balancing act that finance executives have to go through every day, but in – in essence – clarity of purpose and priority is what really matters for a leader.

Partner of Audit & Assurance for Africa, comprising 15 countries and 185 partners. “What are quick wins to establish credibility quickly? If you have a clear, well thought-out strategic plan, you can rapidly establish alignment with the CEO and the chairpersons of the board and audit committee,” he says.

“Establishing those relationships early on is much more important than frantically studying the detail in an attempt to quickly understand your new company.”

“A new CFO would do well to have a 100-day plan,” says Andrew, who was recently appointed Deloitte’s Managing

Born in Zambia and educated in Johannesburg, relationships have been the cornerstone for Andrew’s own career. “My dad

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was a company secretary and I always wanted to be a CA. I started with Deloitte as a vac student in the audit department in December 1985, when I was 18 years old, and I was being paid a little bit of pocket money.

The principle of building relationships is still there now. That is what I built my career on at Deloitte – and I really, really love the firm.”

South Africa Andrew also loved the auditing environment and has always dealt with high-calibre clients like South African Airways, Imperial, Sappi and Nampak.

“The thing about being an audi-

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tor is that the profession only exists because it has been gifted public trust. That is a special thing. It is up to up as a profession to maintain that trust. That is why I do what I do. Our role as auditors is important.”

One of Andrew’s first roles as a young partner in 2000 was that of the firm’s Transformation Director. “It was fascinating to be focused fully on transformation and BEE. I loved that opportunity.” When Arthur Andersen collapsed in 2002, Andrew was the only English-speaking partner within the global Deloitte firm with airline credentials and was offered a partnership to the

United States to partner Delta airlines. “We declined it as a family. We have always chosen to live in South Africa.”

Exceptional people An often-heard complaint is that there is not enough finance talent in the country, but Andrew is more optimistic than others. “Yes, there is a talent scarcity, but that doesn’t mean talent doesn’t exist.

When I see clients that are resolute about filling a position, they manage to do so. It might cost a little and it might take a little longer. There is a normal bell curve for talent in South Africa, although it might be smaller than in rest of the world. There are still

lots of exceptional people. But of course some businesses are constrained by their cheque book.

None of these challenges are uniquely South African.”

The challenge South Africa faces is the absolute need to transform, says Andrew. “There aren’t enough black CAs in the market yet. I have been so impressed with the emerging black talent.

Many are exceptionally good. But there are just not enough people. The problem is systemic and starts at school, the state of the economy also does not help. It is really hard to build the next tier of CFOs. The bench is not yet deep enough. We need to fix that

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“Really robust business conversations drive a high quality audit, because it helps the audit partner place the audit in context.”

as a finance community in South Africa, in collaboration with SAICA and universities.”

According to Andrew, the South African CA qualification is a very highly regarded qualification – as are the country’s CFOs, of whom numerous ones have stepped up to the CEO role. “I also think that the tumultuous time we are experiencing in South Africa, creates a sharpness in the business community – and in CFOs in particular. We don’t know what tomorrow holds, constant change is the new norm. We have learnt to deal with that as a finance community and it has improved our robustness. Our guys punch way above their weight – being more hardy and street-smart than elsewhere – as we go through stuff that you just don’t get to see elsewhere in the world.”

Four CFO faces Deloitte has devised a useful tool, which divides the job of the CFO into four faces: steward, operator, strategist and catalyst.

The last two faces are the ones ‘above the line’ and are generally regarded as the ones CFOs should spend more time on, as they add more value to business performance. “There is also a danger in that,” says Andrew.

“The strategist seems to be the ideal role for CFOs, but that is not always the case.”

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involved, says Andrew. “The balance between the four faces should be determined by the events that the company finds itself in. If you are a natural operator or steward, there might be circumstances in which you could be the perfect CFO for a company for a certain period of time. There are many hats to wear and wearing the operator hat could be the appropriate one at that moment.”

the CFO via our audit role. While maintaining full auditor independence, auditors should leverage the unique vantage point to support and challenge CFOs. When a CFO sees the audit partner as a peer, that can be really powerful. It is, however, up to the audit partner to be good enough, to have business acumen and an understanding beyond technical auditing challenges.”

According to Andrew, the real question is: if you want to play ‘above the line’, what do you need to change to free yourself up? “I like to use the four faces approach to have those conversations with CFOs. How much time do you spend on each of these buckets? How much time would you like to spend on these buckets? What needs to shift?”

That added value is crucial for Andrew and it is an approach he continuously shares with his colleagues. “When I am leading an audit, I make sure that partners working with me have conversations with CFOs and divisional CFOs. Not about the audit, but about the business. In fact, really robust business conversations drive a high quality audit, because it helps the audit partner place the audit in context.”

“Perhaps the CFO needs to make compromises on his or her own role. It is about knowing oneself.

Sometimes getting the balance right can be a simple matter of diary management. I like to have those conversations with CFOs and ask some questions: Would you like to spend more time thinking about strategy? What’s stopping you? Do you HAVE to be in all of those meetings? Do you trust the person underneath you?”

CFO-auditor relationships Andrew argues that good auditors should add incredible value to CFOs. “At Deloitte we try to position ourselves as an advisor to

With the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) often criticising auditors' independence, is Andrew not afraid of a slippery slope? “No, this is not about cosiness. This is about the auditor doing his job: really understanding the business, but at the same time bringing his experience to bear for the benefit of the CFO. Audit partners will only be trusted by a CFO if there is professionalism and independence. No audit partner will risk the reputation of himself or the firm for the sake of one client.

There is a clear line in the sand.”

LEADERSHIP Value of the CFO community

“I am very excited about Deloitte partnering with CFO South Africa, which – I believe – is the right organisation at the right time. It is vital, particularly in these tumultuous times, that finance leaders hunker down together and find common ground.”

“The CFO events unite the CFO community, creating a space for CFOs to engage on matters of common interest. The opportunity for CFOs to have a glass of wine together and – the next day – pick up the phone and have a conversation based on these relationships, is amazing.”

“The annual CFO Awards is also a great event. The event really celebrates success. The fact that one CFO may win in one particular year, does not mean he or she will it every single year. It means this particular finance leader has dealt extremely well with the circumstances that the company has found itself in.”

Andrew Mackie with CFO South Africa MD Graham Fehrsen

Discipline of thinking One of the best CFOs that Andrew has ever worked with, stood out due to that CFO’s ability to think and plan. “He would tell me: I need to talk to you in a couple of weeks’ time about something. I can’t talk to you about it yet, as I am still thinking about it. He would really think through different permutations, whether that involved accounting, moving people around in the organisation or other matters.”

“This CFO was a very strategic CFO.” says Andrew. “He had

a discipline of thinking, taking time to let things float in his subconscious. For him, it was no problem to go home at two o’clock to sit on the porch, stare at his garden and wrestle with some important issues.”

The principle is something Andrew tries to execute in his own work as well. “I try to plan in thinking time: I like to go away from the noise and think about three or four important decisions I have to make. It is so hard to do that, to really try to find time to think about things that matter on

a really deep level. But a business needs intellectual horsepower and it is up to the leadership to generate that. You do not do that by clearing 400 emails.” l CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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TRAINING ‘Work smarter’ workshop a massive success, second chance in September

Becoming a productivity ninja “As a knowledge worker, thinking is at the essence of what you do.

The key to success in knowledge work is good thinking, good decisions and good attention,” said Marcel van den Berg from Think Productive. Marcel was giving a two-day productivity workshop, ‘Work Smarter not Harder’, on 14 and 15 March in Johannesburg, to be repeated in September.

O

ver the two-day course, Marcel guided participants through modules such as nine characteristics of a Productivity Ninja, emailing like a ninja, meeting like a ninja, using your computer like a ninja, organising like a ninja and planning

Nine characteristics of a Productivity Ninja 1.

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and acting like a ninja. He also worked through the CORD Productivity Model, CORD standing for capture and collect, organise, review, and do, before closing out the course with a session on surviving in the age of information.

Marcel spent time talking about the notion of the ‘second brain’; the premise around which the coursework was focused. “The second brain is the analogy we use for a 100-percent reliable system you have that keeps track of all your projects, tasks and deadlines – basically everything you need to worry about in life and work,” he said. “The reason we need a second brain is because our actual brain is not very good at keeping track of all our actions and reminders. Our brain is a fantastic machine, but it’s not meant to remind us of

things, it’s meant to think of new things and creative solutions.”

Fabian Naidoo, Right to Care Divisional CFO, who brought the group’s entire finance team of 30 people along to the workshop, said he was gleaning great value from the sessions. “After this, everybody will be in sync as far as organising and tasks are concerned, and everyone’s expectations will be the same,” he said. “As much as I hate routine, some of my planning had become routine, in terms of how I deal with my emails or projects.

That was one of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt here, I’m a bit old school. I’ve learnt that there are more efficient ways to organise information, tasks and responsibilities, which will be useful in making better use of what time I have available.”

Marcel advised participants to

TRAINING

“Life changing! The course showed me how to think about my action items differently, not only for work but on a personal level too.”

Elaine Keet, Accountant at Ascent Technology “It is really eye opening and the material is easy to follow and very easy to implement in my day-today work and personal life.”

Lorraine Molefe, KPMG “Marcel is an amazing speaker.”

Yseut Bell, Team leader at Eqstra Fleet Management “Very empowering! I feel more equipped to tame my beast of an inbox.”

Kwame Moloko, Finance Director at Specpharm

“think in terms of impact”, especially if there is a need to be ruthless, as well as to think in terms of the next actions or practical steps that need to be taken.

He suggested that the thinking be separated from the doing: “If you do the thinking as the first step, the doing becomes much easier.

So, you need to think if there’s an action worth doing. Or, do you ask someone else to do it, or can it just not be done at all? You must also think in terms of next actions or practical steps then need to be taken, so, in other words, when you finish your thinking you should determine for yourself what’s the next action you need to take; the next physical action.”

The workshop included a course pack filled with useful information and notes, as well as practical exercises for participants to do and then unpack as

a group afterwards; with some of the discussions becoming quite animated. At stages Marcel also asked participants to break up into pairs and discussion various topics, such as the structure of their work weeks, and how they allocated their time each day.

When the discussion turned to the ideal working week, several participants joked that their ideal week was one spent on leave, out of the office. Once the laughter faded, Marcel brought a slide up onto the screen with an example of an ideal work week, with dedicated slots for regular activities such as meetings, report writing, or project check ins. “You are deciding upfront how you are going to spend your week.

So, you’ll know weeks in advance whether you are available for something.” There were murmurs of agreement, and smiles when the simplicity of it became evident.

One participant said: “When you first start out your working career, the scope is small, and you can manage. But as your career progresses and you start to take on more responsibility, you can’t keep up. There’s no such thing as time management these days. I’m finding this workshop excellent as a way to recondition my brain.”

Closing out the workshop, Marcel spoke about surviving in the age of information.

“You need a process of storing important information that is entering your life, and you must be able to find it,” he said. His advice is to be proactive about dealing with information and to see it as part of your work. In doing so, you become intentional about looking up information, he said, and also avoid unnecessary information. l CFO MAGAZINE • CFO.CO.ZA

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WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER 20 & 21 September 2017 | Johannesburg How will you benefit?

Sign up today

• Avoid information overload, procrastination and stress • Maximise your energy, concentration and motivation • Spend dramatically less time on email and distractions.

CFO.co.za/training

• Increase your personal productivity • Work smarter and faster with useful tools, software and apps

Why should you sign up your team?

Do you want to achieve better results than you ever thought possible? Equip your team to be more productive without stress? Sign your team up for the ‘Work smarter not harder’ training and you’ll ensure they: save at least 20% of their time, avoid stress and trivial interruptions and rein in the continuous stream of emails, phone calls, social media and meetings.

Experience calm and oversight. Sign your team up today. Contact our training advisor on info@cfo.co.za or +27 11 083 7515.

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