In high school, Deon Viljoen was one of the top science students at Hoërskool Edenvale on the East Rand and on his way to become a scientist. In 1982, his matric year, he was part of a select group of students who were invited to visit South Africa’s nuclear research facility at Pelindaba to the east of Pretoria. However, after getting a glimpse of the kind of work he would be doing as a scientist one day, he realised this wasn’t the career for him.
Since he needed a bursary to pursue tertiary studies, his father advised him to consider becoming a chartered accountant as the profession offered several bursaries and it was a steppingstone to a number of careers. That was how he ended up in the numbers game.
He achieved his bachelor’s degree at the Rand Afrikaans University (today the University of Johannesburg) cum laude in 1985. After graduated with an honours degree from the same institution in 1986, he joined Coopers and Lybrand for articles the following year.
Back then, there was less specialisation for article clerks in the big audit firms. Deon got to experience different industries and only specialised in financial services when he was sent on secondment to the Coopers and Lybrand London office in 1994. On his return to South Africa the following year, he became a partner in the financial services division.
‘Audit firms were true partnerships at the time,’ Deon observes. ‘This was a time when we considered each other partners and values like integrity and trust came naturally. As firms become bigger and risks escalate, we have seen corporate culture creep in with code of conduct becoming formalised.’
In 1998, Coopers and Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse to become Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) and Deon stayed on as a partner until February 2003. At that point he did a mid-career assessment. ‘At this point you ask yourself whether you want to do the same thing until your retirement or whether you want to take the leap and try something else before it is too late.’
Deon was up for something new and took the leap.
He joined Investment Solutions Holdings Limited, an asset management subsidiary business of Alexander Forbes. It was an opportunity ‘to witness the other side of the desk, a chance to be in the driving seat making financial decisions rather than looking in the side mirror at the past, which is the role of the auditor.’
At a company breakfast in 2005, the then Group CEO of Alexander Forbes, Rael Gordon, pulled Deon aside. He wanted him to join the group finance team to help tackle the weighty matters they had at that level. Deon is not one to shy away from a challenge and so he grabbed the opportunity to move to the head office and work with the Group CFO Mike Ilsley.
Despite his youthful appearance (he doesn’t look a day older than 45 years), Deon says he aged in dog years during the stressful seven years that followed his appointment as CFO of Alexander Forbes in 2007.
In 2015, Deon was crowned CFO of the Year by CFO South Africa. At the awards ceremony then CEO of KPMG Trevor Hoole described Deon as a ‘person of integrity, a person of honour, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character and someone who has a sense of what is right’.
By early 2017, Deon had been with Alexander Forbes for over a decade and he was ready for a different type of challenge. ‘The approach to join Discovery came at the right time. After my discussions with Adrian (Gore), the CEO, I was convinced that this role was the right fit for me because of the initiatives the Group was undertaking, which included building a bank.’
This article is an extract from the Masters of Money book by KC Rottok Chesaina (JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS)
