‘The one mistake I think I made was staying in auditing for too long. I definitely should have gone into commerce much earlier and stayed there,” Old Mutual Group CFO Casper Troskie says.
Still, Casper did learn a few important life lessons from his experience in auditing. “In Durban, I was part of some really problematic audits. I learnt that if you are not comfortable with something, do not accept it. If there is something that you are unable to live with morally, you need to make yourself heard as soon as possible.
“Trust your gut and do not procrastinate. Do not worry too much about whose feathers you may end up ruffling. If you are wrong, you can apologise later but trust your gut.”
Problems should also be dealt with as quickly as possible. “Do not put off to tomorrow what you can do today. Even while I am on holiday, I make sure I clean my inbox daily. It is an important discipline to have because if you deal with issues promptly, they do not build up into bigger problems later.”
At this point Casper sits up. “Integrity! Integrity! Integrity!” he says animatedly. “You must have integrity to be successful. Think about it. I deal with a very large board, there are 250 people reporting to me directly and the Group has 28 000 employees. If there is an inconsistency in the way you operate, people will see through it. You must have strong values and put the goals of the group ahead of your own personal agenda.”
Looking to the future, Casper plans on transforming the finance function by modernising the systems they use. They are putting their finance infrastructure on a cloud.
In the next two to three years, he also need to find a successor. “Thereafter I will probably occupy a few board seats as a non-executive director. I don’t think I will go straight into retirement, that will be like a vehicle that has been going at 100 miles per hour coming to a sudden and complete stop.”
When I ask him if he fancies becoming a CEO, he pauses for a moment. “I am very clear of what value I add and of my expertise. In November, we successfully raised a bond of R2 billion at good pricing in the middle of a pandemic. Things like that are the things that I find exciting and what I enjoy doing. That is what I am good at.”
This article is an extract from the Masters of Money book by KC Rottok Chesaina (JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS)
