Casper’s journey to becoming a CFO began with the choice to become a Chartered Accountant (CA).
“My father encouraged me to become a CA. He founded the department of mathematical statistics at University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1964 and played a role in the development of many actuaries including my boss, Old Mutual CEO Ian Kirk. With a strong domestic background in numerical studies, I slid comfortably into pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce degree at UCT graduating with an honours degree in 1987.”
After his studies, Casper joined Deloitte for articles and was appointed to the role of audit manager thereafter. In 1996, he was introduced to Arnold Shapiro, CEO of Capital Alliance Asset Managers who was looking for a CFO for the business.
“I was very wet behind the ears!” laughed Casper. “Imagine at the age of 33, going from audit to becoming a CFO. It was a steep learning curve.”
The stint was brief as Casper joined Ohlthaver and List (O&L), a Namibian Group that had majority stake in Namibia Breweries among other business interests including franchise holder for Pick N’ Pay supermarkets in Namibia, a fishing joint venture, farms and game reserves.
“It was a very complex business with a lot of debt on its balance sheet. Soon after I joined, interest rates went through the roof and we had to restructure the business which involved selling 25% of our stake in Namibia Breweries to Becks. The transaction was very demanding and when it was completed, I decided it was time for a change and re-joined Deloitte in Durban at the turn of the century.”
At Deloitte, Casper was appointed Head of the Financial Services Business with Bank of England (BOE), Marriotts and McCarthy Insurance as some of his big clients. In 2003, there was a run on BOE which led to a merger between the bank and Nedbank.
Casper progressed within Deloitte to become the National Head of Financial Services Audit responsible also for the actuarial function. In 2008, he decided that he wanted to go back into commerce and joined Standard Bank as the Chief Financial Officer reporting to the Financial Director. He was enrolled into the banks Executive Committee (Exco) in 2009.
Two years later, having amassed some banking experience to add on to his insurance industry expertise, Casper was asked to apply for the CFO role at Liberty Holdings, a subsidiary of Standard Bank. He went through an independent interview process and was appointed to the role in October 2010 to work alongside Bruce Hemphill, the then CEO.
Among the executives that Casper engaged with was Peter Moyo who was a board member of Liberty. Moyo was appointed CEO of Old Mutual Emerging Markets in 2017 and approached Casper to take up the CFO role.
“It was a hard decision to make, but ultimately I decided to take up the offer and be part of listing the company. The announcement was made in January 2018 and I joined officially in March after the lapse of my mandatory gardening leave. After travelling around the world doing prelisting roadshows, Old Mutual Limited was listed on the JSE in 2017.”
This article is an extract from the Masters of Money book by KC Rottok Chesaina (JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS)
