By Adam Wakefield

The Maslow hotel in Sandton proved the staging point for the latest Leaders on the Move tour, where attendees gathered on the morning of Friday, 21 October.

Outsurance’s Willem Roos was the first CEO of the day, meeting the tour party at The Maslow, where he had his brain picked by media personality Jeremy Maggs, the MC for the day. Roos, like the other leaders on the day’s tour, also fielded questions from tour party members.

Roos, whose academic background is in actuarial science, only became interested in business after getting married and taking a job with an insurance firm, having previously been a university lecturer. It was there that he met his future Outsurance co-founders, Howard Aron and René Otto.

The best decision Roos said he made was starting Outsurance, against the advice of his father and a university mentor, at the age of 24.

“When you are young, it is easier to take risks because you have less financial responsibilities,” he said.

A key moment in Outsurance’s history was a presentation Otto and Roos did at a Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) shareholding meeting. It was there that Laurie Dippenaar, one of RMB’s three founders, told them that their plan for a new direct insurer in South Africa was “interesting”.

They put together a business plan, and following a presentation to the RMB board, Outsurance received the financial backing that laid the foundation for its launch. Dippenaar becoming interested in what Roos, Aron, and Otto were selling, and RMB backing their idea, related to Roos’ thoughts about luck, a theme touched on throughout the day.

“You also have to have a bit of luck. Not just competence and skill. If the opportunity comes by, then you need to be ready to seize it. Timing is important in business,” Roos said.

Other thoughts among many Roos shared were that “no successful formula is sustainable indefinitely”, and it is much better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

The programme then shifted to Braamfontein, where the tour were met by Liberty Group South Africa chief executive, Thabo Dloti, a self-described lover of both mathematics and business.

Asked by one of the attendees whether there is a set age requirement for being a CEO, Dloti said experience is important and that comes with age.

“That is not an excuse to not take risks with people, to give them an opportunity at a young age so they can get that experience quicker. It is not a binary answer,” he said.

“The problem we [corporate South Africa] have is if we have too many old people, we are out of context with the reality on the ground.”

On decision making, the Liberty Group CE said he has become much better at recognising situations where he is asked for a decision on a matter by someone, but actually what is happening is they are passing their “indecision” to him. At moments like these, Dloti sends the matter straight back to the source.

The tour then departed Braamfontein and stopped at the Pigalle restaurant in Sandton for an excellent lunch and educational whiskey tasting, hosted by Johnnie Walker. After lunch, it was on to the final leader of the day, Growthpoint CEO, Norbert Sasse.

Following introductions and an explanation of how Growthpoint reached the point it is at today, Sasse recounted the story of how, when in then-standard nine, he spent his December holiday working the night shift at the Rissik Street post office. He did it to meet his parents halfway to pay for a motorbike he wanted, which cost R699. Though he fell R50 short of his goal, his parents filled the gap and he got the motorbike.

“That, to me, was instilling work ethic. That formed a big part in what I am today. You’ve got to work to get somewhere and do whatever needs to be done to be successful and achieve,” he said.

The tour also found out how Sasse learned a lesson by failing his accounting honours on the first attempt: “It’s ok to fail, but you have got to pick yourself up and keep going”. He ended up completing his honours the following year, attending lectures at night while working during the day.

Asked about fearlessness, Sasse said being fearless to his mind meant arrogance, and that is “one of the worst possible traits you can have”. There has to be fear because if there is not, you are not respecting the risks and threats that exist in that context. No business is built around one “wow” moment, rather a multitude of events that accumulatively equate to a “wow” moment. 

“There is no such thing as a bad property. There is only a bad price,” he said.

After its time with Sasse was complete, the tour then returned to The Maslow where its attendees went their separate ways, wiser for what they had heard. The challenge is now to apply those lessons.

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