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AFRICA Winner...
EDWARD CHR KIESWETTER South Africa
CEO INSIGHT... Q
What are your most important professional achievements at your current company?
My most important achievements come from a clear commitment to embedding a culture of high performance, ethics and true client-centredness.
I am also proud of having helped to restore the company’s reputation in the eyes of all its stakeholders, but in particular its pensioner clients and the financial media. We remain ever-vigilant in this regard.
I am also proud to lead Alexander Forbes through its recent successful JSE listing: a complex and challenging period of change in any company’s history.
Q How did you do that?
I achieved the above by clarifying our statements of Aspiration and Higher Purpose and embedding these in a uniquely branded internal SERVE model.
Our Higher Purpose promises to deliver impactful service to our clients that touches their lives, provides peace of mind and secures their financial well-being.
Through SERVE the company strives
to deliver Simple and Expert innovative solutions that build long-lasting Relationships founded on the Value of trust – all this in the service of Enriching people’s lives by providing them with Impactful Service. This approach informs everything we do at every level of the company.
Q
What education or prior experience helped you succeed at your current company?
I have been guided and grown more by experience than by education: the two most basic and defining lessons I learned were from my parents, who learned wisely and well from the ‘University of Life’:
• From my father I learned the ethic of hard work
• My mother told me I am ‘here to be a blessing’.
More practically, my business experience was honed by privileged management positions in the public sector at Eskom (General Manager) and the South African Revenue Services (Deputy Commissioner), and now at Alexander Forbes (Group Chief Executive).
Q CEO?
Particular lessons about providing a clear and motivating strategic framework for both external and internal performance, being two sides of the same client-centred coin, were learned at Eskom and SARS.
In addition, I have always applied my parents’ two principles, as outlined above, to all that I do in my life and work. So hard work and impactful service are core to my approach.
Q Q
What are the key success factors for a CEO?
• Engagement, humility, clarity,
confidence, authenticity, service, inspiring followship.
What are the key challenges for a CEO?
When a CEO believes that the work is about the hard stuff (the numbers, balance sheet) – these are part of an outcome. The challenge is to use the energy and passion of people who are often extraordinary in their commitment and to mobilise this to extraordinary outcomes.
I believe that one should spend time managing the company successfully and the Board, as one of many constituencies, will hold us to account. I am clear about what I stand for and what the strategic intent of Alexander Forbes is, both of which I articulate consistently and regularly to everyone, including the Board.
It is also critical to be clear about and agree on the deliverables: then everyone is aligned and it becomes easier for the Board (and other constituencies) to hold me accountable.
I believe one can overcome these challenges by being authentic, connecting with people personally and genuinely, thus impacting their sense of themselves and their desire to perform more effectively.
It is important not to use coercion: coercion does not take people along with you. It is better to articulate a desire to do or achieve something and to create a purpose within people, rather than impose it from without.
Q
How do you manage the relationship with your Board
of Directors?
What lessons did you learn on your way to becoming a
Q
How did you overcome those challenges?
Group Chief Executive of Alexander Forbes Group
FINANCE MONTHLY CEO AWARDS 2014
Edward Chr Kieswetter, Group Chief Executive of Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited
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