Bruce Whitfield
Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Sanlam’s short-term insurance subsidiary, Santam, has compiled a short-list of replacements for managing director Leon Vermaak. Vermaak is moving to Sanlam as chief executive in just under two months, and his replacement at Santam must be identified by the beginning of May.
Vermaak has been MD at Santam for just under two years, during which he used his marketing experience to raise the company’s profile. He also presided over the takeover of Guardian National to turn Santam into South Africa’s biggest short-term assurer.
“We’ve compiled a list of internal and external candidates, and the board will have to make a decision on a replacement by May 1,” says Vermaak.
He will be in full-time control at Santam until the end of April, and will have to hit the ground running when he lands at Sanlam, the day after Workers’ Day on May 1.
“There’s no time to phase out of Santam and into Sanlam,” he says. “There is just no time.”
Vermaak will be taking over a team vastly more experienced in the long-term insurance industry than he is, and he has also not been involved in the selection of a new group of non-executive directors announced by Sanlam chair Marinus Daling on Wednesday.
The appointment of the four new non-execs to the Sanlam board is evidence that the listed assurance firm is determined to change its public image from being a bastion of Afrikanerdom to a company more representative of the country as a whole.
The three ageing white faces of Kate Jowell, Murray Grindrod and Flip Smit, who are all over 60, will not be appearing in the 2001 annual report, which will have a darker hue than previous years.
Sanlam is continuing to develop an image as a new South African company with the appointment of two black men as non-executive directors.
The appointment of Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe, who is 43, and deputy executive chair of African Merchant Bank, Peter Vundla, who is 52, sees the number of black faces on the board increase to five.
Insiders say it shows commitment by the 79-year-old insurance firm to actively work at becoming a more inclusive new South African business.
Of the 13 non-executive directors on the new Sanlam board, nearly half will be black. Fedics chair Dawn Mokhobo, Natal University vice-chancellor Ahmed Bawa and Absa director Peter Swartz have established themselves at the firm, and acted as “pathfinders” for the company’s future direction.
The company is not moving too far away from its roots though. It has also appointed two Afrikaner academics as non-execs. South African-born Andre Perold, who is now a United States citizen, is a Harvard University Business school professor, educated at Wits and Stanford University. He is a consultant to a range of financial institutions and is also a director of another Sanlam subsidiary, Gensec.
Pretoria University vice-chancellor Johan van Zyl has good government and international connections through his work with a range of departments, the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and overseas consulting firms.