Watching one of the most awesome cricket matches of all time, Bruce Hemphill was understandably tense. Along with other South African cricket fans, he was pleasantly shocked by South Africa’s win.
His appointment to the top job at Liberty came as no less of a surprise. The new chief executive said: ‘I knew that I was possibly in line for the job, but it came a lot sooner than I anticipated.”
Both Hemphill and Rex Tomlinson, who will remain as sole deputy chief executive after the departure of his co-deputy Ian Kirk, come across as down-to-earth personalities, with a straightforwardness only matched by outgoing chief executive Myles Ruck.
With both men in their early 40s, there are no traces of the old-school stiff suits of the Donald Gordon and Roy Andersen era.
Hemphill has worked with Ruck over the past 10 years. Both are products of the original Standard Corporate Merchant Bank team, which spawned some of South Africa’s top financial players such as Andy Leith, who now heads Investec’s local operations; Rob Shuter, who heads Nedbank’s retail division; private equity player Mark Barnes; and Jacko Maree, chief executive of Standard Bank.
Ruck appointed Hemphill as head of Stanlib in 2004, which included sitting on Liberty’s executive management team and overseeing Liberty’s asset management and property divisions. Ruck had already overseen the merger between Standard Bank and Liberty’s asset management team and wanted to hand it over to someone who could consolidate and bed down the changes.
That is pretty much the situation Hemphill finds himself in today at Liberty. Over the past three years, Ruck has restructured Liberty, integrating divisions and streamlining the business. He is known as a tough operator and he got the job done.
Hemphill believes he was chosen as Ruck’s successor not only because of his proven track record of running ‘a lot of different, complex businesses”, but mostly owing to his success in dealing with people and getting them to work as a team, leveraging their collective skills.
‘My role is very similar to what I inherited at Stanlib. My job is to consolidate and build the business. There are challenges in the industry, which was not undeservedly brutalised. The challenge is to make sure we are not in a position where we deserve to be attacked again.”
Part of the challenge facing Hemphill is not only to rebuild confidence in the consumer, but to rebuild staff morale, something employees attest that both he and Tomlinson are good at. However, Hemphill sees his greatest challenge as repositioning the business in the minds of the people who buy the product.
He wants to change people’s perception that they are being ripped off. ‘I believe there will always be a place for Liberty’s products, as long as people know they are getting a fair deal and have transparency.”
The fact that both Hemphill and Tomlinson are new to the life industry is to their benefit, as they are able to acknowledge the bad practices of the past and not be tainted by them.
The Financial Sector Charter will also be a challenge for Liberty, which is positioned in the market as a brand for the middle to upper-income earner. ‘We will not shirk out of our role in the charter process, not because we are being compelled to, but because we have to make the organisation relevant.”
Hemphill insists that any decision will be made on sound business practices ‘while keeping an open mind about the country and the opportunities”. This probably means that Liberty will be looking to penetrate the up-and-coming black middle market rather than try to sell life and savings products to the lower end of the market.
While Hemphill’s job is cut out for him, the outcome of Sunday’s cricket match is enough to give anyone confidence that any job can be done.