Email: bert@gr-two.co.za
Bert holds a BCom in Business Economics and Industrial Psychology as well as a B.Com (Hons) in Industrial Psychology from the University of the Free State and an M. Com in Personnel Management from the University of Pretoria. He is a registered industrial and counselling psychologist and mentor/practitioner with the HPCSA and the SABPP respectively. He holds executive education certificates from IMD (Switzerland) and the University of Michigan/IESE.
Bert’s professional career spans 37 years. A significant portion thereof was devoted to human resources management and business administration at an executive level in major corporates such as Armscor, Denel, Infoplan, Kentron and then later executive director roles in most aspects of retail banking, card and payment systems at ABSA Bank. He went on to be appointed Group Executive Director at ABSA Bank Limited with diverse business responsibilities. He was seconded from Absa Bank to Unifer Holdings a subsidiary that came into financial; distress as Executive Deputy Chairman and later CEO and following a successful turnaround thereof started a green fields operation for the mass market in South Africa between Absa bank and a major furniture retailer. He acted as MD of Maravedi Group, the holding company and as Chairman of Maravedi Financial Solutions and Maravedi Credit Solutions. Once these businesses have been sold to the JD Group he started his own strategic business consulting company called GR-Two Strategy Consultants and supported the newly appointed CEO of Maravedi for 12 months whilst also becoming involved with Baird’s Renaissance on a part-time basis.
He now dedicates most of his time to the roles of CEO for Baird’s Renaissance and Baird’s CMC and the rest to his role as non-executive Chairman of Blue Financial Services SA.
Areas of specialisation
- big systems change and corporate dynamics
- mobilising people and culture dynamics
- strategic business consultancy and leadership optimisation
- business turnaround and business rescue through trusted alliances and associate deployment
Market-related experience
- local councils 6 years
- engineering/project management in armaments development and manufacturing 11 years
- commercialization of armaments related industries into commercial enterprise 4 years
- financial services and retail banking 10 years
- business consultancy 3 years
- public relations and reputation management 3 years
Project examples
- large scale commercialisation of the Denel business including major staff reduction programs
- Absa culture and business integration projects post a four bank into one merger process
- Absa IT system redesign and major restructuring
- Unifer business rescue and debt collection project
Roles
- CEO at Baird’s CMC
- Owner at GR-Two Consulting