Blue Chip Issue 90

BLUE CHIP INVESTMENT |

BLUE CHIP INVESTMENT | Leadership A UNIVERSAL PERSPECTIVE Ferdi van Heerden took over the reins at Momentum Investments in September 2023. He has filled a range of executive positions in the Group, culminating in more than a decade of leadership in the international investment industry as head of Momentum Global Investment Management in the UK. Blue Chip caught up with him. 20 www.bluechipdigital.co.za

INVESTMENT | Leadership BLUE CHIP Congratulations on your appointment as CEO of Momentum Investments. How do you feel about this opportunity? I have been privileged to spend 30 years in various roles at the Momentum Metropolitan Group, with three years in Zurich and the last 13 years in London. It has given me a wealth of experience in and exposure to the investment industries both locally and internationally. This new role will be an opportunity for me to plough back some of the experience I have built up courtesy of the Group, and to use the exposure I have had to guide our business during its next growth phase and take it forward. There’s much that we can do and should do in a fast-paced, changing world. I look forward to leading the Momentum Investments team on this journey and helping build collective dreams into reality. What is your objective in your new role? We are a people’s business. We have an excellent team of people in the various Momentum Investments businesses in the Group, both in South Africa and the UK. My immediate objective will be to solidify the foundation that was laid under Jeanette Marais’s leadership over the last five years and to build on this to set ourselves up for a sustainable global future. One of my key objectives is to develop a truly global perspective in our business so that we deliver an international set of capabilities to our clients and advisor base. Our clients increasingly invest offshore and when they trust us with investing their money, we must do so in a well-balanced manner in opportunities across the world to ensure the best riskadjusted outcomes for them. To do so, we need to have global reach and capabilities. Given my tenure in London for the past decade, I can help focus our business to truly have a global mindset. Career history Ferdi van Heerden joined Momentum Global Investment Management (MGIM) in 2010 after serving three years as CEO of a start-up insurance venture in Switzerland. He has held several senior executive positions in Momentum Metropolitan Holdings Limited (MMH) and the FirstRand Group, both listed companies on the JSE. During his career of circa 30 years with these Groups, his responsibilities included heading up Momentum’s individual life operation, the private pension fund administration business, as well as FirstRand’s consumer banking division. Ferdi has 35+ years of experience in the life insurance and investment industries in South Africa, the UK and Europe. What is Momentum Investments’ unique selling proposition? For us, it is always about people which is captured in our tagline: “With us, investing is personal”. It is as much about the customer journey as it is about the customer’s investment outcome. Therefore, we make it our business to understand the individual needs of our advisor partners and clients so that we can help them achieve what they set out to do. As a Group, our stated objective is to help individuals and businesses achieve their financial objectives. We try to make it easier for them to invest with confidence and secondly to stay invested. Our unique selling proposition in a nutshell is our people, our culture as well as our attitude to partnerships and business. In my view, a challenge equals an opportunity if you are proactive. Please outline Momentum Investments’ investor capabilities locally and offshore. Given the breadth of our capabilities, this could be a conversation on its own. But let me summarise it in three buckets. First, in www.bluechipdigital.co.za 21